It shows that any social order must rely on aggression, and therefore libertarians cannot claim moral superiority through the NAP (except against those who claim to already support the current property regime).
"It shows that any social order must rely on aggression, and therefore libertarians cannot claim moral superiority through the NAP"
It shows no such thing. People cooperate to labor on the same area of land to increase their productivity at least as much as they might fight over each square foot of land.
Let me try to explain how I view your argument at this time. It's like you're saying, "Everything is green and simply because something gives off a different frequency of light doesn't mean it's not green. You have to violently impose your definition of green on me in order to say that the color green is a specific frequency of light."
When all 7 billion people agree with one another on a property system, you will be right.
Your definition of green is circular.
Coase, can you explain how can there be sentience without any sense of property rights?
What.
Also I think the real question is "who cares"?
If I can go one step further and speculate, I think in the end all people are just trying to describe what makes the most sense for wealth maximization, and using the most on hand language they know how to use.
The reality is nobody cares about coercion (whatever that means). .if it was that big of a deal the action would have been bred out.
William-
I care. Rothbard seemed to care. Classical liberals cared.
Coase:It shows that any social order must rely on aggression, and therefore libertarians cannot claim moral superiority through the NAP (except against those who claim to already support the current property regime).
Can we claim moral superiority by showing that our system best suppresses conflict (and thus violence) and/or uses the least amount of coercive 'threats' to do so (in that there are fewer laws/rights than in other systems)?
William: Also I think the real question is "who cares"? If I can go one step further and speculate, I think in the end all people are just trying to describe what makes the most sense for wealth maximization, and using the most on hand language they know how to use. The reality is nobody cares about coercion (whatever that means). .if it was that big of a deal the action would have been bred out. Not really. Property rights is intrinsical to sentience. One cannot exist without another. How could a sentient being be sentient if it thinks it doesn't own anything, not even himself? | Post Points: 20
Property rights is intrinsical to sentience. One cannot exist without another. How could a sentient being be sentient if it thinks it doesn't own anything, not even himself?
I don't particularly disagree with this. At least the property part. Rights... who knows?
Stil my point is it all requires force in one form or another. "Coercion", if it is to have much meaning has to be a an extant legal term. Which in and of itself would require some force to uphold.
William:I don't particularly disagree with this. At least the property part. Rights... who knows? Stil my point is it all requires force in one form or another. "Coercion", if it is to have much meaning has to be a an extant legal term. Which in and of itself would require some force to uphold. Well, if there's a property it's because someone has a right to it. There can't be properties without owners. And I'm disputing the point raised by the thread starter because NAP doesn't mean not using force, it means not initiating force. It's perfectly acceptable and in line with NAP to use force when appropriated. So when you use force to defend your property you are not coercing anyone, because by the very sentient nature of human beings all of them (by the simple fact of being sentient) acknowledge property rights. Just to be as clear as possible, it is like sentience itself was a 'social contract'. | Post Points: 5
Clayton, I don't see the relevance. No rules of society are needed to see that claiming a right means denying someone else a right.
And then the agreement has to be hammered out between the person claiming and the person denying the right. You are equivocating between imposed decisions and mutual agreements arrived at through arbitration. In the first case, you have something like, "The State hereby grants Joe the right to sit in the sun unshaded on his land and hereby simultaneously denies Bob the right to erect a structure that will shade Joe's land" but in the second case you have something like, "I, Bob, agree to pay $X to Joe or tear down the offending structure... because I have violated Joe's customary right to unobstructed sunlight on his property in the form of an easement which must be recognized by virtue of his long use of his land in this manner." Bob could indeed be obstinate and refuse to acknowledge Joe's customary right or refuse to acknowledge that Joe has an established easement and so on and so forth but if Bob is just being unreasonable then his obstinacy may eventually render him an outlaw where Joe will then be within his rights to simply tear down the offending structure no matter what Bob thinks about it.
