I found this comment in the blog on the book about the Catholic Church and the market. If someone gets on the wrong plane and he is discovered at 30,000 feet, and there are no parachutes, does this give the owner of the plane the right to push him out for trespassing or must they wait until they arrive back at the airport? What are the conditions for either?
Technically the plane owner would then be violating the property rights of the person whose house the guy landed on.
Inquisitor:This is not a difficult dilemma to solve. Simply, trespassers, unless they resort to force, may not be murdered to be removed. The plane will eventually land. When it does, it can request payment. Killing the individual is not proportionate at all.
Murder, definitely not. Tasering on the other hand...
In my opinion, tresspassing did not even occur. Everybody just made a mistake.
If "someone gets on the wrong plane" as stipulated in the Opening Post, that means someone let him on the plane. He is not a stow-away nor a cheat.
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Will a purely libertarian world ever use the common adage: "The customer is always right!"
xahrx:Technically the plane owner would then be violating the property rights of the person whose house the guy landed on.
Looking at the practical aspects of this "dilemma" alone, the whole scenario is ridiculous. It makes no sense to expect the airplane owner to throw him out of the plane even if he had the right to do so. It would probably be bad for business in more ways than one:
1) higher (I would venture to say that, in all likelihood, no insurance carrier would even permit discarding solid matter from the planes) insurance premiums and legal defense fees for dealing with complaints of random airborne assaults
2) bad reputation for extremely poor customer service
xahrx: Technically the plane owner would then be violating the property rights of the person whose house the guy landed on.
I know this wasn't part of the original statement, but let's assume the pilot lands on a runway and not a house.
"book about the Catholic Church and the market."
I take it then that the Pope's market stance would conclude that it would not be murder to toss him off the plane and have faith in 'a wing and a prayer' for him to survive....
"Oh, I wish I could pray the way this dog looks at the meat" - Martin Luther
How about a scenario where the person is landless and all lands are legally occupied. What are the options?
You can't push him into the sea as that woul be tantamount to killing him. If you require a payment from him then where can he stand inwhich to excercise his absolute right of self-ownership?
That is honestly very silly. Where do you usually make payments to a firm?
And if you do not own land, you rent it or share it.
Inquisitor:No, that'd be murder. At most the owner could force the individual to pay for the flight, out of present wealth or future earnings.
I agree you could settle out of his present assets; but to attach future earnings is slavery isn't it?
Inquisitor:if you do not own land, you rent it or share it.
I thought a right of self-ownership did not have to be gifted or purchased.
The right to self-ownership is not the right to appropriate resources. The two are entirely separate.
Inquisitor:The right to self-ownership is not the right to appropriate resources. The two are entirely separate.
"self" by definition means inhabiting a body of a person and the body occupies a particular location in space/time (resources). The two can not be separated.
Yes, and you own the body and no more than that. Merely existing does not entitle you to any land whatsoever.
Inquisitor:Yes, and you own the body and no more than that. Merely existing does not entitle you to any land whatsoever.
You body has to occupy a specific location in space/time. If all locations (land) are owned then you must pay a tribute to the owner which violates your absolute right of self-ownership.
Inquisitor:How is your self-ownership violated, in any way whatsoever? Nothing you owned has been taken from you. You do not own the value of land you don't even own... By such silly reasoning anything you must pay for is 'violating' your self-ownership.
The exclusive use in an inelastic, scarcity market compels those you exclude to labor (the costs to occupy other locations goes up by your exclusive use) which violates their absolute right of self-ownership. So my labor has been taken from me and nothing produced via human labor is exchanged for it as the location pre-exists human labor. There is no choice in the manner because to be alive as a "self" I must occupy a location somewhere. If all somewheres are owned, then there is no place I can be that affords me the abolute right of self-ownership. If of course a right does not have to be purcahsed or gifted.
You do believe rights don't have to be purchased or gifted - correct?
By such reasoning I have a right to anything necessary for my right to self-ownership to be provided for me, including food, healthcare, etc. Food etc. is as necessary as location. I reject that conclusion, and maintain that you have no more than a right to appropriate; if there is nothing, tough luck.
Inquisitor:By such reasoning I have a right to anything necessary for my right to self-ownership to be provided for me, including food, healthcare, etc. Food etc. is as necessary as location. I reject that conclusion, and maintain that you have no more than a right to appropriate; if there is nothing, tough luck.
Food and healthcare are the products of human labor. Human labor is the basis of property rights. Land in which to occupy while "being" human is freely provided - no person "provides" it to you because it is not the product of human labor. To exist is to occupy land somewhere.
A location is not "necessary" like food, water and air to continue to exist. To exist IS TO occupy a specific location in space/time. They can not be separated.
If you reject the conclusion then you must also deny the absolute right of self-ownership of those being legally and physically excluded from any location.
