Political Theory

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Geoffrey Allan Plauché — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:45:23 GMT

macsnafu:
gplauche:
We should not do like Rawls, who admitted repeatedly that "We want to define the original position so that we get the desired solution."

Thank you! The only thing Rawls proved was what HE wanted, what HE thought was fair. He couldn't allow for the possibility that other people, even if they were in his "original position", might have very different ideas about what was fair or just.

In "On the Social Contract and the Persistance of Anarchy," I wrote:

"The central justificatory concept in social contract theory is consent. For any state to be just, it must have the consent of the governed. Social contract theory attempts to use the concept of consent to explain the origin, purpose, and justification of society and the state. But what does consent mean in this context? Is it the consent of all? Or just of the majority? Or of the strongest party? Can one man or group of men declare consent for another? Must the consent be explicit, or can it be merely assumed? Generally, in social contract theory, consent is merely assumed for all provided certain conditions are met. On this view, consent means implicit or tacit consent. People residing in a given territory can be presumed to have consented to the state that rules over it if said state were something to which a reasonable man would give his consent. Quite naturally there are as many accounts of what is reasonable as there are social contract theorists: for Hobbes, it is peace, order, and security provided by an absolute sovereign (preferably a monarch); for Locke, it is the protection of the individual's rights to life, liberty, and property by a limited, representative government; for Rawls, it is the socio-economic distribution that
the reasonable man would choose from the original position behind a veil of ignorance, namely, a social-welfare state; for Jan Narveson, it is libertarian anarchism. There is something rather suspicious about a seemingly consent-based theory that can accommodate such widely divergent and incompatible conclusions, and in which what turns out to be reasonable is happily in accord with the personal preferences of the theorist or those already in power. This observation is not in itself a refutation of social contract theory, but, since most social contract theories seek to impose hefty positive obligations upon us to society and the state, it at least suggests that the burden of proof is on the social contract theorist."

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

macsnafu — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:30:57 GMT

gplauche:
We should not do like Rawls, who admitted repeatedly that "We want to define the original position so that we get the desired solution."

Thank you! The only thing Rawls proved was what HE wanted, what HE thought was fair. He couldn't allow for the possibility that other people, even if they were in his "original position", might have very different ideas about what was fair or just.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Geoffrey Allan Plauché — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:00:48 GMT

Donny with an A:
Sorry about the cryptic "objection." I was trying to convey that no one "appears" on the Earth after appropriation has occurred, but rather, parties to the original appropriative acts have offspring, who have only a dubious claim to resources that perhaps their parents really did have a claim to.

Why a dubious claim? I don't follow this.

Donny with an A:
By making the example one where Party A is actually the only one on the island, and Party B does not exist in any form, complicates the issue, I think.

I don't follow this either.

Donny with an A:
A better way of thinking of it might be that Party A appropriated all the coconut palms except what B needed to survive, and then B had a child (with who...? whatever), Party C. Would C have a claim to any of A's trees? It's kind of difficult to say, even if we are willing to allow that B was okay with A's actions.

I don't see why C would have any claim to A's trees.

Donny with an A:
Let's say that when A appropriated the trees, regardless of whether or not he had to, A gave B some sort of gift which made her feel more than compensated for any injustice represented by A's actions. When B had C, C might think it unfair that A had all the trees. But is it really unfair? I don't really know.

I think it is pretty clear that it wasn't unfair, at least not in the sense of being unjust. C is just being an immature, whiny child.

Donny with an A:
That's why I'm using an example where the initial act of appropriation is seen to be unjust.

Whether C sees it as unjust doesn't have much relevance. The important question is whether it is unjust. You haven't even come close to showing that it is even plausible that it is.

Donny with an A:
If we just have C come on the scene, where A's act of appropriation is seen to be completely legitimate, then it becomes extremely difficult to say whether C has any legitimate basis for complaint.

Exactly. Because C clearly doesn't have a legitimate basis for complaint as far as justice is concerned. If the original act of appropriation was legitimate at time t-1, I find it difficult to believe you can come up with a libertarian principle that can make it unjust at time t-50. At present all we have been given are some wishy-washy intuitions that are becoming less and less plausible the more you flesh them out.

Donny with an A:
The idea of "Well I've been using this since before you were even born" is question begging in this conversation, for sure, but on some level it has intuitive plausibility, and it's hard to completely reject. It's much easier, then, to look at things in exactly the way Schmitdz is trying to avoid.