Under the statist order of imposed laws, rights are indeed a zero-sum game. In a customary law system, both parties benefit by bargaining the least mutually disagreeable settlement to which they can both agree that is still preferable to feuding and outlawry.
Clayton -
Coase:Isaac, that is silly.
What is silly?
My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/
Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises
Has no one here ever read Hoppe? Really?
Private property rights must be presupposed for any argument at all. One cannot argue that he doesn't own himself since, by virtue of him arguing, he must presuppose the use of his vocal cords and tongue, etc.
As regards coercion, property is established through the principle of self ownership and homesteading. It's not circular. The argument "You may not own what I own - and I will use force to defend my claim" is not a violation of the non-aggression principle when property becomes owned legitimately.
You cannot argue that you do not own yourself. Your body is your legitimate property and you are allowed to defend it with force against others who want to use your body.
Mattheus von Guttenberg: Has no one here ever read Hoppe? Really? Private property rights must be presupposed for any argument at all. One cannot argue that he doesn't own himself since, by virtue of him arguing, he must presuppose the use of his vocal cords and tongue, etc. As regards coercion, property is established through the principle of self ownership and homesteading. It's not circular. The argument "You may not own what I own - and I will use force to defend my claim" is not a violation of the non-aggression principle when property becomes owned legitimately. You cannot argue that you do not own yourself. Your body is your legitimate property and you are allowed to defend it with force against others who want to use your body.
First, what makes you think that people do not read or understand Hoppeian viewpoint in this thread? Second, everything you have said is basically what is already said here...
I've read Hoppe and I think he's way off the mark. Any axiom is presupposed, meaning, that it is simply assumed to be true. There is - by definition - no such thing as a "necessary axiom". An axiom is a matter of choice... "supposing you take X to be true, then Y must also be true."
In logic, it is well established that all statements are either axioms or theorems (or definitions, but that's pedantry). If it is an axiom, then it is not true as a consequence of some deductions within the formal system. If it is a theorem, then it is true as a consequence of deduction from the axioms. There is no third category of "necessarily true statements which are neither proven nor assumed."
"You must accept X to be true because you can only reject X by first assuming it." This could be argued, for example, of the Law of Non-Contradiction. However, it's not correct. I can reject the Law of Non-Contradiction without first assuming it. Let me illustrate:
"The Law of Non-Contradiction is null and void." I say.
"Ah," you say, "but since it's null and void, it is also not null and void! Ha! You can't escape it! You must accept the Law of Non-Contradiction either way!"
To which I respond, "It is true, as you say, that I must accept the Law of Non-Contradiction even if I reject it.... but it is also true that I must not accept the Law of Non-Contradiction if I reject it, as well."
In other words, it's impossible to convince the irrationalist that he must accept the laws of logic, starting only on his own assumptions. The laws of logic are only necessarily true if you first assume them.
Hoppe's axiom of self-ownership fares no better. Self-ownership is only necessarily the case if you first assume it. David Friedman delivers the coup de grace here.
I have an awesome respect for HHH but on this one point he's just way off!
To say that property rights needs coercion is a plain contradiction in terms. That is because the only way to define coercion is the threat of aggression, that is to use force against your property. To defend your property from aggression is not aggression, indeed to restore your property from a previous aggression is not either.
That the problem of social order needs norms, and hence that ethics is normative is a truth statment. However, this has nothing to do with coercion. The only legitimate source of enforcement is your own will, you are allowed to enforce your own will through contracts. But this is not coercion, its just your will.
If you don't accept the law of non contradiction, I really dont understand why are you talking at all. Furthermore, I dont know how you will convince me that your nonsense must be listened. After all the opposite of what you say could be said by you as well and nothing could be pointed out about it. This is just ridiculous.
I basically agree with what Coase has been saying here. Unless anyone comes up with either a viable basis for natural rights (no one has, IMO) or unless all 7 billion of us agree on a property rights system, rights regimes are going to be socially constructed and ultimately coercive. You cannot have an anarchist/minarchist society based on an existing or a new property rights regime that also claims non-coercion.
