Political Theory

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

JAlanKatz — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:32:10 GMT

I'm not aware of BP's multiple, well-researched books.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

liberty student — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:09:53 GMT

Y'all been trolled. Vichy was no girl. That's an avatar. She had at least 3 or 4 accounts here, most of them female, all of them different.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Esuric — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:06:19 GMT

So is BrainPolice.

Is he really? Cool.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

liberty student — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:04:37 GMT

JAlanKatz:
Fine, you're not calling for him to be silenced, you're calling for libertarian foundations not to have a top libertarian scholar publish his work. That's reminiscent of how Koch treated Rothbard.

Top libertarian scholar? He's big online. So is BrainPolice. Whoopity doo.

Also, conflating Rothbard with Carson is just ridiculous.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Caley McKibbin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 10:01:54 GMT

Whatever happened to Vichy Army (Liberte)? She was smart and very entertaining. Does she still blog?

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

William — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:49:25 GMT

Whatever happened to Vichy Army (Liberte)? She was smart and very entertaining. Does she still blog?

No, sadly I think she has left the internet. I think she got very frustrated with people not listening. Hopefully she'll pop again somewhere in some way.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Esuric — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:44:22 GMT

Whatever happened to Vichy Army (Liberte)? She was smart and very entertaining. Does she still blog?

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Caley McKibbin — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 09:40:41 GMT

I'm talking about it in principle.

In principle you can agree to any arrangement that makes sense. A % share of heterogeneous objects makes no sense. If you own 10% of shares in a firm and a thief steals a computer from an office, how much does the thief owe you? Only the explicit terms of the share privileges can tell how to handle that, if there are any. Thinking of such terms as ownership of the computer is stretching concepts like rubber bands to the point that they have no meaning.

That leads to the following problem. Whereas Carson claims that there is a distinction between state property and commons, what the arguments really amount to is abolishing all distinction between property and commons. Whereas he claims that there is a structural difference between a "corporation" and a "cooperative", there is no explanation of what it is.

Where do you see the Scandinavian corporatist model of the state?

I assumed that she was Scandinavian from the name. Anyway, she got a prize from the Bank of Sweden. It's probably that they see it as helpful to their agenda.

P.S. guess =/= assertion

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Brainpolice — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:30:56 GMT

vaguelyhumanoid:

Kevin Carson is no Marxist. Even his labor theory of value is adapted to include marginalist insights.

He basically attempted an austrian-classical synthesis for individualist anarchism, partly with a reinterpretation of history. One can think what one wants of that attempt, but it definitely is not Marxism.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

vaguelyhumanoid — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 03:21:23 GMT

Kevin Carson is no Marxist. Even his labor theory of value is adapted to include marginalist insights.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Brainpolice — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:01:44 GMT

Anyone who thinks Kevin Carson is a Marxist doesn't know what they're talking about. He's very similar to a Tuckerite individualist anarchist, only he actually makes some use of Austrian economics and deals with a more contemporary historical context. As for the article, he's right that state ownership and common ownership are not identical.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

Autolykos — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:48:01 GMT

AdrianHealey:
In the terminology used by Ostrom - and I'm agreeing with that terminology - what you call 'easements', would be an example of a 'commonly owned - with the necessary caveat that this is how I read her work. All the ranchers together own it and have to find a way amongst themselves to organize that piece of their property. If someone wants to buy it, it seems fair that he deals with all the ranchers that own it, as a common. (Or someone can buy of the other ranches for the right to exclude them, thus making it individual private property.)

I prefer the term "easement" because it distinguishes use-right ownership from actual property ownership. Otherwise, it does appear (from what you write) that Ostrom makes about the same points as I do. The differences are mainly, if not entirely, semantic in nature. Also, you bring up a good point about one rancher buying out the rest to have complete ownership of the land. I missed that case for some reason.

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

DD5 — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:42:58 GMT

AdrianHealey:

I'm not familiar with how Kibbutz work; could you clarify this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

AdrianHealey — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:35:14 GMT

Autolykos:

I don't see how "commons" are necessarily incompatible with libertarianism. However, "commons" to me are necessarily unowned. Take a river, for instance. Can anyone be said to actually own it? Yet even if it's unowned, people can still homestead use-rights from it.

With land, however, it seems trickier. For example, let's say there's a stretch of pasture that no one owns but many ranchers use. The ranchers have a system of allocated grazing rights based on homesteading. Now let's say someone comes along and buys the pasture. He wants to build a fence around it to keep the ranchers out. Should he be allowed to do this? My answer is no, because the ranchers have pre-existing easements over the land.

Notice that this setup doesn't preclude people from buying "common lands". After all, they're considered unowned, not "commonly owned". One might ask how land could be developed if there are already easements over it. The answer is that easements can be bought and sold. Of course, the price may vary from place to place.

In the terminology used by Ostrom - and I'm agreeing with that terminology - what you call 'easements', would be an example of a 'commonly owned - with the necessary caveat that this is how I read her work. All the ranchers together own it and have to find a way amongst themselves to organize that piece of their property. If someone wants to buy it, it seems fair that he deals with all the ranchers that own it, as a common. (Or someone can buy of the other ranches for the right to exclude them, thus making it individual private property.)

Re: Why is "The Freeman" giving a platform to a "Libertarian" Socialist?

AdrianHealey — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:32:31 GMT

DD5:

AdrianHealey:
Why would 'being able to sell' in any way be relevant for the question if it's a private property relationship?

If you can't [at minimum] sell your share of ownership, then this sounds more like a Kibbutz then anything else.

I'm not familiar with how Kibbutz work; could you clarify this?

In any case, like I commented: I'm not aware of any lack of ability to get away from ownership or to get ownership. Doesn't have to be 'selling' per se - could depend on the rules governing the common.