How is it question begging? Seems to me you're the one who's been doing all the question begging. The rest doesn't follow at all. If the legitimacy of the person's original appropriation is unquestionable at time t-1, and you still admit that it has intuitive plausibility and is hard to completely reject at time t-50, then I don't see how you can go from this to "It's much easier, then, to look at things in exactly the way Schmidtz is trying to avoid." Additionally, what is it that he is trying to avoid? As if he's trying to pull some sleight of hand?

Your attempts at clarification are doing nothing to reassure me that you aren't a leftist first and a libertarian second, that you have some conflicting intuitions and if push came to shove you'd eventually compromise your libertarian principles (if you have any explicitly held ones) in favor of your leftist intuitions. I'm not against left-libertarianism per se, but it seems to me that the kind of principle you appear to be groping toward couldn't possibly be compatible with libertarianism. The kind of principle you seem to be groping toward is one that would justify social-democratic or socialist expropriation and redistribution.

Donny with an A:
So while I agree with Schmitdz that it's difficult to say that someone arriving late on the scene can claim anything from the people who were around before her, I also don't think that such an example is a good way of thinking about principles of justice. It's much more coherent when everyone's around at the time of the original act of appropriation, even if that's not really the way we have to deal with property disputes today. Does that make any sense?

Yes, it does...in the sense that I understand what you are arguing. Interestingly though, Schmidtz also deals with this sort of argument later in his book:

"Suppose some bargainers say, "We didn't come to the table to talk about how to distribute the stuff on the table. We came because the stuff on the table is ours. We came here to reclaim it." Would a thought experiment like mine be relevant to a world where people have prior claims to the goods on the table? Maybe not, and maybe that is a good objection. But in that case, we must conclude not that we should reject this thought experiment but that we should reject all such thought experiments. All such experiments assume we can focus on distributing goods as if goods were presenting themselves to us more or less in an unowned state - as if we were at liberty to distribute them in any manner we deem fair. If that assumption is wrong, then all such thought experiments are wrong."

"I wish I knew of a variation on the theme of the original position with three advantages:

1. My ideal original position would avoid giving equal shares or any other distribution a position of unearned privilege in a debate about how the distributing ought to go.

2. My ideal original position would avoid preconceptions about the range of goods bargainers are entitled to distribute. It would not assume bargainers were arranging a distribution of talents or inequalities or mates but would instead assume bargainers gather to distribute whatever is as yet unclaimed. Ideal bargainers would not assume they have a right to distribute goods that have historically belonged to someone else. They might learn in particular cases that an item's history is like that of a wallet that was stolen and should be returned to a prior owner, but they would see that what they are doing in such cases is undoing wrongful transfers, not distributing.

3. Along the same lines, my ideal original position would untangle the issues of distributive and rectificatory justice. Rawls says the principle of redress holds, "that undeserved inequalities call out for redress.... The idea is to redress the bias of contingencies in the direction of equality." Rawls adds, "hatever other principles we hold, the claims of redress are to be taken into account." Not so. No one accepts what Rawls calls the principle of redress unless they already accept that undeserved inequalities are unjust (and that redress consists of moving from undeserved inequality in the direction of undeserved equality rather than, say, deserved inequality.). We need to settle that justice requires X before we have any license to say departures from X call for redress. In the original position, though, bargainers are supposed to be deciding what calls for redress. Undeserved inequality? Undeserved equality? Or nonconsenqual transfer?"

"I cannot think of a version of the original position with all these advantages, but any version lacking them is question begging in one way or another. Someone may one day devise a version of the original position with these virtues, but until that day, I am predicting that further progress in political theory will have nothing to do with original position thought experiments."

We should not do like Rawls, who admitted repeatedly that "We want to define the original position so that we get the desired solution."

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

TomG — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:11:49 GMT

jason4liberty: "And who ever guaranteed that life was fair?"

No one did here, or should! I'm just saying that it's easy for those holding the most toys to declare that to be the point in which everyone's to respect property rights. And therefore, given that things aren't equal in fact or opportunity - a utopian libertarian existence is unachievable ... best we can hope for ever is something much less than perfect.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Donny with an A — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:38:57 GMT

Sorry about the cryptic "objection." I was trying to convey that no one "appears" on the Earth after appropriation has occurred, but rather, parties to the original appropriative acts have offspring, who have only a dubious claim to resources that perhaps their parents really did have a claim to. By making the example one where Party A is actually the only one on the island, and Party B does not exist in any form, complicates the issue, I think. A better way of thinking of it might be that Party A appropriated all the coconut palms except what B needed to survive, and then B had a child (with who...? whatever), Party C. Would C have a claim to any of A's trees? It's kind of difficult to say, even if we are willing to allow that B was okay with A's actions.

