Organization: Queen's University at Kingston
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 02:16:03 EST
From: John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada,can.politics
Subject: Re: Taxation as Theft (was Re: Negative Income Tax)
 <1993Jan7.065013.19631@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>
 <93007.141438SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA>
 <1993Jan8.003543.29505@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>

In article <1993Jan8.003543.29505@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca>,
golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) says:
>
>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.

But earlier, you said that slaves did not constitute property,
despite the tradition (handed down from the earliest states we
know of) which says they did. And that ideas do constitute
property, so that presumably Shakespeare did have a right to
royalties from his plays, even though no court from his time would
have upheld that right. This means you must have some notion of
property distinct from the social consensus of any particular time.

In other words, you do not simply believe in property rights, you
believe in the concept of true (as opposed to simply legislated)
property. And I agree with you. To put it at its simplest, if we
had no rights to physical material, the state (or our neighbors)
could simply strip us naked and throw us in a snowbank.

But once we get past the undoubted right to provide ourselves with
our basic needs, what more can we claim, and on what basis? To use
your terminology, we have two basis for a "kernel" of rights over
the physical world: our needs, and our propensity to alter the
physical world to make it more congenial to us (what we call
creating or building).
>
>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.
>
If you define "property" as the actual rights (based on fundamental
human characteristics) we have over the world around us, then I agree.
If you define "property" as the sum of the rules that govern our
relationship to our tools, houses, ideas, etc., then I would only
agree if you could convince me that the former coincided with the latter.
I have already given my reasons for not believing that the statist
idea of "property" and the basic human rights over the world coincide.

If I understand your argument, you think of property as important
because it creates a zone of privacy and security around the
individual (preventing the state from throwing me in the snowbank).
If so, I agree that represents an important dimension of our freedoms;
I just don't agree that the current definitions of property (enforced
and promulgated by the state) represent the only or the best way to
safeguard that essential zone around the individual.

Your culture will adapt to service ours - Columbus to Natives, 1492
Your culture will adapt to service ours - Borg to Captain Picard, 24th C.

standard disclaimers apply ----------------------- John G. Spragge