NationStates Jolt Archive

This deals with my ideology, not a personal situation, so if you are looking to impart a bid of advice on someone, this is not the thread. If you have an interest in property rights, this is for you.

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

So here is the problem:

How does that justify land ownership? Land cannot possibly be the product of man, improvements can be, but not land. So how does land come with a bundle of property rights? How can land itself have value? I know the process and forces by which it gets its value, but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?

Good question. I would say that since land is not a product of a free individual persay (it has always existed and there is a finite amount of it), it is therefore not necessarily an extension of the individuals specific rights. Like you said, land is valued based on what "improvements' have been made to it. Therefore, it is like a glob of clay, that a sculptor makes into a masterpiece. Without an individual's effort the land is worthless (in fact the only point of land is so that a person can build on it and have privacy). Since land is neccessary for the preservation of privacy and one's rights, then it is inexorably intertwined with one's rights. The two are not mutually exclusive--you cannot have true freedom without private land ownership. Therefore, the libertarian rules of free individualism are slightly bent.

One can mix ones labor with land, such as with farming, or construction of buildings or hunting, or the like. Untouched land is iffy in a society which lacks currency, but in a society where currency is present currency acts as a substitute for labor, and by purchasing some land with money you are therefore mixing your labor with it. You have to buy the concept of the legitimacy of currency as a representative for labor if you want to go with this, which I do.

This deals with my ideology, not a personal situation, so if you are looking to impart a bid of advice on someone, this is not the thread. If you have an interest in property rights, this is for you.

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

So here is the problem:

How does that justify land ownership? Land cannot possibly be the product of man, improvements can be, but not land. So how does land come with a bundle of property rights? How can land itself have value? I know the process and forces by which it gets its value, but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?

Well, if you take a Lockean view of property, a person's labor is exactly what gives it value -- this theory takes itself as natural law that morally makes sense. This emphasis ensures that land is moved to its greatest use in order to maximize wealth.

but what do I know, property wasn't my hottest grade last year.

Good question. I would say that since land is not a product of a free individual persay (it has always existed and there is a finite amount of it), it is therefore not necessarily an extension of the individuals specific rights. Like you said, land is valued based on what "improvements' have been made to it. Therefore, it is like a glob of clay, that a sculptor makes into a masterpiece. Without an individual's effort the land is worthless (in fact the only point of land is so that a person can build on it and have privacy). Since land is neccessary for the preservation of privacy and one's rights, then it is inexorably intertwined with one's rights. The two are not mutually exclusive--you cannot have true freedom without private land ownership. Therefore, the libertarian rules of free individualism are slightly bent.

But wouldn't that tie land property rights only to use? Land speculation still is not justified, so much of land's valuation is not justified. Why can someone make a profit off of land that they have not used, other than to sell?

One can mix ones labor with land, such as with farming, or construction of buildings or hunting, or the like. Untouched land is iffy in a society which lacks currency, but in a society where currency is present currency acts as a substitute for labor, and by purchasing some land with money you are therefore mixing your labor with it. You have to buy the concept of the legitimacy of currency as a representative for labor if you want to go with this, which I do.

The free market is based on the exchange of products of labor. I give you my money (labor) for the product of your labor (computer). When someone purchases land, he exchanges the product of his labor for something that was not the product of someone else's labor.

Well, if you take a Lockean view of property, a person's labor is exactly what gives it value -- this theory takes itself as natural law that morally makes sense. This emphasis ensures that land is moved to its greatest use in order to maximize wealth.

but what do I know, property wasn't my hottest grade last year.

I have no problems with property rights, and I understand the efficiency of land distribution when treated as property, but that doesn't answer my question.

I know how, this is my fucking land, and if any one has a problem with that, then meet Betty, my boom stick.

I know how, this is my fucking land, and if any one has a problem with that, then meet Betty, my boom stick.

Meet Lucy, my tank, now its my fucking land.

Meet Lucy, my tank, now its my fucking land.
Meet Nicky, shes hot, and will have sex with you if you get outa that tank.

Meet Nicky, shes hot, and will have sex with you if you get outa that tank.

Shit, I own a tank, AND I'm a landowner now, I can get my own women.

I don't think you know how hot she is... pop the hatch open and took a nice gander with your own eyes.

*Climbs on the back of the tank with a lead pipe*


Come on come outa there.

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

So here is the problem:

How does that justify land ownership? Land cannot possibly be the product of man, improvements can be, but not land. So how does land come with a bundle of property rights? How can land itself have value? I know the process and forces by which it gets its value, but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?

Well, if I own land. I purchased with my own money which is a product of my own labor. Hence, property rights. As you say they come 'bundled' with it as a result of ownership.

How can land have value? Because people say it does and agree to it when buying and selling, no other reason.

I'm not sure property rights needs to justify land ownership. I rather think it's the other way around.

Well land might always have been there, but it may not have been available for ownership.

Explorers need to discover it, map it, qualify it. Speculators, or others with interest in the land, have to go through the legal process of transforming a vast expanse of land into deeds which can be sold on the market.

Just that the land is there doesn't mean that it is mutually owned, only that it is open for use. Now if someone goes to the trouble of setting it up to be owned, that persons labor goes into the land to make it his. You don't need improvements, there is enough work in making the land ownable.

That's the best responce I can offer for now, to be honest I'm not sure I even buy the whole labor to property transfer.

Good question. I would say that since land is not a product of a free individual persay (it has always existed and there is a finite amount of it), it is therefore not necessarily an extension of the individuals specific rights. Like you said, land is valued based on what "improvements' have been made to it. Therefore, it is like a glob of clay, that a sculptor makes into a masterpiece. Without an individual's effort the land is worthless (in fact the only point of land is so that a person can build on it and have privacy). Since land is neccessary for the preservation of privacy and one's rights, then it is inexorably intertwined with one's rights. The two are not mutually exclusive--you cannot have true freedom without private land ownership. Therefore, the libertarian rules of free individualism are slightly bent.

No, the value of land is the resources that can be extracted from it. Dirt that is full of gold has more value than dirt that is full of nitrogen because the nitrogen makes the land able to produce food, the gold will by more food than the nitrogen can produce. By the same token, land that houses a profitable business will have value if the money that that business produces can pay for the food that land would have grown. That's why property values are high in cities and towns with thriving businesses.

That's where residential homes get their value. If there is business nearby that needs employees and can pay them enough money to own those homes (or rent them) then that establishes the value of the land. That's why New York is so expensive to live in. Even if it requires the labor of poorly paid people, it can support the pricing of a very affluent middle-class population, and their labor pays for importing all the food that they're not growing. But that pushes up the price of locally grown luxury foods, like organic Long Island wines (obviously "local" is a relative term) so their growers can still keep from getting bought up by real estate developers looking to cash in on New York's demand for labor by providing living space to the workers looking to cash in on that demand for labor.

Of course, this also creates a demand for construction laborers, who must be housed, which pushes up the demand for housing, which will flag when housing catches up with the economy. Then the construction workers will seek work elsewhere and property values will decline. Businesses that depended on the value of that land will go bankrupt, causing more unemployment. More and more people own houses that they can't keep the payments on and property values decline. Then real estate speculators start buying up the properties at bargain basement levels and the whole cycle starts all over agian.

But wouldn't that tie land property rights only to use? Land speculation still is not justified, so much of land's valuation is not justified. Why can someone make a profit off of land that they have not used, other than to sell?

Well, land property rights are somewhat contingent upon use. If you abandon land, and someone comes along and start to use it, and you do nothing about it - because you have abandoned it - title is transfered to the used through adverse possesion.

Further, land qua land, has no value. If'n you want, I can probably fix you up with a piece of dessert for next to nothing. And don't underestimate speculation. The price of land isn't arbitrary - well usually - there is information about the land transfered in the price as well as the land itself. Information that took effort to develop.

Land has value because people value it, that has nothing to do with ethics.

And you don't only own the things you make, you own the things you homestead ("first use first own"). Claiming the land (or anything else) and starting to do something with it is an act of your will. If somebody tries to take the land from you they restrict your possibilities to use your freedom. So your right to freedom implies that you have a right to some control over land that you are using. But when you have control you must also take responsibility, so in effect you own the land. Which is the basis for property rights.

But wouldn't that tie land property rights only to use? Land speculation still is not justified, so much of land's valuation is not justified. Why can someone make a profit off of land that they have not used, other than to sell?
You can only claim property if you (are starting to) do something with it. If somebody claims land and don't do anything with it even after you challenge them about it you can, from a purely moral perspective, put a claim of your own on the land. Most speculators buy land from valid owners though, and so they are valid owners. And even if they don't it probably is wise to leave "their" land alone for the same reason you pay taxes. It isn't worth the fighting.

Bottom line: land has value because the majority of people agree that it does. Just as paper money has value because people agree that it does.

Eh... guys I think you might be missing the point here. This isn't about the valuation of land, but the ownership of land.

The ownership of land might have something to do with value, but you have to show the connection.

Bottom line: land has value because the majority of people agree that it does. Just as paper money has value because people agree that it does.
No, not the majority. Each piece of land has value because at least one person thinks it is valuable. Money is very different.

You can own land because for whatever reason, people have done so since they started growing food.
Today you own the land because you have a piece of paper that says you do.
If I come and use your land, you can go to the government, which can punish me.

Thus, there is no "moral" or "ethical" reason for why you could own land, but in reality you do. We'll just have to live with that, just like we have to live with the fact that ultimately, the government can take it away too.