There are lots of other examples of why statelessness is more coercive - depradations of criminals and invaders, externalities perhaps for some people, and of course the maintenance of property rights themselves. These points have long been put forward by non-anarchist libertarians for a long time so they shouldn't be new.
We can't pretend that we're all getting a start from an equal footing either. Some people call that luck, but I call that being constrained by an existing property rights regime and by the decisions of your ancestors. Jefferson and Paine both wrote a lot about this, and about what today we might call the path dependence of past coercions. Now - is a state remedy for something like this - something like poverty or inequality - itself coercive? Of course it is, and I would never deny it. The case is that it is less coercive than the alternative.
Rather than simply claiming the mantle of non-coerciveness and avoiding the question of the coercion of property rights regimes, libertarians simply ought to recognize that they have no special priority or claim - and actually make a case. That case is hard to make, of course. We can't measure "coercion" after all. But we can't just assume it away for our favored philosophy either. This is the advantage of pluralism and self-government (which would not be possible if self-government were constitutionally restricted in a minarchist or anarchist society). If we have a tough time figuring out the least coercive solution we ought to argue and deliberate over it.
re: "the only way to define coercion is the threat of aggression, that is to use force against your property. To defend your property from aggression is not aggression, indeed to restore your property from a previous aggression is not either. "
Nobody is arguing that defending is aggression. The argument is that the assertion of the right itself - the claim - is the aggressive act.
Unless, of course, you can produce a title to your property from God or Nature or anyone else I ought to honor.
None of this is to say private property is a bad thing. I'm definitely pro-private property. We just have to understand that it's something that is socially constructed and coercive. It also happens to be very functional, and as Coase said above - a driver of growth and prosperity.
I cannot possibly think of a non-coercive system. Even Crusoe in his island is coerced if he wants some coconut which he can’t find. So, the concept is so wide as to be fruitless. The NAP works and that’s all we can say about it.
Don't you think there are different degrees of "aggression" in different social orders? This would mean you would have to show that the NAP has the same degree of aggression as any other, only then you would be allowed to claim that the NAP isn't moral superior.
Besides I think you use a different definition of aggression/coercion as the ancaps do by intention to make an artificial argument. I am sure even the most people on earth would use it the way ancaps use it. I mean ask someone if it is an aggressive act if he defends his apple from others which he wants to eat or maybe is already eating... (This point is about a definition and I think in such a case it is not a logical fallacy to argue with an argument ad populum, since it really should not be wrong to use words with their commonly used definition)
@Daniel
The only way to express the institution of private property is to defend it. This means if you say private property is aggressive then defending it is aggressive, isn't it?
skylien -
I think you misunderstand the argument that Coase is making. The NAP is just false advertising, that's all. Anarchism or minarchism or whatever anybody tries to derive from the NAP may still be a solutin (I don't think it is - but others might be convinced). The point is, there's nothing "non-aggressive" about the NAP and the consistency of anarchism or minarchism with the NAP gives it no inherent advantage.
re: "This means if you say private property is aggressive then defending it is aggressive, isn't it? "
Absolutely.
On second thought, it's probably better to say "false hope" than "false advertising".
Daniel Kuehn:skylien - I think you misunderstand the argument that Coase is making. The NAP is just false advertising, that's all. Anarchism or minarchism or whatever anybody tries to derive from the NAP may still be a solutin (I don't think it is - but others might be convinced). The point is, there's nothing "non-aggressive" about the NAP and the consistency of anarchism or minarchism with the NAP gives it no inherent advantage. re: "This means if you say private property is aggressive then defending it is aggressive, isn't it? " Absolutely.
This confuses me now. You just said one post earlier "Nobody is arguing that defending is aggression. The argument is that the assertion of the right itself - the claim - is the aggressive act."
Now my point is: A mere claim without action means nothing. I can claim a lot of things but without action behind it they are empty claims and cannot harm anyone. So to have private property I must react with defense. And you agreed yourself that defense is not aggression. Hence private property cannot be aggressive; hence the NAP (which only allows for defensive actions to take place) cannot be aggressive.
