From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 04:07:45 GMT

In article <93012.194359SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan12.110015.7596@ee.ubc.ca>, jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul
>Morrison) says:
>
>>In any event, we return to the idea that you have a right not to be
>>murdered.
>>
>>AS if this discredits the idea itself. Intellectual property isn't an
>>invalid idea, any more than the right to life is, so if you are trying
>>to make some kind of Marxist 'proof' that property is an artificial,
>>therefore invalid idea, you can give up right now, or we can put
>>a gun to your head, and ask you to deduce why you have a RIGHT to
>>live.
>
>Your use of violent imagery of this kind suggests you strongly resent
>my ideas, but have no cogent argument to refute them.

i won't speak for John, but i can take a shot at this.
in a previous post, you said that you don't own your body, nor
does anyone else. this makes your body "not property", in effect
a "shared resource". as you have said other things that "aren't
property" are. so why shouldn't John blow your head off?
please explain.

>>>Sorry, on the matter of ease, no sale. A Roman slave owner would not
>>>have found it difficult to "deal with the issue" of slavery. Romans
>>>owned their slaves, and as far as I can determine, many if not most
>>>of them had no problem with it. We view their conduct as unnatural.
>>>Perhaps a society of the future would find our forms of property
>>>unnatural. But they didn't think of themselves as unnatural, any more
>>>than we think of ourselves as unnatural.
>>>
>>And it wasn't stable, or sustainable was it? Apply logic, and
>>deduce what is rational behavior, when every individual's prime motivation
>>is self interest. With a long term view, slavery isn't sustainable,
>>out of that we invent rights, etc.
>
>Incorrect on all counts. The Hellenistic slave system (of which
>Rome formed a part) lasted at least ten centuries. If you take the
>institution of slavery as a whole, assuming complete abolition in
>AD 1950, you get a duration of 25 centuries (minimum). That works
>out to about 100 times as long as we have had capitalism in its modern
>form. If you argue from "sustainability", you lose big. In any event,
>it lasted well past the  life of any individual, so that slavery did
>serve the long term interest of the individual slave owner.

with this i must agree. 99.9% of "civilized" human history is pretty 
stable.

btw -- it isn't past us anyway. Bill Clinton (i still can't say the
name without having my BP rise) wants everyone to submit to
"mandatory public service". whatever anyone wants to say about
my "taxation is slavery" claims in the past, there can be no doubt
that this abomination *is* slavery. coming soon to a diseased administration
near you.

>>Actually, money works because it is valuable. Proof: I can take a piece
>>of metal or paper, and exchange it for some other item or service.
>>If the money were not valuable, I wouldn't be able to exchange it for
>>something of value. If money didn't take the form it does now, some other
>>unit of account or barter would exist. You are just tilting at windmills...
>>this is  a non-issue, but surprisingly a lot of people are paranoid about
>>it.
>
>A double tautology. Money has value because I can exchange it for valuable
>things. Who can argue with that? And if we didn't have money, some other
>system would exist. Well, if we didn't have money, we would have a system
>without it. Such a system would differ from money; it might not be state
>mediated (a profound difference), it might not involve the notions of
>ownership of abstract value money does, and so on.
>
>If you don't consider it an issue, why reply to it?

i don't see the point either of you is making here. maybe it
*should* just be dropped.

>>*pooof* I have just dissolved all governments. Guess what dude, money
>>still exists.
>
>I suggest you conduct the experiment before you report the results.

actually, private currency existed in the US in the 19th century.
no government is necessary. in fact, quite the opposite -- the government
is what ruins money.

--
charles