From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 00:35:43 GMT

In article <93007.141438SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>In article <1993Jan7.065013.19631@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>,
>golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) says:
>
>>Governments don't invent or create property...the right to property exists
>>as a right of the individual independent of the state...because
>
>I thought you might take this line.
>
>Your argument boils down to a "Platonic" view of property; just as an
>ideal table exists, so does an ideal form of property. I don't really
>disagree with you there, particularly if you substitute "relationship
>with the physical world" for the word "property".
>

I'll have to think about this...I don't really think my view of property
is Platonic...I see property as only one right in a spectrum of
individual rights, and not a Platonic form.  The "ideal" for any
particular individual rights can never be realized, because various
individual rights ultimately have regions of conflict which constrain
each right to less than the "ideal".  My argument would be that
the exercise in line-drawing undertaken by a society through 
advocacy, the courts, and legislatures leaves a protected 
kernel with a roughened boundary for the rights which it defines,
but that these kernels are not empty and not ideal.  Property
is one such kernel.

>>The source of property is the individual, but I will concede that
>>it is a complex matter of advocacy via legislatures and courts to
>>define what is legitimate property.  However, a simple tyranny of the majority
>>decision that something is not property, doesn't not mean something
>>is not, in essence, property.
>
>I think we actually agree here, although we would use different words.
>As individuals, we have the relationships with the things around us
>that form the basis of the notion of property. But legislatures and
>courts-- these constitute the state. Of course, the citizens of a
>democracy have the right and obligation to advocate for positive
>changes to state policy. But defining "property" as a sensible,
>productive ideological/legal tool of the state differs from defining it
>as a fundamental right of the individual.
>

We do differ in interpretation.  Legitimate government must be limited
government.  There is a protected kernel of liberty, which includes
a dimension of property around the individual.   Governments cannot
legitimately do anything they please.  It may be an amorphous kernel
whose boundaries are rough and often difficult to get a handle on,
but it is important to realize that the kernel exists, that governments
must concern themselves with the issue that what it is legitimate
for governments to do.  Property is part of this kernel of liberty...
it is not just a tool of the state.

>>I am sort of interested what your response is to a "9th amendment"
>>position on property as an individual right.
>
>Individual rights arise out of the characteristics of humanity. We all
>have independently working brains: hence free thought and free speech.
>We all distinguish between pain and pleasure; hence the right to
>pursue happiness. We function (as far as we know) only when alive;
>hence the right to life.
>
>But we don't have the individual "right" to have the state implement a
>particular policy towards our relation to the physical world, any more
>than we have the "right" to demand the state recognise and license our
>skills, as it now does for Doctors, Engineers, etc.. Of course, we do
>have the right to implement policies which make sense, and I think most
>of the current welfare state policies make sense; although a negative
>income tax would make more.
>

I would argue that the notion of rights does not impose an obligation
on the state to implement a particular policy towards our relation to
the physical world, but that what is legitimate policy for government
to implement is limited.  Individual rights not only are
self-constraining, but constrain what governments can legitimately
do.  The notion of rights does not demand a particular policy, but
just restrict how far policy can go...it is a recognition that 
a bound exists...the debate is not over whether the bound exists,
but where it should be drawn.  Property is just one of these rights
where the state must recognize that a bound exists.

>The problem with a philosophical defence of property comes with the
>criterion for the "ideal" notion of property rights. What relationship
>between ourselves and the objects/ideas we claim to "own" fits this
>ideal? Ultimately, the notion of Platonic property requires some
>definition of the ideal relationship you seem to think you can describe
>in the context of property.
>

The notion of individual rights do not define "ideals" because even
without a government, the individual rights themselves constrain
themselves to being less than "ideal".  What the notion of rights
defines is that there is a non-empty kernel of liberty around the
individual which must be protected.  What this means is that
for any particular right such as property is that there is a
finite bound which the state must concern itself with and worry
about.  The location of the boundary is not "ideal" and a legitimate
matter of debate...its existence is not.  The problem is that 
Libertarians and Objectivists tend to raise or uphold the rights
of individual to property as the most important right, and argue
for a totally unrealistic boundary because they have asserted
a hierarchy of rights...or in some sense, advocated for such
an "ideal" as you suggest...but this is a flawed way of considering
property rights...property rights are no more special than any
other individual rights.

>A return question: how close do you think our current laws come?
>

Well, I think the state is far to intrusive, but it is the nature
of even democratic government that it is going to routinely overstep
its legitimate authority, and must be resisted always by citizens
asserting their rights.

I have accepted the notion that some very particular forms of
a social-safety-net are legitimate, but I do not have enough
property to have first hand experience, (I haven't bought a
house yet, or written a book, or marketable software), 
about the current state of property rights per se.
I'm not wealthy enough yet to experience other than income and
consumption taxes, so it is hard to assess the intrusiveness
of the state on a purely theoretical basis in this regard.

I sense that the natives are restless though, because the
level of taxation by all levels of government is beginning to
become oppressively high, but the natives are mostly to blame,
because they've come to expect many services for nothing,
and elected politicians over the years who paid for these
services on credit, or future taxation, and the rooster is
only now coming home to roost.  I think we are coming to
a reckoning of sorts...which may go well or which may go
poorly...depending on our choices.  There aren't many great
defenders of liberty or democracy out there, even in Canada.

Gerald
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