Let's say that when A appropriated the trees, regardless of whether or not he had to, A gave B some sort of gift which made her feel more than compensated for any injustice represented by A's actions. When B had C, C might think it unfair that A had all the trees. But is it really unfair? I don't really know.

That's why I'm using an example where the initial act of appropriation is seen to be unjust. If we just have C come on the scene, where A's act of appropriation is seen to be completely legitimate, then it becomes extremely difficult to say whether C has any legitimate basis for complaint. The idea of "Well I've been using this since before you were even born" is question begging in this conversation, for sure, but on some level it has intuitive plausibility, and it's hard to completely reject. It's much easier, then, to look at things in exactly the way Schmitdz is trying to avoid.

But Schmitdz' objections do have some plausibility. In many cases, we're trying to impute injustice onto things that were never thought to be unjust before, where the actions which produced the alleged "injustice" occurred long before we were born, and were seen to be perfectly acceptable when they occurred. In these cases, it does seem odd that we would want to cry foul. In other cases, however, the original appropriating act is seen as the injustice, and it still seems odd to cry foul. Take, for example, the appropriation of the American West by White settlers in the 19th century. An observer living today, I think, could coherently argue that it was unfair to divide up the land in the West during a time when Black people were enslaved, therefore preventing them from obtaining their fair share. If 19th century society had been just, it might indeed have recognized the slaves' claim to some of the land, even on top of their claim against their "owners" for the fact that they were slaves. The root of such a claim wouldn't need to be egalitarian; the slaves could argue that they were forcefully prevented from improving the land first, and that this fact meant that they should have a right to some of the land.

Does this mean, though, that a slave-descended African American growing up today can coherently demand some land? Even if we allow that injustice occurred in the past, that it was never remedied, and that the result of that injustice was a set of illegitimate property titles, it still isn't clear that a person who wasn't around at the time should have a claim to the illegitimately taken land. So while I agree with Schmitdz that it's difficult to say that someone arriving late on the scene can claim anything from the people who were around before her, I also don't think that such an example is a good way of thinking about principles of justice. It's much more coherent when everyone's around at the time of the original act of appropriation, even if that's not really the way we have to deal with property disputes today. Does that make any sense?

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

MoeJuiced — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:35:31 GMT

gplauche:
To quote David Schmidtz from his Elements of Justice: Contractarian thought experiments depict everyone as getting to the table at the same time; it is of central moral importance that the world is not like that.

Precisely.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Geoffrey Allan Plauché — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:13:14 GMT

Donny with an A:
Haha now who's talking about hypothetical situations with no grounds in reality? If I allow that I can't think of a principle which would be just in such a situation, then what would it mean for any theory of justice? I mean, given your previous objections, I wonder, isn't it better to start from common ownership and move towards private ownership than to assume that some individuals appropriated all the resources before the people who don't have access even arrived on the scene?

I don't get this objection, from start to finish. What is not grounded in reality about my hypothetical situation of one castaway arriving earlier than another?

I also don't see why my previous objections should imply it is better to start from common ownership and then move towards private ownership. The equal shares argument for people arriving simultaneously in such a situation does not imply common ownership. What we're talking about here (your hypo) is what to do with previously unowned resources when two people (of unspecified talents and whatnot, I might add) arrive simultaneously and in the same dire castaway situation on a deserted island.

Now, my objections have not implied that there is a presumption in favor of equal shares, just that in some cases like your hypothetical that equal shares may have prima facie support.

To quote David Schmidtz from his Elements of Justice:

"in 'manna from heaven' cases, when we arrive at the bargaining table at the same time, aiming to divide goods to which no one has made a prior claim, we have a situation where equal shares is, from any perspective, a way of achieving a just distribution. It may not be the only way. (For example, we could flesh out the thought experiment so as to make bargainers' unequal needs more salient than their equality as citizens.) But it is one way."

"Children often are jealous when comparing their shares to those of siblings: more precisely, when comparing shares doled out by their parents. Why? Because getting a lesser share from their parents signals that they are held in lower esteem. They are not so upset about gettingl ess than their rich neighbor, because so long as no one is deliberately assigning lesser shares, no one is sending a signal of lesser esteem. Here, too, the problematic departure is form equal treatment rather than from equal shares."

"Notice: As children grow up, we expect th em to resent siblings less rather than to resent neighbors more. Resenting siblings less is a sign of maturity; resenting neighbors more is not."

"Unequal treatment presupposes treatment. Unequal shares does not. When Ackerman is being treated unequally, there is someone whom Ackerman can ask to justify treating him unequally. Moreover, in Ackerman's garden, your grabbing both apples arguably is a token of unequal treatment."

