Property is thought to be the back bone of Libertarianism, but it is not. Freedom is the back bone and its respect calls for better qualifiers to "property" then the dominate (and failing) conflations and confusion.
This is so confused and confusing I could not bear to get through it.
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under - Mencken
Where is the first point that seems confusing? I have often thougt a diagram would make this simpler, but do not have a way to post graphics that I know of.
Freedom is too vague concept. Property is more specific. That's why it is essential.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
3) Interference can be judged via the scientific method of control and experiment.
Not quite. The scientific method and the mechanism by which social norms arise are both instances of order emerging from a process of discovery through trial-and-error (Darwinian selection). For this reason, neither property nor liberty are fundamental or ultimate. If there is an objectively ultimate aim of human social norms it would be individual satisfaction and (more indirectly) biological survival and reproduction.
Property law and the range of permission-free action (liberty/freedom) both arise from a process of discovery through trial-and-error. You can read more about my views on this subject here and here.
Clayton -
Freedom is only made to seem complex by hucksters who want to confuse the issue. Freedom is being left alone. Its that simple. And so a simple test defines it. Where as property is of neccesity more complex. It means to leave a thing alone. But not all things, the thing has to be defined. So at best the definition of property starts in complexity where freedom is already complete, that being "left alone". There is no clear method to judge "complexity" but its obvious that if something has a set of properties and another thing has all those and more then its going to be more complex. So its also obvious that 'property' is more complex then absolute freedom. With absolute freedom the concept of property isn't even meaningful. The issue is so fantastically simple its embarressing how badly Rothbard and gang have been able to manipulate things on the behalf of their privileged (statist) patrons.
"Freedom is too vague (a) concept". Perhpas the problem is in following a silly piece of circular reasoning. But the post has made the concept of absolute freedom very clear indeed. So clear that it unravels itself in practice. Clearly another assumption or judgement, creating a compromise is called for to create the workable concept which would be qualified social freedom. If non domenation, or true competition is respected, then equality is the compromise. Its a choice and open to discussion, but equal rights to live and create seem like a no brainer, even if arbitrary. Misanthropes aren't going to like that word "equality", because what they want is to be unilateral, without cooperation or even coordination. But there is no equal liberty without that. The fantasy of Rothbard is a lie, and supported by those that profit from their aggression. Aggression that is proven in the opening post. And with aggression there is no free-market. And yes property is essential to freedom. That is proven right there in the opening post. No circular logic, no legerdemain.
Ohh My thats confusing.... phew~
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Yes quite. I was marveling at the next sentence, and wondering what would happen if all math was always assumed to be trial and error. Pretty dumb eh? The jest of this post here is to wave hands at a solid proof of what freedom is and pretend that it does not, can not exist. But it does because tautological manipulations are still valid, and they do not at any time rely on trial and error. The conditions of the free-market rely on eliminating privileged decisions which come solely by force. So if you want to talk about the free-market and its blessings then those conditions which are tautological with that assumption are fully relevent. As for absolute property, that which does not infringe on absolute freedom and only protects absolute freedom, it is possible when natural form and natural substence are not scarce. I can't tell if that example actually contridicts ""...neither property nor liberty are fundamental or ultimate.", because the sentence itself is both built on a vauge assumption (that all is trial and error) and by itself pretty darn vague. Is ultimate property like extreme sports? There is no need to be wishy washy on freedom. In fact it can only get you into trouble. I read your post right up until it was obvious that the question on concrete ehtics was going to be begged. And I am just going to agree, if you start out with an assumption "I will content myself here with pointing out that ethics is not a science in the sense in which that word is applied to the physical sciences—to the determination of matters of objective fact, or to the establishment of scientific laws which enable us to make exact predictions. " then by gosh and by golly you can then prove the assumption later on. Now if you want to talk about what are the speicific conditions necesary to forestall domination then that is still open to hard edged analysis, which will have no place for trial and error. Its when things ärive"by trial and error that strong have more say then logic does. Since privilege gathers power and uses it to obscure truth, trial and error is an espicially low yield method for enquiry. What can happen is that a shill for the Austrian nobility can move to America and continue as a shill for American privilege.
Let's just start with the first point. Is freedom a social concept? No. That would mean one could only be free within a society. Freedom is a natural state. You are free whether there's another person on the planet with you or not. Tyranny then is the denial of what is natural to you, meaning the denial of the freedom you already have.
I think what you mean is the recognition and protection of freedom is a political concept, meaning the fact of our being free is enshrined in law and protected as a right. That's true, but the source of freedom is not a social institution, its source is our nature as living, deciding beings.
Neither is property necessarily a social concept, for you would have property whether in a society or not. It is natural to all living things to require property for their own use simply to stay alive. The ant and the lion both drink water, meaning they take it for their own sole use, in order to stay alive. And so does humankind.
What is a negative concept? A vacuum is a negative concept. Freedom is a negative concept. A vacuum is defined by what is not in it. Freedom is defined as the absence of human caused harm. Would freedom exist without society? Yes but society does not generate it. A more careful reading of the post would have made that clear. Because saying freedom is a social concept is nothing more then saying that "vacuum" is a concept dealing with matter. Which it most certainly is. What is to be gained in pretending that 'freedom' has any meaning outside of the context of people interacting? AKA the social context. I do not mean freedom is a recognition. That seems needlessly elaborate to impute an observer with awareness and recognition. I speak simply of a state. The state of absolute freedom. Such bare and simple concepts are necessary to avoid statist guile or deception on the way to really understanding what a free-market entails. Property is a correlary to freedom, just as shown. And it too has no meaning outside the social context. What you are trying to do is simply beg the question of the privileged concept of property. You have some notion that "property" exists in society or not. The things certainly do, but property is not things''. Its a treatment of things. A treatment that applies to others, in that others do not do something. If I claimed the moon as my property, because I found it useful to look at. (1) What would it mean to my "property rights" when others were freely looking at it too? Is it my property because I use it as I please, or because I can keep others from using it as they please. I say the former, and Rothbard says the latter. The former is the free-market, the latter is distributed statist privilege. These being cases I can eventually prove with rigour. That is if we can avoid all the avoidable semantic quibling. And to that end, I'l promise to never pretend that "society" is any more then a collection of individuals. This is not a prelude to any socialist B.S.
(1) Certainly the ministry of homestead wouldn't arbitrarliy rule that such a use is insuficient! They clearly have no grounds for such an arguement.