To acquire land one must labour on it. It therefore is attained via labour. You call this capital, I say whatever. Any and all land must be laboured upon to be appropriated. Its market value is not what is owned.
Want to make up some silly right to a location? Fine, then it is incumbent upon your parents to provide it, as they bring you into existence.
Inquisitor:To acquire land one must labour on it.
To exist I must occupy land.
Inquisitor:It therefore is attained via labour.
Land is transformed via labor into capital.
If labor is required to make a payment inorder to have a right to exist occupying some location, where all locations are legally owned, then it is not logically possible to have a right of self-ownership that doesn't require a payment or gift.
Inquisitor:You call this capital, I say whatever.
If land pre-exist human labor then labor can not produce land. It creates capital.
Inquisitor:Want to make up some silly right to a location?
I just want logical consitency with regards to the fundamental tenet of libertarianism (the right of self-ownership). Either share the economic rent or change the fundamental tenet.
Inquisitor:then it is incumbent upon your parents to provide it, as they bring you into existence.
Sorry - then it is gifted to you and is not a right.
WmBGreene:So my labor has been taken from me and nothing produced via human labor is exchanged for it as the location pre-exists human labor. There is no choice in the manner because to be alive as a "self" I must occupy a location somewhere. If all somewheres are owned, then there is no place I can be that affords me the abolute right of self-ownership. If of course a right does not have to be purcahsed or gifted.
So my labor has been taken from me and nothing produced via human labor is exchanged for it as the location pre-exists human labor. There is no choice in the manner because to be alive as a "self" I must occupy a location somewhere. If all somewheres are owned, then there is no place I can be that affords me the abolute right of self-ownership. If of course a right does not have to be purcahsed or gifted.
That might be a valid argument if people just popped into existence at random points in space. But they don't, and it isn't.
Paul:That might be a valid argument if people just popped into existence at random points in space. But they don't, and it isn't.
Yes. We start out as being the joint property of our parents (mother in superior/father in inferior role) until we achieve personhood in utero deemed worthy of protection by society. We are all in a continuum of asserting our individuation starting at the time of fertilization/conception. That process ends at majority status.
So where exactly do we establish the absolute right of self-ownership not requiring a payment or gift?
Paul:Draw the line anywhere you like; the moment of conception or your 95th birthday, it makes absolutely no difference to this argument.
Anywhere you do draw the line violates the absolute right of self-ownership unless we change property rights and obligation around land ownership.
That has everything to do with this argument.
A location, e.g. an appartment room; not necessarily land.
The right to self-ownership covers your body ONLY. Nothing else.
Semantic quibble. It is still not enough to justify anything such as some sort of tax.
False dilemma.
The location is most certainly gifted to you; self-ownership is not.
Here is why one is a self-owner:
http://www.mises.org/story/2291
No 'right' to a location is necessary to justify it.
Inquisitor:A location, e.g. an appartment room; not necessarily land.
An apartment room is capital not "land". "Land" in economic parlance means everything that pre-exists human labor. I prefer to use the term "location" rather than land. So without access to any capital we exist on the inhabitble, dry surface of the earth as "landed" animals.
Inquisitor:The right to self-ownership covers your body ONLY. Nothing else.
And your body at any point in time occupies a specific location. By simple logic they can not be separated.
Inquisitor:It is still not enough to justify anything such as some sort of tax.
All exclusive uses of locations in an inelastic, scarcity market creates economic rent. It is a naturally occuring economic phenomena. It can no more be done away with than we can do away with gravity as two or more people can not occupy the exact same location at the same time. The only question we can ask and answer is "who shall receive the benefits and who should pay the costs of exclusive use?".
If we stipulate that the exclusive user of locations pay for the benefit that the location affords (out of the economic rent) as an obligation to those they excluded to uphold the excluded's absolute right of self-ownership then we are not violating the absolute right of self-ownership of the exlusive user because they contribute no labor towards the creation of the unimproved land value (economic rent) by definition. It is the location's proximity to the labor and services (including public infrastructure) of those they excluded that gives rise to the economic rent.
As labor is the basis of property rights.
Inquisitor:The location is most certainly gifted to you; self-ownership is not.
They can not be logically separated.
Inquisitor: No 'right' to a location is necessary to justify it.
There is only an equal right to self-ownership which requires no infringement on the equal right to the same of any other individual.
I would have to contend that property rights would allow you to detain the trespasser. If he forcefully resists your attempt to detain him, then you could throw him out.
WalterEC:I would have to contend that property rights would allow you to detain the trespasser. If he forcefully resists your attempt to detain him, then you could throw him out.
Detain? He's trapped on a plane.
The trespasser is only liable for the value of the service he has stolen. If the plane has to land to unload, he's liable for that too. If he was stowaway on a spaceship and his presence would deprive the other occupants of sufficient oxygen than you could eject him.
