99Percent

God Fearing Atheist: Property, and the protection of property, are logically independent concepts.

Ok, that is all very fine and dandy. I will just outburst this whole paragraph to the guy pointing a gun in my head attempting to steal my car: 'X is A's property' means 'A has the right to determine the disposition of x'. We could equally well use as our definiendum the expressions "A owns x" or "x belongs to A. The idea is just that insofar as the characteristics of item x, values of the predicate-variable F, are brought about by the actions of moral agents, then A has the right that x have characteristic F if and only if A permits it to be the case that x has F. Much good is that going to do me eh?

The economic argument is really that taxes on economic rent dont upset the information flow of the market. We can take it without affecting the structure of production.

They don't upset the flow of information of the market, I agree, because taxes are supposed to be equitable to all. But they do affect the market in itself, namely they are a dampening factor, that means they make the market stable and less dynamic, for better or for worse (although as a capitalist, I have to say for worse, definetely)

abe smith

Sorry if I.m duplicating idea[s] already posted here: there is a classic statement, not original w/ me by any means, : "Property is theft." So?

God Fearing Atheist

So....what?

(If you didnt know whos phrase that was, its Proudhon)

Dr. Retard

If property is theft, then marriage is adultery. First, to commit theft is to violate a pre-existing property claim, just as to commit adultery is to violate a pre-existing marriage claim. How can a violation of some claim be the same thing as the claim itself? Second, to stake property claims on something is to deny others the opportunity to stake property claims on that thing, just as to marry someone is to deny others the opportunity to marry that person. Denying others the opportunity to hold a claim is not the same as violating a pre-existing claim. Third, by holding property, property-owners tend to produce new products that increase the wealth of the society, thereby offering more long-term opportunities for property acquisition, even if the short-term opportunities are lessened for others; similarly, by getting married, couples tend to produce more people, thereby offering more long-term opportunities for marriage, even if the short-term opportunities are lessened for others.

99Percent

Dr. Retard: Interesting analogy.

Go a step further and you will see the immorality of taxation. Imagine that the government "taxes" you by taking away a percentage of your offspring to do forced labor. In fact this is what happens with the draft for military service!

God Fearing Atheist

Exactamundo Doc. You hit it right on the head.

Now if we could only be sure of what abe was trying to say....

hedonologist

Well, yeah, smart people wouldn't have fought if they had nothing to fight over.
So as long as we have more natural resources than we need, we don't have a reason to fight for them. But the way it happened on Earth was that Jones had a baby who would be "better off" (in one way) to use the land Smith is using.

Not that this means neighbors are more harm than good. Everybody almost always wants/needs more natural resources than is good for their neighbors, but that is only one disadvantage of neighbors, while there are many advantages of them also. Smith needs Jones to "work" for him. That is, Smith needs Jones to socialize with, get stuff/info/work from (such as by trading), look out for common enemies big or microscopic, etc.

What is the purpose of this conversation? I'm trying to imagine a practical question/purpose of this discussion, as it effects what we "should" do. Is there a law, such as the United Nations could pass, that all of us who are speaking here, would benefit mutually from (thus we would/should want to promote it), because it would decrease fighting over land, etc?

God Fearing Atheist

This is true, in part. Conflict over resources arises because they are economically scare. This is contrasted with the colloquial view of "scarcity"; every good will always be scarce, in the economic sense, as its use forgos other possible uses.

Scarity is also the reason violation of property rights make the victim worse off. By your stealing my property, i can no longer control it, nessecarly; your use forgoes my use.


This is also partly true. If we assume mutual unconcern (a sort of worse case senerio for contractarianism), we have to view morals as a sort of...nessecary evil. We would be better able to get the things we wanted if we didnt have to interact with other unconcerned parties.

We should do exactly what i said: observe the proviso; dont make other people worse off. Their compliance to mutually benifital cooperative outcomes is dependent (in large part) on your use of force.

hedonologist

Is your purpose utilitarian, in the sense of intending to bring the most freedom to the total system of people?

Or are you recommending this as a means of self-empowerment? Etc

hedonologist

Some interesting threads you have made in this forum, BTW.
Relating this to what you said before:
In your hypothetical, there was not scarcity because Smith and Jones apparently aren't having any offspring. When on Earth does the possession of natural resources not keep someone else (such as in the future) from possessing it? How can one follow your principle when everything they posses is bad for someone in one way?