Eh... guys I think you might be missing the point here. This isn't about the valuation of land, but the ownership of land.

The ownership of land might have something to do with value, but you have to show the connection.
Ok, here goes: 'Land is valuable' is about the same as 'people want to use land'. Now if more than one person values the same piece of land there is a potential conflict. The simplest way of solving the conflict before it breaks out is to say that the first person on the spot gets to use it until he is finished, then it is somebody elses turn. This is called that the first person 'owns' the land, and when he shows that he will use it and exactly what area he needs is called that he 'homesteads' the land. The same thing goes for all other property btw, but this thread happened to be about land.

This deals with my ideology, not a personal situation, so if you are looking to impart a bid of advice on someone, this is not the thread. If you have an interest in property rights, this is for you.

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

So here is the problem:

How does that justify land ownership? Land cannot possibly be the product of man, improvements can be, but not land. So how does land come with a bundle of property rights? How can land itself have value? I know the process and forces by which it gets its value, but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?


The same process by which all market value is determined for a "work" or "object" or "process".....

Demand, the part after supply....

¤snip snip¤..., but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?
Moral justification?

Well, I do believe that as the self-appointed/appointed owners of the planet, we have the right to plunder/use/protect the planet as we wish. However, as far as property rights go, individual property rights seems to be an entirely Old World idea, particularly in highly populated areas. I particularly like the idea of Finland's open right to land, as long as you don't go and screw it all up for everyone (i.e. you can walk on people's land, camp there with permission, etc). But people still own the property.

Thus, land's market value would be dependent on demand of it and what it will be used for. I wouldn't want to build a house on a land that I could feed my family with, nor would I want to build it someplace where the property could be destroyed. Anyhow, land value used to be decided by who owned it primarly before the rise of real estate agencies, but how to determine ownership of land that no-one claims? Well that's where the government comes in.

Property ownership should be determined by who cares for their land. If someone does not care for their land that they purchased, and someone else did improved that land, who owns that land? I would say the care-taker does, not the absentee land-owner. But then the renting becomes nullified....

Wow, this a much bigger question that I thought. I need to catch the bus home in five minutes. I'm out like a fat kid in dodgeball. :p

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

But a capitalist society does not allow people the products of their labour. It allows them the market value of their labour, which for the system to work must be lower than the actual product. This extends to all of your property, as what you can afford to own is based on market values rather than actual labour.

But a capitalist society does not allow people the products of their labour. It allows them the market value of their labour, which for the system to work must be lower than the actual product. This extends to all of your property, as what you can afford to own is based on market values rather than actual labour.
A capitalist society does not mercifully "allow" it's subjects anything at all. Because the citisens are free people who have their rights and don't have to ask for favours. Don't come here and tell us that we'd be better off if we had a master to tell us what to do and what we may keep or what we must share.

EDIT: On second thoughts you do have a point, though you don't see it yourself. You don't have any right to the product of your work. You have a right to your work. You chose what to do, who owns what is determined by contracts if there are owners already and otherwise by homesteading. Work has got nothing to do with that.

A capitalist society does not mercifully "allow" it's subjects anything at all. Because the citisens are free people who have their rights and don't have to ask for favours. Don't come here and tell us that we'd be better off if we had a master to tell us what to do and what we may keep or what we must share.

A capitalist society is run according to the values of the market. You can be as free as you like, but your labour will be valued at less than its full worth. My point is that the definition "I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor" is not consistent with a capitalist society. Property rights are, as you have the right to whatever you can afford.

A capitalist society is run according to the values of the market. You can be as free as you like, but your labour will be valued at less than its full worth. My point is that the definition "I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor" is not consistent with a capitalist society. Property rights are, as you have the right to whatever you can afford.
Yeah, that's the point I conceded in the edit.

As for "the full worth" of my labour, what is that? Where can I see that? What can it be used for, other than generalised arguments?

The value of work is what you can get from it. If you can get something more valuable than your wage out of your work in some other way, then do that and ignore wages. In reality, for most people, their employer pays them more than their work would otherwise be worth, so they are better off employed than otherwise. That's why they work. And that is just about all there is to say about it.

Well, land property rights are somewhat contingent upon use. If you abandon land, and someone comes along and start to use it, and you do nothing about it - because you have abandoned it - title is transfered to the used through adverse possesion.

Further, land qua land, has no value. If'n you want, I can probably fix you up with a piece of dessert for next to nothing. And don't underestimate speculation. The price of land isn't arbitrary - well usually - there is information about the land transfered in the price as well as the land itself. Information that took effort to develop.

Legally abandonment of land occurs after a very long time. Feasiby someone could hold land without use for their entire life.

But how can someone claim the right to use the resources of land in the first place? I understand land ownership as somewhat of a necessity to to allow for the other property rights, but I can't seem to morally justify on its own.

That's the best responce I can offer for now, to be honest I'm not sure I even buy the whole labor to property transfer.

The labor to property exchange on the market is pretty explicit. I don't know why you would dismiss it.

Thus, there is no "moral" or "ethical" reason for why you could own land, but in reality you do. We'll just have to live with that, just like we have to live with the fact that ultimately, the government can take it away too.

That is the only thing I have come up with as well, but it is sorry consolation.

Eh... guys I think you might be missing the point here. This isn't about the valuation of land, but the ownership of land.

The ownership of land might have something to do with value, but you have to show the connection.

Value of land is directly derived from the utility that the property rights provide, so when we say land has value, we mean that its legal bundle of rights have value. So the question is, how can the rights to one property that isn't the product of man's labor be traded for property that is man's labor.

That is the only thing I have come up with as well, but it is sorry consolation.



Value of land is directly derived from the utility that the property rights provide, so when we say land has value, we mean that its legal bundle of rights have value. So the question is, how can the rights to one property that isn't the product of man's labor be traded for property that is man's labor.

Many communal societies would agree that we do not have the right to possess land. To them land still has value, but it is a case of a relationship with the land rather than property.

Legally abandonment of land occurs after a very long time. Feasiby someone could hold land without use for their entire life.

But how can someone claim the right to use the resources of land in the first place? I understand land ownership as somewhat of a necessity to to allow for the other property rights, but I can't seem to morally justify on its own.

uh-oh

i should warn you, this path leads only to georgism, mutualism, socialism, or some form of (perhaps deeply traditionalist) common property regime. proudhon wasn't fucking around when he said of property, "it is theft."

in other words, welcome to the club.

But a capitalist society does not allow people the products of their labour. It allows them the market value of their labour, which for the system to work must be lower than the actual product. This extends to all of your property, as what you can afford to own is based on market values rather than actual labour.

In a capitalist system people are allowed the products of their labor, however, people reasonably choose to specialise their labor to increase the value of it. In order to do this, they won't be able to recieve the entire product of their labor because they need a much wider array of goods than that which they are producing.

uh-oh

i should warn you, this path leads only to georgism, mutualism, socialism, or some form of (perhaps deeply traditionalist) common property regime. proudhon wasn't fucking around when he said of property, "it is theft."

in other words, welcome to the club.

I know this, the problem is that I cannot abide by shared property rights, as I do believe that it makes men slaves (for now don't argue this), but I cannot reconcile this with the idea that land is not the product of men's labor, yet we can gather wages for it.

I know this, the problem is that I cannot abide by shared property rights, as I do believe that it makes men slaves (for now don't argue this), but I cannot reconcile this with the idea that land is not the product of men's labor, yet we can gather wages for it.

well, if i were you i might try taking the pragmatic approach of glossing over how land came to be owned, and just starting from a position that land can be legitimately owned and speculated with (which means giving up a bit on the 'mixing of labor' justification when you get called on it). in other words, ignore it like most people do and use whatever moral justifications are convinient when you absolutely have to answer. or even more pragmatically, give up on justifications other than beneficial practical effects.

things were so much simpler when beating up everyone who disputed your claim was the necessary moral justification, no?

well, if i were you i might try taking the pragmatic approach of glossing over how land came to be owned, and just starting from a position that land can be legitimately owned and speculated with (which means giving up a bit on the 'mixing of labor' justification when you get called on it). in other words, ignore it like most people do and use whatever moral justifications are convinient when you absolutely have to answer. or even more pragmatically, give up on justifications other than beneficial practical effects.

things were so much simpler when beating up everyone who disputed your claim was the necessary moral justification, no?

Guns work fine in just such a situation, especially when the State is using the guns to take the land.

well, if i were you i might try taking the pragmatic approach of glossing over how land came to be owned, and just starting from a position that land can be legitimately owned and speculated with (which means giving up a bit on the 'mixing of labor' justification when you get called on it). in other words, ignore it like most people do and use whatever moral justifications are convinient when you absolutely have to answer. or even more pragmatically, give up on justifications other than beneficial practical effects.

I have a serious problem with pragmatism. I can't just think, well, it isn't just, but it works.

There must be a moral solution, and I will come up with one, just give me time. And when I do, I am going to right a book about it.

things were so much simpler when beating up everyone who disputed your claim was the necessary moral justification, no?

Certainly, but only for those who could beat up people.

I know this, the problem is that I cannot abide by shared property rights, as I do believe that it makes men slaves (for now don't argue this), but I cannot reconcile this with the idea that land is not the product of men's labor, yet we can gather wages for it.

I HAVE A SOLUTION!!!

