From: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: government still at large (was Re: FDA still at large)
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:13:26 GMT
Reply-To: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Zortech, Seattle

In article <davidb.713772212@atlas> davidb@ce.washington.edu (David W. Barts) writes:
/First of all, the issue of force being applied against corporations:
/1.  Rights against force apply to human individuals, not social
/fabrications like corporations and governments.

	If you apply force against a corporation, you apply force against
	the shareholders. The same as if you apply force against a family,
	you apply force against the family members.
	I, as a shareholder of corporation X, will feel it if you confiscate
	my shares.

/2.  Property rights are normally defended by their proponents as
/being valid because they derive from some initial voluntary social
/contract.  Trouble is, there is not a nation on the face of the
/planet where this is the case.  Property ultimately derives from
/theft, confiscation, tyranny, and subterfuge.  As an example, in
/the new world, most property can be traced to the conquest, swindling,
/or outright theft (in most cases by coercive state power) of land
/from native peoples.

	True enough. It's true to the point of absurdity. The Indians
	that the white man confiscated the land from were not the
	original owners either. The Indians were here a very long time,
	and had their own wars of conquest and genocide.

	As a more well-known example, take the Aztecs of Mexico. Sure,
	the Spanish stomped all over them. Just like the Aztecs had
	stomped and killed the Mayans before them, who had stomped and
	killed the Incas before them (or was it the Incas who exterminated
	the Mayans, I forget).

	Originally, yes, raw property was obtained through conquest. But
	that is irrelevant to property rights today. None of the conquered
	individuals are alive today to assert any rights. (For an interesting
	aside, look at the awful troubles east Germany is having attempting
	to return the communists' confiscated property back to the 'original'
	owners.)

/3.  As far as workplace democracy getting in the way of the property
/rights of stockholders, I don't have much sympathy for that argument.
/I view rights as a concept by which to _prevent_ one person from
/being able to manipulate and control other people, not as a way to
/legitimize said manipulation and control.  One might as well whine
/and moan about how the Romanian uprising interfered with Ceausescu's
/"right" to rule "his" nation as he saw fit.

	The "rule" of a corporation is by consent. None of the workers
	in a corporation are there by force. *ALL* of them agreed to
	work there, and typically signed an employment contract. Do
	you think it is unreasonable for someone to be expected to
	abide by the terms of their agreements signed of their own
	free will?

	I don't recall Ceausescu's citizens ever being given any kind
	of choice of dictator. Even if they voted him in, that isn't good
	enough because the nay voters didn't agree. By contrast, all
	employees of a corporation agreed. And they can leave anytime.

/I'd much rather see emphasis placed on making individuals free and
/ensuring they have the ability to control their surroundings, secure
/in one's possessions), and to take whatever "property rights" derive
/from this exercise.  And no, I do _not_ think the current system
/of property rights accurately does this.

	I agree with you totally about property rights. I also suggest
	that property rights includes the right to own shares, something
	with which you appear to strongly disagree.