I am not someone who argues from moral standpoints (and I don't know if ancap works), but this critique is wrong for my point of view, because it only works if you define defense as aggression.
re: "I can claim a lot of things but without action behind it they are empty claims and cannot harm anyone. So to have private property I must react with defense."
The whole problem is that you call the action "defending my claim". This presupposes the claim is legitimate. The guy you view as the "aggressor" may view your claim as illegitimate and your act as aggression and HIS act as defense, in which case you are the aggressor.
If we had a solid basis for natural rights (perhaps we do, at least insofar as we're talking about our own persons) this might be more soluble. But we don't, and ultimately you are only "defending your claim" by virtue of the fact that you've convinced 300 million people you ought to have that claim. That's hardly an air-tight ethical foundation.
Coase:Autolykos, even if everyone respected the arrangement out of knowledge that it is conducive to social order, establishing the right to control what the price of a good is (for example) still means denying others the right to do so. However, it is obvious that many do respect property rights only out of fear of violence. Do you doubt that if no one lifted a hand to stop a violation of their property rights, theft would not rise? Respecting property rights is a collective action problem, since the marginal benefit for any single person to respect property rights is often zero or close to it.
Do you mean "many" in an absolute sense or a proportionate sense? Because, if you mean the latter, then I'd say that the vast majority of people do not respect property rights only out of fear of violence (at least the vast majority of the time). Again, you're implicitly appealing to the Hobbesian "war of all against all" view of man's nature. Please support this with reasoning and/or evidence. Otherwise, if you're simply laying it down by fiat, I refuse to go along with it.
While you're at it, please demonstrate that the marginal benefit for any single person to respect property rights is indeed "often zero or close to it".
Coase:Autolykos, everyone in the world could agree to some system. You're right. But if they don't (and they don't) the system requires aggression or its threat against dissidents.
You don't think it's instinctive for a person to want to defend what he has against others trying to take it without his consent?
Finally, let me repeat something from my last post that I'd really like to see you address: Please demonstrate why you must "attack or threaten to attack anyone who is willing to compete with [you] for ownership of the resource".
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
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Daniel Kuehn:The whole problem is that you call the action "defending my claim". This presupposes the claim is legitimate. The guy you view as the "aggressor" may view your claim as illegitimate and your act as aggression and HIS act as defense, in which case you are the aggressor.
In a value-free sense, there is no aggression vs. defense - legitimacy is necessarily out of the picture. There is only coercion (defined by me as "the use or threat of physical force/violence"). So the only thing you can say in that case is whether property rights are coercive in my sense of the word - and they absolutely are. No libertarian will even argue against this, to my knowledge.
However, I don't think it's been clear that Coase (if not also you) has been arguing from a value-free standpoint.
Daniel Kuehn:If we had a solid basis for natural rights (perhaps we do, at least insofar as we're talking about our own persons) this might be more soluble. But we don't, and ultimately you are only "defending your claim" by virtue of the fact that you've convinced 300 million people you ought to have that claim. That's hardly an air-tight ethical foundation.
Indeed, you bring up something I've meant to bring up with Coase. If property rights are necessarily aggressive, then every living human beings is necessarily aggressing against every other simply by living. After all, he's taking up space that others (may/would) want to occupy.
On another note, let me repeat: there is no such thing as an air-tight - or "ultimate" - ethical foundation. It's turtles all the way down.
Michael,
Sure, and I’d be quick to also point out that the lack of conflict allows for prosperity.
Clayton,
Property rights are indeed conducive to social order, and therefore people who violate them should be dealt with harshly. It is furthermore true that people can and do come to mutually voluntary agreements regarding rights. I overstate my case when I say that property rights must be aggressive. However, since not everyone agrees all the time on everything, they must be sometimes aggressive and indeed are usually aggressive, even though this aggression can be and in my opinion is justified.
Isaac,
Calling your system of aggression “natural rights,” is ridiculous.