Sorry for the caps, but here it is: people might not work to create land, but they work to gain land. Just as you can legitamately rent out a lawnmower you bought, you can legitamately rent out land that you bought, as both required work to gain. If you already covered why this justification doesn't work earlier in the thread, then sorry, I didn't check.

I HAVE A SOLUTION!!!

Sorry for the caps, but here it is: people might not work to create land, but they work to gain land. Just as you can legitamately rent out a lawnmower you bought, you can legitamately rent out land that you bought, as both required work to gain. If you already covered why this justification doesn't work earlier in the thread, then sorry, I didn't check.

I think the dilemma is in how it can be justifiable for the land to become property in the first place. At one point the land is unclaimed, and later it becomes property. Claiming land is more like conquest or domination than labour, especially since a lot of land was already occupied by cultures that did not acknowledge individual land ownership. I don't believe there is a moral justification; exploitation of land tends to be at the expense of the environment and therefore other people.

uh-oh

i should warn you, this path leads only to georgism, mutualism, socialism, or some form of (perhaps deeply traditionalist) common property regime. proudhon wasn't fucking around when he said of property, "it is theft."

in other words, welcome to the club.I think it would be premature to say that Vitto is becoming a socialist. But it is nice to see someone who is anti-socialism not immediately dismiss socialist arguments simply because they're socialist.

I think it would be premature to say that Vitto is becoming a socialist. But it is nice to see someone who is anti-socialism not immediately dismiss socialist arguments simply because they're socialist.

I agree. VO's a swell guy.

Me, I can't avoid the temptation...

There must be a moral solution, and I will come up with one, just give me time. And when I do, I am going to right a book about it.

good luck. do you need any recommendations for readings on what has been said before?

I think it would be premature to say that Vitto is becoming a socialist. But it is nice to see someone who is anti-socialism not immediately dismiss socialist arguments simply because they're socialist.

Vitto is more interested in fair and just, than mere socialism.

As an additional note:

Aside from land, how are "ideas" property?

I think it would be premature to say that Vitto is becoming a socialist.

of course. the question of justifying property rights in land is just one of those dangerous lines of thought that has a weird tendency to make people interested in consistency and ethical foundations embark on rather extended intellectual quests.

Vitto is more interested in fair and just, than mere socialism.

As an additional note:

Aside from land, how are "ideas" property?

Depends on what kind of ideas, I guess. Ideas can be the product of labour, although when treated as property it is far too easy for ideas to be stolen or appropriated unfairly. Where it can become similar to the land issue is companies trademarking aspects of culture.

Depends on what kind of ideas, I guess. Ideas can be the product of labour, although when treated as property it is far too easy for ideas to be stolen or appropriated unfairly. Where it can become similar to the land issue is companies trademarking aspects of culture.

What I don't like is when a company buys an idea, and then sits on it. To make sure that the idea never comes into play.

Vitto is more interested in fair and just, than mere socialism.

As an additional note:

Aside from land, how are "ideas" property?Yes, not all we (socialists) have to do is convince him that socialism is fair and just. :D

Actually, I saw in one of the Classic Liberal Party threads (I think it was their Manifesto thread) a quote from Thomas Jefferson saying something to the effect of intellectual property should not be protected, since even though an idea can be replicated, the originator of the idea still has the idea, so nothing is stolen.
(I have to keep up on the Parliamentary competition, you know.)

of course. the question of justifying property rights in land is just one of those dangerous lines of thought that has a weird tendency to make people interested in consistency and ethical foundations embark on rather extended intellectual quests.Well good luck to him. I'd like to see if it could be justified under capitalism, myself.

good luck. do you need any recommendations for readings on what has been said before?

Sure, whatever you want to recommend.

[QUOTE=Jello Biafra]Yes, not all we (socialists) have to do is convince him that socialism is fair and just.

Actually, I saw in one of the Classic Liberal Party threads (I think it was their Manifesto thread) a quote from Thomas Jefferson saying something to the effect of intellectual property should not be protected, since even though an idea can be replicated, the originator of the idea still has the idea, so nothing is stolen.
(I have to keep up on the Parliamentary competition, you know.)[/QUIOTE]

Yes, that was very interesting discussion, and if you remember I really couldn't refute the arguments Jefferson or that particular poster were making.

Intellectual property is difficult, but for different reasons altogether. Inventing and research are both the results of labor, and one should be able to keep that labor. On the other hand, once that idea hits the public, it becomes property of everyone else as well.

It seems that, like land ownership, that intellectual property seems to be a idea thrown into capitalism for convenience, not for consistency.

On property ownership: I don't own any property and probably never will (since hotels come with laundry/cleaning services :D ) but I work for real estate attorneys, so I see a lot of info about property valuation. The concepts of value and rights of ownership are different. Value, imo, has no practical meaning but falls under the heading "what the market will bear" -- prices are often not consistent with costs or even future earnings potential of the property being sold. The numbers are often driven by competition or lack thereof in the marketplace.

As for rights to own land -- I think there may be no "moral" justification for it, as I believe the western concept of land ownership has its roots in takings by force -- i.e., one party forces another off a piece of land or blocks another from entering a piece of land, and the rest of the history of that land is just maintaining control over others' access. If there is value in land, then it must be in the resources that can be extracted from it, as another poster said. There are and have been quite a number of cultures in which land is a communal resource, access to which is shared (sometimes fairly, sometimes not) and used dwelling and/or resource production by each private citizen for their own benefit. Perhaps it would be interesting to see how they do things.

As for intellectual property: I'm also an artist who depends on copyright to protect my ability to make money from my work. The idea that ideas are property that can be owned, sold, charged fees for the use of, etc., is based on the idea that a person went to a lot of trouble and possibly expense to develop an idea and they have the right to earn back their investment and make some profit. In the case of the arts, they are also creating a personal statement that can be traced back to them, so that each work supports the marketing of all other works; therefore, the artist has an interest in maintaining the integrity of the work's content for the same income protection reasons. However, this said, I do believe in limited copyrights and in opening copyright with reasonable limits because preventing others from playing with one's ideas restricts the development of new ideas.

It seems that, like land ownership, that intellectual property seems to be a idea thrown into capitalism for convenience, not for consistency.Yes, I've noticed that, too.

Bump

I think the dilemma is in how it can be justifiable for the land to become property in the first place. At one point the land is unclaimed, and later it becomes property. Claiming land is more like conquest or domination than labour, especially since a lot of land was already occupied by cultures that did not acknowledge individual land ownership. I don't believe there is a moral justification; exploitation of land tends to be at the expense of the environment and therefore other people.

Two possible solutions: either A, conquest counts as labor (it is hard work, after all), or B, which I like better, possessing land involves possessing the rights to land, and whether the land was pre-owned or not, those rights are a product of the labor of government. Wringing those rights out of the government also qualifies as labor, making land rights a legitamate possession just as marriage rights or driving rights are.

Tell me if either of these seems to make sense, Vittos.

So if land ownership can only be based upon use, does that mean that capitalism is a type of moral authority by having a system of land ownership that isn't based on use?

Two possible solutions: either A, conquest counts as labor (it is hard work, after all), or B, which I like better, possessing land involves possessing the rights to land, and whether the land was pre-owned or not, those rights are a product of the labor of government. Wringing those rights out of the government also qualifies as labor, making land rights a legitamate possession just as marriage rights or driving rights are.
Looks to me as though you're viewing theft as a legitimite type of labor. That would lead to all sorts of problems.

It seems that, like land ownership, that intellectual property seems to be a idea thrown into capitalism for convenience, not for consistency.
Intellectual "property" does not belong in capitalism.

1) The arguments for real property rights are all about avoiding conflicts over scarce resources. If you own a car or a piece of land and I steal it, then I prevent you from using it, so I am violating your rights.

2) Before an idea is known by anyone but you you don't need to own it to control it. I can't access your head, thus I can't steal your idea.

3) A (known) idea is not scarce. Even when I know about your idea I can not hurt you by "stealing" your idea. Whatever I do with your idea, you still have it and can use it any way you see fit. There still is no conflict (unless you want to control my actions).

4) "Intellectual property" "rights" contradict real property rights. If I (for example) own a set of empty cds, one cd with music and a cd-copier, then I have the right to control those things. If I see fit to put the cds into the copier and run it, then that is my right regardless of what anyone did to the cd before I bought it. If I see fit to sell the resulting copies (and there is a buyer) then it is my right to sell and his right to buy them. It is nobody elses business. Thus real property rights means that I have the right to "violate" "intellectual property" priviledges.

5) This one is a strawman, but I know somebody is going to say it so I'll answer preemptively: No, you can't own a revenue stream. If you own the only video store in a town and I open another store beside you, then you will lose revenue because of my action. I have also "stolen" the idea of having a shop there. However, I have not committed any crime, because the costumers and their money never was your property. As long as I don't physically attack you (or anyone else) or your stuff I don't have to take into account any effects on your revenue. The same thing applies to any pseudoarguments that RIAA is hurt when you don't pay anything to them for a record. They don't have a right to your money, they only have a right to control themselves and their property. Copying music doesn't interfere with that.

Two possible solutions: either A, conquest counts as labor (it is hard work, after all), or B, which I like better, possessing land involves possessing the rights to land, and whether the land was pre-owned or not, those rights are a product of the labor of government. Wringing those rights out of the government also qualifies as labor, making land rights a legitamate possession just as marriage rights or driving rights are.

A Conquest might be seen as labour. However, if you conquer land from somebody, then you don't become the legitimate owner. Trying to take property that is already owned is just theft.