This scenario has nothing to do with land use. A plane will eventually land.
Property is not divided by census. Just because a person is born does mean he is entitled to steal someone else's land.
Of course, we don't live in a socialist centrally planned society, so its a moot issue. Demand for habitat will create the supply. Living space is not static, you can build skyscrapers.
Peace
JonBostwick:Just because a person is born does mean he is entitled to steal someone else's land.
Just because a person is born does mean he is entitled to steal someone else's land.
If all lands are currently legally occupied then where can he stand in which he doesn't have his absolute right of self-ownership violated by having to pay someone or having it gifted to him?
...your local village idiot here...
It seems to me that a justice of restitution is not the only option. In any exchange regarding property it can be mutually beneficial, beneficial to one party, beneficial to neither party, or one party takes a loss - four different possible outcomes. (or limitless if considering multiple parties).
The most reasonable outcome in this instance would seem to be neutral. The airline is going where it wants to go regardless of the hapless passenger, and the hapless passenger is arriving at a distination he did not desire. Neither party is whole-ly satisfied or at best neutrally satisfied.
Regarding property - owned, rented or gifted. Once again, one cannot factor out a major component of self-ownership and property - LOVE. (or conversely - the lack of.) The process of exchange is not exclusively monetary. Liberty would be as useless as socialism if not for human LOVE.
Does not the concept of 'praxeology' consider desire and human emotion in economic exchange to be a major component if not co-mingled with monetary value?
Because this is beginning to bore me, I will just point out:
-Creation is not what entitles one to property and the Lockean proviso is pure, unsubstantiated fiction (reliant on theological presuppositions.) Self-ownership is only justifiable on the grounds in the article I provided. One does not own 'value' in anything. Austrianism does not directly use Locke's homesteading theories, but rather modified versions of them. See Hoppe (Economics and Ethics of Private Property, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism), Long, de Jasay and others on this.
-Since you seem to believe all non-labour based income should be taxed, you ought to tax all market transactions. Many involve prices above the labour that went into their production.
-It does not follow from the fact that one occupies a location that they have a right to it. I could simply switch the words 'gifted' to 'obliged to provide'. Thus, your parents are obliged to provide you with a location once they bring you into existence. Thus from a 'gift' it becomes a 'duty', which is the other side of the coin of most rights.
-Private ownership extends the availability of space, it does not diminish it. Per Skousen, land supply is not entirely inelastic. The distinction between capital and land is iffy, per Fetter. It is not some incontrovertible fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Fetter#Land_as_capital
I believe I was picturing this scenario in a different light. The picture in my mind was of a stowaway on a private plane. I would still contend, with my image of the situation, that the stowaway's intentions can never be fully known. You also could not be expected to believe the stowaway's explanation for the accidental boarding. This would make it necessary to detain the person in some way within the confines of the plane. (ie; tie him to a chair)
WmBGreene: JonBostwick:Just because a person is born does mean he is entitled to steal someone else's land. If all lands are currently legally occupied then where can he stand in which he doesn't have his absolute right of self-ownership violated by having to pay someone or having it gifted to him?
I'm not trying to blow your mind, but all dwellings are not occupied and never will be.
Oh yeah. The self-ownership rights of babies are really threatened these days. Those damn parents, always charging rent.
I give in, you win. A new born is allowed to move into whatever home he wishes. Happy?
Edit: woops, I see I had a typo before.
JonBostwick:all dwellings are not occupied and never will be.
I said if all lands were legally occupied. "Dwellings" having been constructed via human labor are capital not land.
JonBostwick:The self-ownership rights of babies are really threatened these days.
Then when exactly do you get to excercise the absolute right of self-ownership that doesn't have to be purcahsed or gifted?
Inquisitor:Since you seem to believe all non-labour based income should be taxed, you ought to tax all market transactions. Many involve prices above the labour that went into their production.
If labor went into producing them, then they are capital not land.
Inquisitor:It does not follow from the fact that one occupies a location that they have a right to it.
Is it a fact that to be alive as a human one has to occupy a location somewhere?
Inquisitor:your parents are obliged to provide you with a location once they bring you into existence.
Is a right an obligation that someone is to provide, be gifted or have to purchase?
When exactly does one have a right to self-ownership that isn't obliged, gifted or purcahsed?
WmBGreene:If labor went into producing them, then they are capital not land.
And I have given sources as to why this distinction is ultimately irrelevant. Your entire objection falls to pieces once one realizes that territory can be expanded by developing land, and in fact it is an argument against your very position.
Yes.
A right of one person can be a voluntarily-entered upon duty by another to provide them with something, yes.
In a sense, never. It is always bound up with an obligation of others not to interfere with it.
What about taxing the rest of market transactions, like I mentioned?