"What if Ackerman arrives years later, long after you have turned those two apples into a thriving orchard? Do you own Ackerman anything? If so, what? One apple? Two apples? Half the orchard? Nonsimultaneous arrival makes it hard to see your original grab as treatment at all, unequal or otherwise, thus blocking any easy move from a premise that there are unequal shares to a conclusion that there has been unequal treatment."

"What if you grew your orchard from only one apple? Suppose you left the second apple for Ackerman, but Ackerman arrived too late to make use of it. It is not Ackerman's fault that he was late, we may assume for argument's sake, but neither is it your fault. Would that affect what you now owe Ackerman? Why? Did you owe it to Ackerman to turn that second apple into a second orchard, to be claimed by Ackerman whenever he happens to show up?"

"In Ackerman's original garden, we would feel offended if you grab both apples. Why is the real world so different - so different that if Ackerman were to walk into the cafeteria and say, "Shouldn't I get one of those apples?" we would fell offended by Ackerman's behavior, not yours? Needless to say, the real-world Ackerman would never do that. (He is, in a word, civilized.) So, evidently, there is some difficulty in generalizing from Ackerman's thought experiment. Why? Roughly, the problem is: In our world we do not begin life by dividing a sack of apples that somehow, on its own, made its way to the bargaining table. We start with goods some people have helped to produce and others have not, already possessed and in use by some people as others arrive on the scene. Contractarian thought experiments depict everyone as getting to the table at the same time; it is of central moral importance that the world is not like that."

So, if anything, my hypothetical example is more like the real world than yours. And I think Schmidtz's argument suggests the proper interpretation of how Rothbard's principle of first acquisition applies in both hypotheticals.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

jason4liberty — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:25:18 GMT

What if the two castaways wash up on MY island, where I have lived for years, have improved drastically, cultivated, and made to offer myself a passable (for one person), if island bound, existence. Does their need give them the right to deprive me of my standard of living?

Separately - what if one of the two guys washing up on the deserted island finds a nice machete that somehow washed up (ignore the fact that it can't float). Is it his? Can the other guy claim use of it to improve his ability to survive? Even if it lessens the utility of the machete to the first guy?

Separately - what if there is one piece of obsidian on the island, useful for fashioning into a knife. One guy finds it, and does fashion it into a knife. Does the other guy have claim to it, even though an obsidian knife has a notoriously short useful life?

Donny with an A, I see you are using this special case to illustrate your point. But to me it seems the logical extension of the argument you make is that the needs of one party reduce or eliminate the property rights of another party. Is that really what you are advocating? Isn't that the first step in the doctrine that justifies socialism?

And who ever guaranteed that life was fair? Just application of principle doesn't have anything to do with fair. Just only means that each situation will be tried by exactly the same criteria.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

TomG — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:55:51 GMT

Thanks - a whole bunch of possiblities for sure, and so dependent on any group's set of beliefs, superstitions, etc. I've heard stories of how the Aztecs initially thought Cortez to be the predicted return of their god Quetzalcoatl - and given the Spaniards comparatively advanced culture and technological know-how, it must've been easy to believe it so initially. And this letting of their guard down to a superstition may have been all that was needed to allow Cortez the time necessary to subvert and ultimately conquer their mighty kingdom.

But again, who decides the rightful owners of anything - the victors of course, since possession is 9/10's of the law (and the other 1/10 usually doesn't amount to a hill of beans). It's easy to say that hunters and gatherers, nomads and such do not own the land because the concept of staking claim was illogical to their existence. And it's not a far stretch to then justify that if an Amerindian doesn't fully utilize his property - since he doesn't have the knowledge/technology to do so - then his rights to it can be superseded by a superior person who can out-do their quality/state of ownership. So again, where's the just starting point for a "level playing field" of just property rights?

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Bank Run — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:19:42 GMT

I move slow too, Tom.