Mattheus,
Just because I make use of my body doesn’t mean that I have to accept that this means I own my body—perhaps I deny the concept of property altogether, or believe myself a thief, or else believe that others also have the right to my body, and it is a common-pool resource unowned by anyone. In any event, owning myself still aggresses against those who wish to own me. I should note that I think that I own myself and favor this arrangement.
Legitimacy is established through aggression. If I deny your definition of legitimacy, you must impose it on me.
haymor,
If I own myself, as most libertarians would no doubt claim, then in order for you to establish property rights you must aggress against me. I don’t deny property rights but simply claim that they are aggressive in nature without some highly unlikely conditions. Alternatively, just let aggression mean attacking someone, whether or not he owns himself.
skylien,
Property rights probably allow for more coercion. The more people, the more property rights, the more aggression. However, in terms of aggression per person, who knows.
As for your second point, here’s why that doesn’t work. Someone says, “This is mine, which makes it defense to insist that it’s mine, which means that if others disagree that it’s mine, I can attack them.” That’s aggression.
Autolykos,
Do you mean "many" in an absolute sense or a proportionate sense? Because, if you mean the latter, then I'd say that the vast majority of people do notrespect property rights only out of fear of violence (at least the vast majority of the time). Again, you're implicitly appealing to the Hobbesian "war of all against all" view of man's nature. Please support this with reasoning and/or evidence. Otherwise, if you're simply laying it down by fiat, I refuse to go along with it.
By dehomogenizing property rights, this becomes clear. Most people probably respect the right to self-ownership for reasons apart from fear of violence. Most people probably also, however, have been tempted to steal something, no matter how minor, and were only held back by fear of reprisal. Who hasn’t committed some minor infraction of property rights because no one was watching?
While you're at it, please demonstrate that the marginal benefit for any single person to respect property rights is indeed"often zero or close to it".
Property rights produce massive positive externalities in the form of an orderly and rich society. My personal disrespect for property rights does not threaten this system unless I happen to have a nuke, which is unlikely. So unless I fear reprisal, I have no particular reason to obey the system. This reprisal, however, could be nonviolent.
It is, but if other people disagree that it belongs to you, your defense is aggression.
Finally, let me repeat something from my last post that I'd really like to see you address: Please demonstrate why you must"attack or threaten to attack anyone who is willing to compete with [you] for ownership of the resource".
I thought I had answered this, but it isn’t necessarily true. You could come to an agreement, or else just leave each other alone. The current property rights system, however, does not seem to be entirely or even mostly those scenarios.
autolykos -
re: "If property rights are necessarily aggressive, then every living human beings is necessarily aggressing against every other simply by living. After all, he's taking up space that others (may/would) want to occupy.
Absolutely. This seems to bother some people, but it shouldn't. What Gene and I have said elsewhere (and what I get the sense Coase is sympathetic to) is that what you say here is true and the point is that minimizing this aggression and coercion so that we can live in a civilized way is the task at hand, and it's harder to solve than short-cuts like "abolish the state". You can argue that anarchism or minarchism is appropriate, of course, but it's not axiomatically superior.
Daniel Kuehn:The whole problem is that you call the action "defending my claim". This presupposes the claim is legitimate. The guy you view as the "aggressor" may view your claim as illegitimate and your act as aggression and HIS act as defense, in which case you are the aggressor. If we had a solid basis for natural rights (perhaps we do, at least insofar as we're talking about our own persons) this might be more soluble. But we don't, and ultimately you are only "defending your claim" by virtue of the fact that you've convinced 300 million people you ought to have that claim. That's hardly an air-tight ethical foundation.
I think you misunderstood me (sorry I see that I expressed myself not clearly). I only was speaking about the physical act of defending and aggression. I completely understand that you cannot generalize it to “defending my (any) claim”. This would imply that I could claim “I have the right to cut off any ones hand” and to express this claim I have finally to aggress against someone to “defend” my claim. I am not presupposing that claims are legitimate, I am saying that the action I have to undertake to express my claim is finally determining if my claim is an aggressive claim or not. The claim “to cut off hands” is clearly aggressive due to its actions it is demanding. Private property does not need an aggressive action to support its claim.
E.g.: Joe finds an apple which nobody belongs to. Joe picks it up, and wants to eat it. Now Jack comes along (who does not agree to private property) and tells Joe “Sorry Joe I want the apple because I don’t believe in private property so give it to me or I will “defend” my claim”. Joe doesn’t need to do anything, except physically defending the apple if Jack attacks. There is no aggressive action necessary for Joe to express his claim of private property. Now it is different for Jacks claim, his needs to be expressed with real aggressive actions.
What happens if you turn the story around and Jack finds the apple; Joe would not have a problem with that. But the amazing task for Jack is, he needs to ask (if you want to be consistent, Coase made that point!) 7 Billion people on the world if he is allowed to eat the apple, otherwise he would be "aggressive", and everyone would have to agree. Good luck to Jack.
Now the point of Coase was (I think) that you cannot be for private property unless all people agree, or it will be an aggression to all who are not for private property. It is utopian to believe 7 billion people will agree any time in the future, so lets say it is half/half on the world. The outcome would be that interestingly half A (who is against private property) would have to aggress by physical means to express their claim against half B(who is for private property). Contrary to half A, half B has no problem what so ever with all the property half A has, and the only actions they need to undertake to express their claim for private property would be to defend the property they have in their hands if it is attacked.
So for me it doesn't change so far. The NAP is morally superior, since it leads to less physical aggression, which is what counts (and hurts).
Really all I'm saying is that libertarianism has no deductively obvious priority within the liberal tradition. I'm certainly within the liberal tradition, I certainly agree that a limited state is required in a social order that minimizes coercion, I certainly agree that private property rights are required in a social order that minimizes coercion - etc, etc. I just don't accept the rationalist short-cut to minarchism or anarchism.
Coase:By dehomogenizing property rights, this becomes clear. Most people probably respect the right to self-ownership for reasons apart from fear of violence. Most people probably also, however, have been tempted to steal something, no matter how minor, and were only held back by fear of reprisal. Who hasn’t committed some minor infraction of property rights because no one was watching?
I'm very confused by your term "dehomogenizing property rights" - can you explain this please? Otherwise, by "this becomes clear", do you mean the Hobbesian notion of "the war of all against all"? Or what?
Coase:Property rights produce massive positive externalities in the form of an orderly and rich society. My personal disrespect for property rights does not threaten this system unless I happen to have a nuke, which is unlikely. So unless I fear reprisal, I have no particular reason to obey the system. This reprisal, however, could be nonviolent.
What if not everyone agrees that the externalities it produces are positive? What if not everyone shares the same notion of what an orderly and rich society is? You see, you run into the same problems that you're accusing us of.
On another note, your argument above is again a non sequitur. It simply does not follow that, because your personal disrespect for property rights does not threaten property rights as a whole (nukes notwithstanding), fear of reprisal must be the only reason for you to respect property rights. If your argument also rests on any hidden assumptions, please feel free to bring them out at this point.
Coase:It is, but if other people disagree that it belongs to you, your defense is aggression.
My defense is aggression to them. There is no objective definition of "aggression". All definitions are necessarily subjective and therefore arbitrary.
Coase:I thought I had answered this, but it isn’t necessarily true. You could come to an agreement, or else just leave each other alone. The current property rights system, however, does not seem to be entirely or even mostly those scenarios.
Why should we restrict ourselves to the context of the current (statist) property-rights system? It's hardly even complete (again thanks to the state).
However, even within that context, your argument about the current system of property rights being aggressive cannot stand, as you cannot predict who or how many people are or will be willing to compete with you for ownership of a resource. That means the possibility remains that no one will do so, even within the current system - so the current system is not necessarily aggressive (i.e. not aggressive at all times and places).