B The government doesn't have any rights to the land, unless they own it. Also, property, including land ownership, is much older than government. Agriculture started tens of thousands of years ago, and agriculture requires secure property rights both to land and equipment. Governments did not occur until 7-10 thousand years ago.

Intellectual "property" does not belong in capitalism.

1) The arguments for real property rights are all about avoiding conflicts over scarce resources. If you own a car or a piece of land and I steal it, then I prevent you from using it, so I am violating your rights.

2) Before an idea is known by anyone but you you don't need to own it to control it. I can't access your head, thus I can't steal your idea.

3) A (known) idea is not scarce. Even when I know about your idea I can not hurt you by "stealing" your idea. Whatever I do with your idea, you still have it and can use it any way you see fit. There still is no conflict (unless you want to control my actions).

4) "Intellectual property" "rights" contradict real property rights. If I (for example) own a set of empty cds, one cd with music and a cd-copier, then I have the right to control those things. If I see fit to put the cds into the copier and run it, then that is my right regardless of what anyone did to the cd before I bought it. If I see fit to sell the resulting copies (and there is a buyer) then it is my right to sell and his right to buy them. It is nobody elses business. Thus real property rights means that I have the right to "violate" "intellectual property" priviledges.

5) This one is a strawman, but I know somebody is going to say it so I'll answer preemptively: No, you can't own a revenue stream. If you own the only video store in a town and I open another store beside you, then you will lose revenue because of my action. I have also "stolen" the idea of having a shop there. However, I have not committed any crime, because the costumers and their money never was your property. As long as I don't physically attack you (or anyone else) or your stuff I don't have to take into account any effects on your revenue. The same thing applies to any pseudoarguments that RIAA is hurt when you don't pay anything to them for a record. They don't have a right to your money, they only have a right to control themselves and their property. Copying music doesn't interfere with that.
I'm not sure I'm following you on this. Are you saying that, even though a writer, for instance, spends, say, 2 years creating a novel for the purpose of entertaining a reading audience, and gets that novel published with the intention of having sales of it provide him/her with income on which to live, that writer still has no right, once the novel is published, to make money off sales of copies of it? Also, are you saying that, because you can make copies of a work, you have the right to do so and sell such copies as if it were your own work to sell? That is not only illegal, it is also unfair to the original author of the work, who put in a lot more labor to create it than you did to copy it.

Real property and intellectual property are not really comparable for the purpose of this debate, because intellectual property is seen as the product of labor, while it has been pointed out that those who own real proerty (land) did not labor to create it (there is debate as to whether aquiring control of the land counts as labor granting rights over it).

For intellectual property, clearly, a book, a movie, a painting, etc., is a real object, and so are physical copies of the same; therefore, they may be considered real property for ownership purposes, and then you have to go into a whole new debate about how counterfeits (copies made by those who do not legally have the right to make copies; i.e. are not the authors) affect ownership rights. Trademarking is another issue and mostly has to do with earning back the cost of developing a new idea. Both trademark and copyright can and have been abused to squeeze out more money and to limit access to ideas. (And trust me, I have no sympathy for music companies; they cheat the musicians as much as the consumers.) However, both are necessary to make sure those who have ideas have an incentive to develop them and put them out into the world -- i.e. a payoff for their efforts. I don't think that's unfair. For the record, as an artist, I rely on copyright to protect my income, but as I'm a collage artist who works by appropriating images from other sources, I am mindful of how careful I have to be to avoid charges of copyright infringement.

You might want to visit www.creativecommons.org for information on new trends towards more open but still protected copyrights for artists/authors/performers. The creative professions are making good progress in addressing this issue of how to open up ideas without starving the creators of the ideas. This is a grassroots trend independent of corporate interests.

EDIT: I think I should point out that I disagree with the corporate attitude that the private copying and sharing of, say music or television shows, etc., is a violation of copyright. That's nonsense. If someone buys a work on paper from me and makes a xerox of it to give to a friend, I'd have no problem with that. But, on the other hand, if they sold copies for a profit without my permission and without sending me my royalty, I'd be pretty pissed off. But I'm all for cutting out the corporate middle man.

Positive right.

I know you're fishing for a Lockean response justifying land ownership on some sort of natural right, but such arguments inevitably collapse when it comes to land ownership.

You have an exclusive right to land only insofar as the society in which you live defines and defends such a right, perhaps because your society takes individual independence to be a fundamental right, or perhaps because society decides that private land ownership is expedient, in some form, to the common good.

That is how Thomas Jefferson defended it, and I think he was exactly right.

Of course, like Jefferson, I follow the positive nature of property rights to its natural conclusion: society, as the grantor and guarantor of property, always retains (collectively) the right to redefine, limit, or redistribute property.

Like Jefferson, I conclude that, should society (through just, democratic government) decide to, say, limit inherited estates... then whatever my dissatisfaction with the decision, my counter-arguments to my fellow citizens may attack their ends, or propose more expedient means to those ends, but I may NOT claim any "right" to my property anterior to the social contract itself.

I'm not sure I'm following you on this. Are you saying that, even though a writer, for instance, spends, say, 2 years creating a novel for the purpose of entertaining a reading audience, and gets that novel published with the intention of having sales of it provide him/her with income on which to live, that writer still has no right, once the novel is published, to make money off sales of copies of it?
Yes. Basically you never have a right to make money off anything at all. Possibly you have a priviledge, or you make a deal that somebody pays you money and you grant them a priviledge.

Of course you can sell books, and you can make deals with your costumers as to what they can and can't do with their books and that you should get parts of their profit etc ad nauseum. But that is contracts, deals, they contain what you put in them and are valid iff they are signed by the one who should be bound by it.

Also, are you saying that, because you can make copies of a work, you have the right to do so and sell such copies as if it were your own work to sell?
In some cases yes. It's called "own" or "control", or as a noun property rights.

That is not only illegal, it is also unfair to the original author of the work, who put in a lot more labor to create it than you did to copy it.
Illegal? I assume you refer to the law in some specific state. That most likely also regulates what drugs you may use, what services you may buy and must buy, what proffessions you are allowed to practice, how to raise your children and a gazillion other personal matters. It might be prudent to obey them, because the state has more guns than you, but that has nothing to do with ethics or natural law. Also it is national, so if you expect me to know anything about it you'll first have to tell me what state the law is made by.

And maybe I should be grateful to the artist and send them something to say thanks. But this thread was about rights and libertarian ethics, right? In that context I can't see that it is unfair to use my property in any way I see fit. Rather it is unjust that the state presume to tell me what I can and can't do with it.

Real property and intellectual property are not really comparable for the purpose of this debate, because intellectual property is seen as the product of labor, while it has been pointed out that those who own real proerty (land) did not labor to create it (there is debate as to whether aquiring control of the land counts as labor granting rights over it).


Of course they are not comparable. Real property rights is a fundamental human right, "intellectual property" is a new construct, that on my conspiratorial days I think was made specifically to weaken real property rights in courts. More likely is that it was made by the same progressivists who decided that environmental damages are no damages, simply because they thought that such who could claim intellectual property were worth more than others for "society as a whole"'s struggle to conquer the world.

For intellectual property, clearly, a book, a movie, a painting, etc., is a real object, and so are physical copies of the same; therefore, they may be considered real property for ownership purposes,

Yes, obviously.

and then you have to go into a whole new debate about how counterfeits (copies made by those who do not legally have the right to make copies; i.e. are not the authors) affect ownership rights.

That debate would be wholly inside your national law. I don't even know which law, so I can't help you. Counterfeit I would normally interpret as selling a copy while pretending that it is original. That is obviously fraud, but it does not touch what you say in parentesis.

I know you're fishing for a Lockean response justifying land ownership on some sort of natural right, but such arguments inevitably collapse when it comes to land ownership.
And in many other cases, if interpreted too narrowly. Who owns, for example, an object that many people have contributed labour to? Or who owns an object that one person has produced, using only the property of another as raw material?

The answer is that you will simply have to generalise the concept of homesteading a little bit from Locke's. It is not your work that makes an object yours, it is your will. Doing something with an unowned object does not infringe on anybodies rights, so it is withing your rights (freedom). But if you have already started using it, then when somebody else tries to take the same object, then you are prevented from doing your thing. So there is a conflict. But the conflict was created by the second person taking the same thing, so it is he that breakes the law. This also tells us how to avoid the whole conflict. Before you start using whatever you want to use, you take a some time to define what it is and make it clear to anyone around that you are claiming it. This is homesteading, it defines the unit of property and makes it yours.

Now there is no problem with ground ownership. There clearly are things you might want to do with land that not everyone can do at the same time, so you need a concept of property. And homesteading solves this. You check that no one else has marked any part of the land you want. Then you mark the borders (cut blazes in trees or put up poles, or whatever seems reasonable), and then you put up a sign with your name, or if there are local authorities you register your claim with them. No unclarities.

And it solves the other stuff too. I am too lazy to write all cases, but you should be able to if you care.

The original poster's quandary is easily solved. "In my view, property rights are justified by A. But in this view, land ownership seems weird." Well, change your view.

Property rights are one of the most basic and important things of human life. In some early kibbutzim in Israel that were like socialist utopias and children were not allowed to have any private property and were forced to share toys, psychological studies showed that these children had problems feeling intense emotions and strong emotional attachement. We learn to feel passionate about things by saying "Mine!" when someone tries to take away our teddy-bear.

Now as for the law. The law is an abstract construct that a society uses to regulate relations between its members and protect their rights. As such, property is an important part of the law and, as I said, the law is an abstract construct. A culture has moved one step up the ladder of civilization when they have made the difference between something you possess and something you own.

That you can still have property over something that you're not actually touching or keeping safe. That even if you're not sitting on your piece of land with your shotgun to defend it, it'll still be yours if someone else wants to claim it. When property has moved up from being a simple extension of possession to an abstract concept of ownership, then a society has become more civilized. When goods, including land, can be sold and bought on a marketplace by anyone for any reason whatsoever according to a common law, that's when you have an evolved culture. That's how the West was built. And that's your moral justification for property.

Yes. Basically you never have a right to make money off anything at all. Possibly you have a priviledge, or you make a deal that somebody pays you money and you grant them a priviledge.

Of course you can sell books, and you can make deals with your costumers as to what they can and can't do with their books and that you should get parts of their profit etc ad nauseum. But that is contracts, deals, they contain what you put in them and are valid iff they are signed by the one who should be bound by it.


In some cases yes. It's called "own" or "control", or as a noun property rights.


Illegal? I assume you refer to the law in some specific state. That most likely also regulates what drugs you may use, what services you may buy and must buy, what proffessions you are allowed to practice, how to raise your children and a gazillion other personal matters. It might be prudent to obey them, because the state has more guns than you, but that has nothing to do with ethics or natural law. Also it is national, so if you expect me to know anything about it you'll first have to tell me what state the law is made by.

And maybe I should be grateful to the artist and send them something to say thanks. But this thread was about rights and libertarian ethics, right? In that context I can't see that it is unfair to use my property in any way I see fit. Rather it is unjust that the state presume to tell me what I can and can't do with it.



Of course they are not comparable. Real property rights is a fundamental human right, "intellectual property" is a new construct, that on my conspiratorial days I think was made specifically to weaken real property rights in courts. More likely is that it was made by the same progressivists who decided that environmental damages are no damages, simply because they thought that such who could claim intellectual property were worth more than others for "society as a whole"'s struggle to conquer the world.

,

Yes, obviously.



That debate would be wholly inside your national law. I don't even know which law, so I can't help you. Counterfeit I would normally interpret as selling a copy while pretending that it is original. That is obviously fraud, but it does not touch what you say in parentesis.
I am referring to US copyright law (federal) -- link: http://www.copyright.gov/

You may want to get caught up on it, as it is extremely similar to copyright laws for other countries as well. Also, for the new alternatives I mentioned, please see link: http://creativecommons.org/

Of course, if you consider money to be an illegitimate social construct, then nobody has a "right" to money. However, I believe it is a commonly held notion that all humans have a natural right to provide themselves with the tools necessary to survive. In the US, we expand these tools to include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" implying resources beyond basic food and shelter. If society uses money as a tool for accessing such resources, then the ability to acquire money must be accepted as related to those basic rights. However, for the sake of argument, we may substitute any system of equivalent exchange you prefer.

Therefore, to proceed, by your argument, no one would have the right to use their labor to support themselves, thus either shutting down all work and commerce -- as there would be no incentive for anyone to do anything for anyone else -- or else making slaves of all workers or anyone who has an ability that is exploitable. Of course, the second scenario would be unlikely, as, if no one has a right to support themselves by their work, then who would have the right to support themselves by my work, if not me?

In fact, I take the opposite stance from you: I do not accept that there is a natural human right to own land, which none of us made, which existed long before we came along and which will continue to exist long after we are gone. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is the product of someone's labor, and, if we are discussing basic human things, then it is basic human fairness to allow the person who went to the labor to be compensated for it. My labor is mine. I have the right to expend it or not and to dictate the terms under which I will expend it. To force me to expend my labor without compensation could be construed as a kind of slavery (in attitude at least), or at least a kind of theft of labor.

Now, of course, there are reasonable limits to everything. The corporate attitude that seeks to disallow private copying of works is ridiculous. Also, even as a person who uses copyright, there are lots of circumstances under which I would allow my work to be copied and used for free. But that does not extend to someone else taking ALL the credit and potential income for my labor.

That last sentence goes to your assertion that owning a copy of a creative work makes you the owner of all rights over it. I should make clear that when I used the phrase "as if it were your own," I meant "as if you were the original author/creator of the work." Obviously, if you buy a book, then you own the book -- you may sell that book and make a profit on it, if possible. But you may not make 100,000 thousand copies of it and sell them for profit to yourself without cutting the author in for a piece of the action. By manufacturing copies in bulk and selling them, you have gone beyond selling the piece of property you had purchased; you are now using the author's labor in having created the story within the book to generate income for yourself. Now the author would have cause to take action against you because you are, in effect, stealing his labor.

Having said that, bulk sharing of copies for free (the file sharing issue) is a more difficult area. I understand that it can cut into income, so that the more popular an artist becomes, the less able they are to support themselves by their art. On the other hand, even though I rely on copyright for my income, I still would be willing tolerate losing some income to free sharing, as long as a) it is for free (after all, I let people look at my art for free and I believe free lending libraries are a good thing), and b) nobody is trying to steal credit (i.e. pretend they had created the work instead of me).

Positive right.

I know you're fishing for a Lockean response justifying land ownership on some sort of natural right, but such arguments inevitably collapse when it comes to land ownership.

You have an exclusive right to land only insofar as the society in which you live defines and defends such a right, perhaps because your society takes individual independence to be a fundamental right, or perhaps because society decides that private land ownership is expedient, in some form, to the common good.

That is how Thomas Jefferson defended it, and I think he was exactly right.

Of course, like Jefferson, I follow the positive nature of property rights to its natural conclusion: society, as the grantor and guarantor of property, always retains (collectively) the right to redefine, limit, or redistribute property.

Like Jefferson, I conclude that, should society (through just, democratic government) decide to, say, limit inherited estates... then whatever my dissatisfaction with the decision, my counter-arguments to my fellow citizens may attack their ends, or propose more expedient means to those ends, but I may NOT claim any "right" to my property anterior to the social contract itself.

What grants the society ownership of land? Society is nothing more than a group of individuals living together for mutual benefit. So if one individual cannot make claim to land, why can a group of individuals? Any claim society makes on land would be as ill-gotten or ill-used as one made by an individual.

Any property rights on land seem to be paradoxes, at least in my view of property rights.

The answer is that you will simply have to generalise the concept of homesteading a little bit from Locke's. It is not your work that makes an object yours, it is your will. Doing something with an unowned object does not infringe on anybodies rights, so it is withing your rights (freedom). But if you have already started using it, then when somebody else tries to take the same object, then you are prevented from doing your thing. So there is a conflict. But the conflict was created by the second person taking the same thing, so it is he that breakes the law. This also tells us how to avoid the whole conflict. Before you start using whatever you want to use, you take a some time to define what it is and make it clear to anyone around that you are claiming it. This is homesteading, it defines the unit of property and makes it yours.

It is a lack of will that releases property from ownership. When one produces something, they have immediate right to it, and complete right to it until they deem it of no value to them. When it has no value to them, then it no longer represents any labor value.

Now there is no problem with ground ownership. There clearly are things you might want to do with land that not everyone can do at the same time, so you need a concept of property. And homesteading solves this. You check that no one else has marked any part of the land you want. Then you mark the borders (cut blazes in trees or put up poles, or whatever seems reasonable), and then you put up a sign with your name, or if there are local authorities you register your claim with them. No unclarities.

But in this situation no land can have marketable value. There must be no demand for land, or multiple claims will sprout up, and if there is no demand, there is no value. But it is obvious that property rights add value to land.

That's how the West was built. And that's your moral justification for property.

There was not a single moral justification for land ownership or property in that post.

As for property, I have no problem justifying that morally. The question is, how can land be property?

I am referring to US copyright law (federal) -- link: http://www.copyright.gov/

You may want to get caught up on it, as it is extremely similar to copyright laws for other countries as well. Also, for the new alternatives I mentioned, please see link: http://creativecommons.org/
Thanks

Of course, if you consider money to be an illegitimate social construct, then nobody has a "right" to money.
Money is as legitimate as other objects. You have a right to do what you want with your money. You have a right to give out money. You have a right to give things in exchange for money, if somebody wants to trade with you. You have a right to work for money if somebody wants you to work for them. That's all included in liberty and property. What you don't have any right to is to be given money for any specific thing unless that is previously agreed upon.

However, I believe it is a commonly held notion that all humans have a natural right to provide themselves with the tools necessary to survive. In the US, we expand these tools to include "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" implying resources beyond basic food and shelter. If society uses money as a tool for accessing such resources, then the ability to acquire money must be accepted as related to those basic rights. However, for the sake of argument, we may substitute any system of equivalent exchange you prefer.
Money is fine. But that right is a right to do what you need to aquire what you need to live. Or simply to do what you need to live. It has no relation to recieving money (or anything else) from any specific source.

Therefore, to proceed, by your argument, no one would have the right to use their labor to support themselves, thus either shutting down all work and commerce -- as there would be no incentive for anyone to do anything for anyone else -- or else making slaves of all workers or anyone who has an ability that is exploitable. Of course, the second scenario would be unlikely, as, if no one has a right to support themselves by their work, then who would have the right to support themselves by my work, if not me?

The last part is obviously correct, but I did not say that it is wrong to work for money, nor to pay for work. So none of the rest follows.