Are you trying to ask a finders keepers scenerio? What if Y-tribe are rationalists, and X-tribe are irrationalists? Y-tribe will try to say that they are the current homesteaders. They will explain that they are contractual and beleive in exchanging only by voluntery means. Since it creates society to do this, they may invite X-tribe to exchange with them. X-tribe may be slave oriented enough to either exchange or leave. They may however be stern collectivist, and be honest and say that they are lazy and suvive by exploitation. Or reject all attempts of logic, and be fatalistic. Well many things could happen. You could add severel other crazy things like they are phallus worshipers and explitive everything. So if I find your wallet, what would be the moral thing to do, and what would be the lawfull thing to do? You may be gratefull enough to have located it's carcass to not inquire of the contents. One may find a shell and feel that someone owes him for this. How was the wallet misplaced to begin with? It would matter if the wallet was stolen, or if it was dropped, or left at a sales counter. If the wallet was dropped, the owner can claim little malice if he is ever to recover it. If at the shoppette, the shopkeeper would find it good for future returns to return it with haste. If a customer should take advantage of this, he is being deceitfull and should owe compensation for lost property. If it was stolen it is rightfull to gain just compensation. It would be important to examine the exact conditions of Y-tribe's allocation, and wether they owe compensation to X-tribe. Too bad for Y-tribe that they are irrationalist's, they could raise a poor case if any against X-tribe. If Y-tribe is really this way they will determine themselves into causal marginalism anyway.

So thanks for taking time for that babble; Good day to you.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

TomG — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:41:05 GMT

I'm coming in here late, but wondering about such scenarios - here's one please: Tribe X inhabits an island for decades, but then suffers a severe drout that makes them exit the island for greener pastures. Tribe Y comes along with better technology for extracting a means of survival, and stakes claim on that island - which by then may be over the drout too. Tribe X comes back only to find that Tribe Y possesses their former dwellings, and protests that they are the rightful owners. And of course, Tribe Y counters that the island was abandoned by apparent nomads, who didn't learn how to adequately survive during adverse periods, and therefore relinquish any such ownership. Whose sovereignty prevails? My point being that, despite all the theories of property rights, what's not answered is how just the starting point is(was) - of who ends up with the recognized ownership of the island (which is usually the most forceful - as in "might makes right"). Can there be, in other words, a state of pure property rights that doesn't start out ina just way - or is the best one can expect some semblance of (as in, inferior to) property rights?

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Donny with an A — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:03:08 GMT

Haha now who's talking about hypothetical situations with no grounds in reality? If I allow that I can't think of a principle which would be just in such a situation, then what would it mean for any theory of justice? I mean, given your previous objections, I wonder, isn't it better to start from common ownership and move towards private ownership than to assume that some individuals appropriated all the resources before the people who don't have access even arrived on the scene?

But on a more serious note, I'd like to think about that for a little while before answering.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Geoffrey Allan Plauché — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:42:06 GMT

Donny with an A:
The basis of contractual negotiation in most libertarian theories is an existing foundation of preallocated property rights. This discussion is intellectually prior to discussions of contracts.

Well, the right to property (which is basic and inalienable) and a general theory of property rights (which are alienable), at least, are prior to a theory of contracts. Ownership of particular pieces of property need not be. So the two castaways who arrive on the island relatively simultaneously need not own particular property on the island prior to entering into contractual negotiations. But as I've noted before, the fact that they arrive simultaneously and in the same dire straits lends prima facie support for the notion that they should divide up the island (previously unowned) on the basis of equal shares or something approaching that. It would seem the both have an equal claim to homestead part of the island. If one of the castaways takes advantage of the other's naptime, it is not clear this would be just even along Rothbardian lines on first appropriation. Now, what would really be a test of your intuitions, Donny, would be a hypothetical scenario in which the two castaways do not arrive simultaneously but rather one arrives several days, weeks, months, or years in advance of the other. Would you still maintain that the first castaway has unfairly appropriated the island? Or whatever parts he claims as his own? If you do, then you would seem to be in a rather untenable position for a libertarian. You would seem to be in the position of advocating a principle that would justify expropriation on statist-liberal and statist-socialist levels.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

Donny with an A — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:20:58 GMT

The basis of contractual negotiation in most libertarian theories is an existing foundation of preallocated property rights. This discussion is intellectually prior to discussions of contracts.

Re: The Error of Vulgar Libertarianism

MoeJuiced — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 23:44:51 GMT

Donny with an A:
Under the definition I gave of fairness, killing you in the middle of the night would be unfair, and under the libertarian conception of justice, it would be unjust as well

No, I'd argue that it would be justifiable self-defense (demonstrating the point that we continue to disagree about the meaning of fair and just). Not to mention that in the context of your thought experiment, a bit amusing as well.

Again, I'm new here, but I suspect that underneath everybody's theories of justice in appropriation is the understanding that in any specific case (say, your two castaways on a small island with a limited number of survival-critical resources), other factors will always be in play. Are you really suggesting that a serious libertarian theory or principle can be demonstrated by a scenario that excludes contractual negotiation between two parties when each party's survival is at stake? If so, as I said, this discussion is probably a waste of our time.