Daniel Kuehn:Absolutely. This seems to bother some people, but it shouldn't. What Gene and I have said elsewhere (and what I get the sense Coase is sympathetic to) is that what you say here is true and the point is that minimizing this aggression and coercion so that we can live in a civilized way is the task at hand, and it's harder to solve than short-cuts like "abolish the state". You can argue that anarchism or minarchism is appropriate, of course, but it's not axiomatically superior.
Since human existence itself is aggressive, then all human action must also be aggressive. Therefore, there's no way to minimize aggression and coercion without minimizing human action and ultimately human life.
re: "Now the point of Coase was (I think) that you cannot be for private property unless all people agree, or it will be an aggression to all who are not for private property."
I don't know if Coase would agree with me on this or not (or if you've accurately represented his point here), but I would say this: all property regimes - private or collective - are coercive. You say Coase says "you cannot be for private property". I say "you can be for it, you just have to acknowledge you are adopting a coercive stance, but a good stance nonetheless".
re: "The NAP is morally superior, since it leads to less physical aggression, which is what counts (and hurts)."
Again, I think you're giving the NAP too much credit. NAP needs to assume a rights regime to be intelligible - in other words, NAP assumes and accepts coercion. If you only care about physical aggression, then perhaps it works. "Don't be physically aggressive" is a pretty good decision rule to avoid physical aggression. I think the people who would object to this would say that there are other coercions out there besides physical aggression that we may want to prioritize, and which we may even want to use the coercion of physical aggression to solve (with the understanding that that expenditure of coercion may solve other coercions and therefore minimize total coercions - which is what I care about).
This has been a great discussion - gotta get to work now.
re: "Since human existence itself is aggressive, then all human action must also be aggressive. Therefore, there's no way to minimize aggression and coercion without minimizing human action and ultimately human life."
Now that's an interesting thought! It seems Coase and I need to add a few qualifiers.
One turn of phrase I use a lot is to say that the real pursuit of liberty entails find the arrangements of rights and the social order that is consistent with human dignity and minimizes coercion. Perhaps that's a start. In addition to there being something objectionable about coercion there is something beneficial about human life and dignity that we're seeking to maximize. That's the purpose of innovation, progress, growth, enlightenment, etc. - after all. Killing all humans may solve the problem of minimizing coercion because there will be no one left to coerce, but it fails the test of maximizing human dignity.
So what we're really looking at is a net benefit maximization problem, not a cost minimization problem.
Daniel Kuehn:Really all I'm saying is that libertarianism has no deductively obvious priority within the liberal tradition. I'm certainly within the liberal tradition, I certainly agree that a limited state is required in a social order that minimizes coercion, I certainly agree that private property rights are required in a social order that minimizes coercion - etc, etc. I just don't accept the rationalist short-cut to minarchism or anarchism.
@ Daniel,
I fully agree, as said earlier I am no moralist. Whatever works best, and I am agnostic what is best at the moment (anarchism, minarchism, ordo liberalism..) since I still know and understand far to less to form a definite opinion yet...
EDIT: I am not sure if that one was for me..
Just want to quickly address this. In a value-free sense, moral superiority simply does not exist. All morality is subjective.
Daniel Kuehn:Now that's an interesting thought! It seems Coase and I need to add a few qualifiers.
I'm glad you found it interesting. :)
Qualifiers are fine - just keep in mind that this means you're deviating from your original thesis.
Daniel Kuehn:One turn of phrase I use a lot is to say that the real pursuit of liberty entails find the arrangements of rights and the social order that is consistent with human dignity and minimizes coercion. Perhaps that's a start. In addition to there being something objectionable about coercion there is something beneficial about human life and dignity that we're seeking to maximize. That's the purpose of innovation, progress, growth, enlightenment, etc. - after all. Killing all humans may solve the problem of minimizing coercion because there will be no one left to coerce, but it fails the test of maximizing human dignity. So what we're really looking at is a net benefit maximization problem, not a cost minimization problem.
To me, the question now is, what do you mean by the phrase "human dignity"?