In fact, I take the opposite stance from you: I do not accept that there is a natural human right to own land, which none of us made, which existed long before we came along and which will continue to exist long after we are gone.
But without ownership of land humanity would never have gotten past the hunter/gatherer stage. That would of course have solved the problem of computer crimes, but might not have been any better for the fine arts.

Intellectual property, on the other hand, is the product of someone's labor,
And also the product of the whole culture and history. What you do when you create new ideas, unless you're some real creative genius, is to take some ideas that are already around and belong to no one, and then put them together in a new and better form. If you claim exclusive ownership of it, then you also claim ownership of the labour of all preceding thinkers in the same tradition. Blabla. If you come from creative commons you have heard a better version of that many times.

What I am getting at is that about the same as you say for land is also true for ideas. With one signficant difference. Unclaimed land is (was) unused and basically worthless until somebody found an idea that made it valuable, and then proceded to claim enough land to make the idea real. When snatching a piece of land from the common pool the new owner simultanously payed back both by putting the land to use, and giving others an idea of how land could be made useful for them. The claimer took no value, but payed back something valuable.

Unowned ideas on the other hand have been created by others, and are being used by others, and will continue to be used until they either become obsolete or somebody manages to claim a monopoly. When getting exclusive ownership of an idea the claimer takes something out of the common pool, and prevents others from using, while adding something that would have been at least as valuable without exclusive ownership.

and, if we are discussing basic human things, then it is basic human fairness to allow the person who went to the labor to be compensated for it.
Not always. To take an extreme example, if I go dig a five feet deep hole in my garden, without any tools, and then fill it with dirt again, then I have expended a lot of work, but should I have right to get payed? No! Work in itself does not give any right to be payed.

My labor is mine. I have the right to expend it or not and to dictate the terms under which I will expend it. To force me to expend my labor without compensation could be construed as a kind of slavery
It certainly is. You could even leave out the "without compensation" part. To force you to work, or do anything you don't want is slavery and thus wrong.

That last sentence goes to your assertion that owning a copy of a creative work makes you the owner of all rights over it.
But you don't own rights, you own the copy. That gives you the right to use the copy.

I should make clear that when I used the phrase "as if it were your own," I meant "as if you were the original author/creator of the work." Obviously, if you buy a book, then you own the book -- you may sell that book and make a profit on it, if possible. But you may not make 100,000 thousand copies of it and sell them for profit to yourself without cutting the author in for a piece of the action.
If I'd pass myself off as the author of your book I'd be committing fraud. But I don't see how you get from giving you credit as author and I should send you a part of the profit (if I make any) to a maximum number of copies that I may make. You could of course include that in a contract, but as a general principle I mean.

By manufacturing copies in bulk and selling them, you have gone beyond selling the piece of property you had purchased
Yes, I have made some new pieces of property, using only the idea from the original book.

you are now using the author's labor in having created the story within the book to generate income for yourself. Now the author would have cause to take action against you because you are, in effect, stealing his labor.
But his labour was when he wrote the book. How can that pass with the book, or even with a separate book that I make?

It is a lack of will that releases property from ownership. When one produces something, they have immediate right to it, and complete right to it until they deem it of no value to them. When it has no value to them, then it no longer represents any labor value.
Yes. When you no longer value the property and there is no one else it can be passed to it is disowned. The process of claiming it is exactly the opposite. You value a piece of property, finds that nobody else wants it (or at least has not claimed it yet) and put your own claim to it.

Edit: You say 'labour value'. Do you labour under the labour theory of value? If so the people suggesting you go socialist might not have been all wrong. But then you should have at least as much trouble with interest as with land...

But in this situation no land can have marketable value. There must be no demand for land, or multiple claims will sprout up, and if there is no demand, there is no value. But it is obvious that property rights add value to land.
As long as there is unclaimed equally good land no one will pay for land. But after a while all the best land in the best places were already claimed. Then somebody tried to buy the land from the first owner. Sometimes the newcomer valued the spot of land higher than the first owner, and that's how trade and prices for land started. That's more like history than ethics though. But maybe it's important to you.

A Conquest might be seen as labour. However, if you conquer land from somebody, then you don't become the legitimate owner. Trying to take property that is already owned is just theft.

B The government doesn't have any rights to the land, unless they own it. Also, property, including land ownership, is much older than government. Agriculture started tens of thousands of years ago, and agriculture requires secure property rights both to land and equipment. Governments did not occur until 7-10 thousand years ago.

A. It's true that if conquest can be justified, then so can theft. This one only works if Vittos is willing to justify both.

B. The early agriculture you describe established a pseudo government of sovereignty over whatever land one has cultivated. A government of any type gains sovreignty over the land by agreement with other governments. These negotiations constitute work. The government then distributes incomplete sovreignty to individuals, which they work to attain. Owning land isn't ownership of the dirt itself, it's ownership of limited sovreignty, agreed upon by others. If you make a contract with your neighbor saying they can't throw sticks at you, you have ownership of the power of not having sticks thrown at you. Similarly if you have an agreement with your neighbors that you can use your land in a specific way, you have ownership of the land.

The same can be said for intellectual property. You own an agreement with the buyers and voters that you alone can use a specific technology. It doesn't have to be technology that you personally created even, look at the huge number of technologies restricted to government use. Intellectual property is just an extension of that.

B. The early agriculture you describe established a pseudo government of sovereignty over whatever land one has cultivated. A government of any type gains sovreignty over the land by agreement with other governments. These negotiations constitute work. The government then distributes incomplete sovreignty to individuals, which they work to attain. Owning land isn't ownership of the dirt itself, it's ownership of limited sovreignty, agreed upon by others. If you make a contract with your neighbor saying they can't throw sticks at you, you have ownership of the power of not having sticks thrown at you. Similarly if you have an agreement with your neighbors that you can use your land in a specific way, you have ownership of the land.
I'd rather say that you own the dirt and that which grows/is built on it, as a representation of the rights. But you sound more like you think of property priviledges than property rights. That the government can grant property to anyone it wants, and also can withdraw the priviledge at will? And the government got that ability because no one dared to challenge them over it?If so, congratulations, you're in the majority and your side's got the guns. But I don't think that was what Vittos was asking for (if it was I've been making myself stupid.)

The same can be said for intellectual property. You own an agreement with the buyers and voters that you alone can use a specific technology. It doesn't have to be technology that you personally created even, look at the huge number of technologies restricted to government use. Intellectual property is just an extension of that.
Precisely. Intellectual "property" is a priviledge (monopoly) granted by the government to people they want to reward. Very different from a universal human right.

What grants the society ownership of land?
The fact that to "own" something means that, should anyone try to take it without your permission, society will back your possession over his, whether by custom or by law.

Societies establish the terms by which such reinforcement occurs, therefore society has the right to alter those terms.

Yah, what that anarchy dude said.

In any case, you can never hold property, you can only "hold" it.

Yes. When you no longer value the property and there is no one else it can be passed to it is disowned. The process of claiming it is exactly the opposite. You value a piece of property, finds that nobody else wants it (or at least has not claimed it yet) and put your own claim to it.

What about land that is never developed before it is sold. How can an individual make a claim on land that has never held the product of his labor? They claim it, but show no interest in it, other than speculation. All other forms of speculation take place in the trade of labor, land speculation does not.

Edit: You say 'labour value'. Do you labour under the labour theory of value? If so the people suggesting you go socialist might not have been all wrong. But then you should have at least as much trouble with interest as with land...

I believe in the labor theory of value, I also believe that value is derived from utility and supply and demand. I believe that were the market truly free, that these two methods would arrive at the same value.

Now, I also don't believe in exploitation, and I don't believe there is a "socially necessary labor time." I believe that society should be left to be free, with labor being traded on free contract, and that society will only be as great as what the collection of individuals decides to put into it.

In other words, it is somewhat difficult for me to be traditionally capitalist, but it is impossible for me to be socialist.

As long as there is unclaimed equally good land no one will pay for land. But after a while all the best land in the best places were already claimed. Then somebody tried to buy the land from the first owner. Sometimes the newcomer valued the spot of land higher than the first owner, and that's how trade and prices for land started. That's more like history than ethics though. But maybe it's important to you.

I know how value is derived, but it doesn't add up to me. Land is valuable because of the rights of usage, but the rights of usage aren't justified to me.

But the rights of usage must be conveyed in order to ensure the right to labor of the individual...hence the thread title, which now makes me look like I think moral dilemmas are delicious. Thanks mods.

What about land that is never developed before it is sold. How can an individual make a claim on land that has never held the product of his labor? They claim it, but show no interest in it, other than speculation. All other forms of speculation take place in the trade of labor, land speculation does not.

For that I will just quote what I posted on the first page.

Well land might always have been there, but it may not have been available for ownership.

Explorers need to discover it, map it, qualify it. Speculators, or others with interest in the land, have to go through the legal process of transforming a vast expanse of land into deeds which can be sold on the market.

Just that the land is there doesn't mean that it is mutually owned, only that it is open for use. Now if someone goes to the trouble of setting it up to be owned, that persons labor goes into the land to make it his. You don't need improvements, there is enough work in making the land ownable.


The labor you are seeking is in making the land tradable on the market.

Now, I also don't believe in exploitation, and I don't believe there is a "socially necessary labor time."

I'm not questioning your points here, but I am curious what you mean by "socially necessary labor time." Are you quoting Marx here?

A few questions I had:

1) If person A discovers a previously unibhabited island, does person A have the exclusive right to the island?
2) If person A leaves the island before starting to use it, and person B rediscovers the island, does B have the right to use it if he starts to use it first?
3) If person A discovers a previously uninhabited continent, does person A have the exclusive right to the continent?
4) If person A looks through a telescope and discovers a previously uninhabited planet, does person A have the exclusive right to the planet?
5) If no, would person A have to physically travel to the planet to have exclusive right to it?
6) If yes, would person B getting there first give person B the exclusive right to the planet?

hence the thread title, which now makes me look like I think moral dilemmas are delicious. <Gives Vitto a fork to eat his moral dilemma with.>

The labor you are seeking is in making the land tradable on the market.

A vast majority of the labor that goes in to making land marketable is paid for or done by government, so should government recieve the proceeds from sale?

I'm not questioning your points here, but I am curious what you mean by "socially necessary labor time." Are you quoting Marx here?

Marx tried to explain price convergence by saying that there is a necessary level of labor that is needed to maintain society, and that price is determined by the fraction of the aggregate labor put into a single product. He explains exploitation by saying that the employer reduces the labor that goes into the product, yet sells it at the fraction of the labor time it would need.

...idea thrown into capitalism for convenience, not for consistency.

Moral justifications, and their necessity, depend on time, place, etc.

Therefore, in our society, where economic efficiency can count as moral justification for murder, convenience is actually as good a moral justification as any.

Unless you were looking for moral justification from a particular viewpoint, such as ... what?

Well, I wonder, since some have brought up Locke as inspiration for owning land...what about slavery?

Locke owned slaves, so he obviously made being a human rational individual somewhat conditional.

Can't you apply many of these theories of "applying your labour to something" (teaching?), or being the first to claim it, to other humans?
Do you own that human then, or at least a part of him/her?

<snip>
Money is fine. But that right is a right to do what you need to aquire what you need to live. Or simply to do what you need to live. It has no relation to recieving money (or anything else) from any specific source.

<snip>

But without ownership of land humanity would never have gotten past the hunter/gatherer stage. That would of course have solved the problem of computer crimes, but might not have been any better for the fine arts.


And also the product of the whole culture and history. What you do when you create new ideas, unless you're some real creative genius, is to take some ideas that are already around and belong to no one, and then put them together in a new and better form. If you claim exclusive ownership of it, then you also claim ownership of the labour of all preceding thinkers in the same tradition. Blabla. If you come from creative commons you have heard a better version of that many times.

What I am getting at is that about the same as you say for land is also true for ideas. With one signficant difference. Unclaimed land is (was) unused and basically worthless until somebody found an idea that made it valuable, and then proceded to claim enough land to make the idea real. When snatching a piece of land from the common pool the new owner simultanously payed back both by putting the land to use, and giving others an idea of how land could be made useful for them. The claimer took no value, but payed back something valuable.

Unowned ideas on the other hand have been created by others, and are being used by others, and will continue to be used until they either become obsolete or somebody manages to claim a monopoly. When getting exclusive ownership of an idea the claimer takes something out of the common pool, and prevents others from using, while adding something that would have been at least as valuable without exclusive ownership.


Not always. To take an extreme example, if I go dig a five feet deep hole in my garden, without any tools, and then fill it with dirt again, then I have expended a lot of work, but should I have right to get payed? No! Work in itself does not give any right to be payed.

<snip>

But you don't own rights, you own the copy. That gives you the right to use the copy.


If I'd pass myself off as the author of your book I'd be committing fraud. But I don't see how you get from giving you credit as author and I should send you a part of the profit (if I make any) to a maximum number of copies that I may make. You could of course include that in a contract, but as a general principle I mean.


Yes, I have made some new pieces of property, using only the idea from the original book.


But his labour was when he wrote the book. How can that pass with the book, or even with a separate book that I make?
1. You are not directly negating my statement that, if money is the tool used by a society to allow citizens to provide themselves with the means to sustain their lives, then ability to access money must be considered ancillary and necessary to the right to sustain one's life. Thus in the US we have laws that forbid one person from trying to prevent another person from getting a job. You cannot exercise your human rights within society if you are barred from acquiring money. In US society, money is acquired by either selling property or by hiring out one's labor on pre-agreed terms. If you work in the arts, you may be doing either. If a work is produced to order, then you are hiring out your labor; if you produce a work and then sell the original or copies of it, you are selling your property. In the US, the product of one's labor that is not produced to order (i.e. sold upon completion) is considered the property of the person who did the labor and thus that person automatically own all rights to copy and sell it. I believe most non-communist countries have similar systems.

2. It does not necessarily follow that urban, agricultural civilzation would not have developed without private ownership of land, as, in fact, private ownership of land, as we know it today, is a relative new phenomenon. In previous ages, land was either not a commodity to be owned but, rather, a resource to be exploited, and/or ownership of the land was either communal or retained by a ruling class that then opened it to public use with limitations (as in the feudal system, for instance). Considering that urbanized, agricultural civilizations have existed for at least 5000 to 7000 years, it seems to me that private land rights are not a prerequisite.

As for the status of the arts in a hunter-gatherer, non-land-owning society, I would point out that the arts, as a recognized social function of specialists, pre-dates land-ownership and agriculture by at least as much as the difference between the appearance of agriculture and the figurines and cave engravings of the Ice Age period. I certainly hope you weren't trying to intimidate an artist into submitting to the property claims of others, because we've been around a lot longer than them and are likely to outlast them, too. ;)

3. You speak from the point of view of a "creative genius," I presume? Let me explain something: When we speak about ownership of "ideas," we are always talking about the ownership of the products of ideas -- movies, books, paintings, clothes, buildings, diagrams, machinery, circuit boards, etc. Every brain on the planet (or most, at any rate) can come up with ideas, and may all come up with the same idea at various times. You can't copyright or patent concepts or ideas. You can only copyright/patent the product of your idea. That's why there is more than one science fiction novel in the world, more than one kind of computer, more than one phone system, more than one painting of "The Adoration of the Magi," etc., etc., etc.

NOTE: Please understand what "copyright" is: it literally means the right to make copies of something. That's it. Period.

If I write a book about a Flying Spaghetti Monster creating the world, the book I write is mine, the product of my labor, and I own the right to copy it, sell it, sell copies of it, adapt it to other forms such as movies or games, or sell the right to do so to others on whatever terms I can negotiate. You do not have the right to create income for yourself by selling copies of my book. However you DO have the right to write your own book about a Flying Spaghetti Monster creating the world and sell it in competition with me.

I own the story I wrote. I don't own the idea the story was based on.

4. You would have the right to be paid if you dug and filled in the hole at the behest of someone else, of course. This whole problem is based on the questions: Do you own what you own (i.e. is there such a thing as property), and who gets to use what you own? The original poster's question regarding property cannot be answered without running into these issues. In your (rather appropriate) hole-digging scenario, you own the land, and you also own your time and your ability to dig holes. If you wish to use all three of those things for yourself, then, obviously, no one else is benefitting from it, so you do not deserve compensation from anyone else. But if you use those three things at the request of someone else and for the benefit of someone else, then, yes, you do deserve to be compensated, if not for the hole, then at least for your time and labor which was used by them.

5. No, buying a book does not give you the right to make income off the sale of copies of the book (i.e. republish it). It only gives you the right to sell the individual book you originally purchased. In some instances (as with a Gutenberg Bible), you can realize a hefty profit on such a sale, but that's it as far as the property value of the book goes. You own the book. You do not own rights to the contents of the book, because all you bought of the contents was the right to read them (sort of a "read-only" file).

Similarly, if you buy a condominium apartment, you have the right to live there, do various things there, keep other people out of it, alter it, let others use it for free or for rent, and sell it for whatever price you can get. But you do not have the right to sell the building it is located in, or the land the building is located on. You also do not have unlimited rights to use even your own property (the condominium) in a way which intereferes with the ability of your neighbors to use their condominiums or which violates zoning laws or affects the structure of the building as a whole.

So, you see, even in an ownership-based society, ownership is not absolute. This supports the Jeffersonian position that ownership of property is, essentially, an artificial construct based on arbitrary societal definitions of what "property" is and is strictly a matter of tradition and majority rule in the enforcement of property ownership rules. If the majority say I could sue you for copying and selling my work without paying me, that would be just tough on you. :D

A vast majority of the labor that goes in to making land marketable is paid for or done by government, so should government recieve the proceeds from sale?

Well, then that certainly justifies fees and taxes associated with making deeds. :p

But seriously, the government creates most of the work in bringing the property to the market. It doesn't do the work, it just requires the work to keep property claims specific and resolution of disputed claims rational. That it partially funds and maintains the process is immaterial. In fact, part of the work I was suggesting is in dealing with the government to see that a particular unclaimed property can be sold.

Marx tried to explain price convergence by saying that there is a necessary level of labor that is needed to maintain society, and that price is determined by the fraction of the aggregate labor put into a single product. He explains exploitation by saying that the employer reduces the labor that goes into the product, yet sells it at the fraction of the labor time it would need.

I know what Marx wrote... I was just wondering if you were quoting Marx in your post.

To my understanding, socially necessary labor isn't the labor necessary to maintain society as a whole but to "reproduce" the labor, in other words a subsistance wage but in labor terms. Exploitation occurs when the capitalist either increases the aggregate labor performed and thus reaps more labor above the subsistance level or, as you pointed out, replacing labor with capital.

Well anyway, I can see why you wouldn't agree with the exploitation part of the argument. But why not socially necessary labor, i.e. a subsistance wage?

Well, I wonder, since some have brought up Locke as inspiration for owning land...what about slavery?

Locke owned slaves, so he obviously made being a human rational individual somewhat conditional.

Can't you apply many of these theories of "applying your labour to something" (teaching?), or being the first to claim it, to other humans?
Do you own that human then, or at least a part of him/her?

To my understanding you can't because that would violate self-ownership, i.e. free will.

I think Locke's rationalization would have simply been, as you suggested, the slave races at the time weren't really people.

Unless you were looking for moral justification from a particular viewpoint, such as ... what?

From a Lockean/Ricardian viewpoint of property rights.

I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

Well, I wonder, since some have brought up Locke as inspiration for owning land...what about slavery?

Locke owned slaves, so he obviously made being a human rational individual somewhat conditional.

Locke, even though he was a great philosopher, was bound to much of the cultural and moral norms of his day. He saw slaves as being subhuman and unable to enter the social contract, so he saw no reason to treat them within his own moral framework.

Likewise, in A Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke spoke for religious tolerance and the separation of church and state, saying that religion, due to its voluntary nature, accomplished nothing if imposed by government.

Yet he said that Catholics and Atheists merit no religious tolerance.

Can't you apply many of these theories of "applying your labour to something" (teaching?), or being the first to claim it, to other humans?
Do you own that human then, or at least a part of him/her?

You can never own someone else's labor, you can only make claims to the product of their labor through free contract. If you say you can make claims to the labor of other individuals, the whole system falls apart in inconsistencies.

Well, then that certainly justifies fees and taxes associated with making deeds. :p

But seriously, the government creates most of the work in bringing the property to the market. It doesn't do the work, it just requires the work to keep property claims specific and resolution of disputed claims rational. That it partially funds and maintains the process is immaterial. In fact, part of the work I was suggesting is in dealing with the government to see that a particular unclaimed property can be sold.

If the government funds the work, it is purchasing the products of the labor, so it would be purchasing the rights to the land.

And fees paid to agents who deal with the government recieve their fees from people who do not own the land in the first place, so they do not acquire value from the land.

To my understanding, socially necessary labor isn't the labor necessary to maintain society as a whole but to "reproduce" the labor, in other words a subsistance wage but in labor terms. Exploitation occurs when the capitalist either increases the aggregate labor performed and thus reaps more labor above the subsistance level or, as you pointed out, replacing labor with capital.

Well anyway, I can see why you wouldn't agree with the exploitation part of the argument. But why not socially necessary labor, i.e. a subsistance wage?

I should have said that I don't agree with Marx's implications of the socially necessary labor.

You can never own someone else's labor, you can only make claims to the product of their labor through free contract. If you say you can make claims to the labor of other individuals, the whole system falls apart in inconsistencies.
I agree in principal, but it may be argued that a wage-paying job is a contract that allows an employer to claim the right to a worker's labor. Fairness is attempted (maybe achieved?) by limiting the claims of the employer, who is given no right under any circumstances to refuse to pay for labor that has already been performed, by limiting the definition of a work period (i.e., the 40-hour week), by barring the employer from controlling what the employee does when not working for the employer, the "employment at will" custom which allows the worker to quit as well as the employer to fire, etc. -- all measures designed to make clear that the worker is not "selling" himself -- i.e. making himself the property of the employer -- in exchange for the wage. It is assumed that, if the worker owns himself, then he also owns all of his skills and ability to work, which he may contract out to any employer for the best terms available. I.e., we can own not only the product of our labor, but our potential to produce such products. This may go towards the question of what defines property or value.

So does this mean there is no answer to the moral dilemma, or is it still being worked out?

So does this mean there is no answer to the moral dilemma, or is it still being worked out?

It means that my ADD took over and my brain has taken on different tasks, maybe in the near future I will circle back around to the idea when I have some time to actually read about it.

If the government funds the work, it is purchasing the products of the labor, so it would be purchasing the rights to the land.

And fees paid to agents who deal with the government recieve their fees from people who do not own the land in the first place, so they do not acquire value from the land.

No, the goverment isn't funding the work of the speculator the government is creating the work for the speculator.

The agents that deal with the government are the speculators, not public agents on the payroll of the government.

An independent speculator hoping to discover and sell new land on the market is going to encounter some resistance from the government. That speculator, depending on the government's system for creating deeds, is going to have to provide the goverment with specific measurements of the property, fees, proof that no one else owns the land, etc. All this work makes the land his without having to put his hand to improve it in an explicit way. The land is improved because it is now on the market whereas before it was just an expanse of land that no one had a claim to. This is not dissimilar from securitization. The land, formally a non-fungible good, is "securitized" in the sense that it is now exchangable. Securitization requires work and creates value. Clearly, the speculator has done something to make the land his own.

Now you can argue that if there isn't a government which enforces some kind of property law then the speculator has no claim to the land. Maybe we have to test the strength of that assumption. But the only point I have been trying to make is that there is more work to be done than, let's say, building a barn on a piece for property. There is work in bringing the land to the market, and that work makes the land the property of the speculator.

I should have said that I don't agree with Marx's implications of the socially necessary labor.

Ah okay, I'm not going to argue against that.

It means that my ADD took over and my brain has taken on different tasks, maybe in the near future I will circle back around to the idea when I have some time to actually read about it.I wasn't saying that you should necessarily be the one to solve it. I was wondering, though, what some of the more ardent capitalists (even more so than yourself) have to think about the dilemma.

This deals with my ideology, not a personal situation, so if you are looking to impart a bid of advice on someone, this is not the thread. If you have an interest in property rights, this is for you.

One difficulty I have had in reconciling my views on property rights deals with land ownership. I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.

So here is the problem:

How does that justify land ownership? Land cannot possibly be the product of man, improvements can be, but not land. So how does land come with a bundle of property rights? How can land itself have value? I know the process and forces by which it gets its value, but what is the moral justification for land's marketable value?
hmm, a few possible solutions that you'd probably hate all of them from the little bit i know of you(i'm sorry if someone already posted these, i haven't read much of this thread yet);
1. don't make land ownership something that is written down or permanent, just give all the people the right to discuse it among themselves, such as "i have a treaty with these five people that i may grow a farm on this land, since these people recognize this treaty and they are the only competitors for this patch of land i have the right to use it" well, i described it badly, but i think that is the idea.
2. 1. assign all land of a certian area the same value.
2. 2. assign land a value based on productability, so one unit's worth of flat land that has a ph of 8 is worth 10 units of scrub covered hilly and rocky soil that's got a ph of 20(heheh) or something like that.
3. assign everyone the exact same amount of land.
4. forget land alltogether, just work regardless of who owns the land, since noone would own the land. there would have to be other laws in place settling disputes between people over who can do what were or something, which may eventually lead into a system of having some people ruling over territories, but if it's got appropriate rules it may work. i can't describe this idea well...

EDIT: after reading some of the other ideas, ignore mine they're not nearly as coherent or solve your problem as much.

I define property rights as an extension of man's right to his own body, his labor. If we are to respect the man's freedom, we must allow him the product of his labor.


The existance or propriety of property rights has nothing to do with labor and everything to do with the fact that there are a whole bunch of people and not enough resources/land/labor/whatever, a condition called scarcity. Private property is an institution that arises simply from the desire to have security in one's possession of X so that X can be (re)distributed in an efficient manner. Supply and demand - that's all there is to it.

Not a "moral" justification, I guess, but then I think most "moral" justifications put forward for a particular economic process pretty much boil down to "just because." "Just because" gets us two sets of people yelling at each other while usually accomplishing precisely zilch [see also: most political "debates" (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=1227)]. And heaven help us if (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWI) they (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII) do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik) accomplish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Pinochet) something (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war).

The existance or propriety of property rights has nothing to do with labor and everything to do with the fact that there are a whole bunch of people and not enough resources/land/labor/whatever, a condition called scarcity. Private property is an institution that arises simply from the desire to have security in one's possession of X so that X can be (re)distributed in an efficient manner. Supply and demand - that's all there is to it.

Not a "moral" justification, I guess, but then I think most "moral" justifications put forward for a particular economic process pretty much boil down to "just because." "Just because" gets us two sets of people yelling at each other while usually accomplishing precisely zilch [see also: most political "debates"]. And heaven help us if they do accomplish something.

Private property may be justifiable through practical concerns. But other societies have overcome the "scarcity" problem without private property. Granted, they weren't as wealthy but they survived.

Unless you go a bit farther and attempt to morally justify private property then there is no particular reason to be capitalist over communist, socialist, primitivist, etc.

Unless you go a bit farther and attempt to morally justify private property then there is no particular reason to be capitalist over communist, socialist, primitivist, etc.

Of course there is a reason to prefer capitalism:


Granted, they weren't as wealthy but they survived.


I assume that most reasonable people would prefer something more than a daily struggle for survival.

Of course there is a reason to prefer capitalism:

I assume that most reasonable people would prefer something more than a daily struggle for survival.

of course, non-capitalist societies were not typically engaged in a literal daily struggle for survival either. even poor foragers typically worked fewer hours per day and fewer days per week than modern people. or as a ju/'hoansi man told richard lee, "why should we plant when there are so many mongomongo nuts in the world?"

Free Soviets hit the nail on the head. If you recongnize an indifference curve you recongnize different preferences. There is no reason to promote private property other than that more people like computers than a stroll in the afternoon.