From: brentj@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Brent Jones)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: The big difference
Date: 23 Jan 1993 05:27:01 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: bashful.cc.utexas.edu

In article <1jpj4jINN689@armory.centerline.com> mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>In article <1jmce6INNkv1@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> jwh@citi.umich.edu writes:
>>In article <1jklsnINN3rl@armory.centerline.com>, mrh@centerline.com (Mike Huben) writes:
>>|> 
>>|> As soon as you declare something to be your property, you are denying
>>|> others use of it.  

if something is your property then of course you deny the use of it to others
(unless you invite them).  the "others" can follow the same rules and buy their
own property

>>|> Thus, you make it our business to regulate what is your property
>>|> (at the very least, lest you or any group impoverish the rest.)

if someone buys property and then declares it to be his, how can it impoverish
any one else. If they were poor before the land was sold, and they were poor
after it was sold, how did the action affect them in any way?  


>>|> 
>>|> Libertarians complain that they never have signed a contract for the current
>>|> government.  Well, I don't know anybody who has signed an agreement for a
>>|> system of property either.  Want to do away with both?  :-)

A "system of property" as you call it does not need a social contract that
everyone must sign.  If someone somewhere buys a piece of land, it does not
infring on my rights because realistically I never owned it in the first 
place. However if I do own a piece of land, and the government in its
infinite wisdom decides that the land is better allocated somewhare else,
and steals it, then my rights are infringed. It is true that it 
is impossibe for everyone to sign a social contract allowing the government
to steal their property at any time that it wishes (I can't imagine anyone 
doing this if it were possible (: ). therefore, quite simply, there can be 
no justification for this kind of action by the government.

>>|> 
>>
>>Do you believe that rights exist only because a government (or
>>'society') created them?
>
>Yes.
>
>>Or do you believe that there are at least
>>some rights which a person has simply because they exist?
>
>There is NO physical evidence of this, whereas there is ample historical
>evidence of the former.  Rights come from the exact same source as laws:
>human societies.  To pretend that they have some Platonic existence outside
>of a particular human society is the fallacy of reification.
>
>Most cultures find it useful to create rights.  However, it's rare that any
>rights created by any culture are absolute, such as the property rights
>endorsed by libertarians.  Otherwise you run into real "irresistable force
>vs. immovable object" conflicts as soon as you have more than one right.

If governments create rights then it would be government's perogative to take
them away.  In that case we would all be defacto slaves to the government,
And you said (in a previous article) that governments NEVER enslave 
people! :-) ( I would have mentioned the draft, but that would be too obvious)

>
>>I believe property rights fall into the latter category, therefore there is
>>no need for a signed agreement because the rights simply exist.
>
>Your superstitious beliefs are merely convenient for your position, not
>indicative of anything real.  If "rights" were like gravity, you wouldn't
>need a signed contract.  But they're social fictions.
>
>>For example, suppose you like gardening and you build a garden.  A
>>neighbor decides that he could make better use of the space and
>>builds a shed on it.  Is it ok for the neighbor to do this?  You've
>>potentially spent a great deal of time building and tending your garden,
>>only to see it wiped out by someone else with no regard to what you have
>>done.  If there are no laws against this, do you simply accept this,
>>or do you feel that something is wrong and things like this shouldn't
>>be allowed to happen?  
>
>You didn't build the natural resources (the land) used in the garden.
>You have no more right to those natural resources than the child born
>yesterday.  Thus, you ought not to be able to own those natural resources:
>you ought to be able to bid for their temporary use.  The income from the
>rental of natural resources ought to be distributed to all people.  That,
>in effect, is what property (land) and extractive taxes do directly.

This is a thorghouly ridiculous argument.  Who built the land has absolutely
nothing to do with who can own it.  For example I didn't build my computer,
but I did work for many hours to earn enough money to buy it.  I believe
I do have far more right to it than anyone else  who in fact did not earn the
money to buy it. Land is exatly the same.  If you earn the money to buy the
land then it is yours and cannot justifiably be taken.

When you say that you ought to be able to bid for its use, who are you bidding
to?  Certainly not an amorphous concept like "the people" since they have never
seen the land.  Also not the government since it is an abstract concept that 
cannot own or control land.  It is essentially politicians and more directly 
government bureaucrats.  So you see, when you advocate these neo-communist 
ideologies, you are realy advocating a transfer of ownership (control) from 
those who actually earned it to the parasites in the government who did not.


>You are right in that it is inefficient NOT to have some system of property.
>However the systems of property that libertarians presume is not the only
>one that can protect your garden.

It is the only consistant and moral one.

>
>Mike Huben
>

=============================================================================
Brent Jones
brentj@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu

Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian