Political Theory

Re: Ownership for use only?

liberty student — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:27:21 GMT

Brainpolice:
An emphasis on context or situation is not a reduction to lifeboat scenarios.

You (and others) use "context or situation" to demonstrate necessity. You have to, because there is no way to establish a libertarian-compatible rule about preferences and attitudes.

Brainpolice:
Lifeboat scenarios are only one kind of situation.

You treat every situation as a lifeboat however. They are all based on ad hoc justifications of "necessity" because you cannot make a rule argument for them, without creating a rule of rights violation, and you know that is not going to withstand any scrutiny.

Brainpolice:
The fact that one refuses to adopt an absolute a priori rule does not mean that one has no standard. The problem is that the very nature of an absolute apriori rule cannot account for particulars/details.

If your rule is not consistent, it is not a "standard". It is ad hoc. Which was my original point. You make up rules as you need them, and change them as they suit you and your perception of circumstances.

Re: Ownership for use only?

Brainpolice — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 11:38:48 GMT

An emphasis on context or situation is not a reduction to lifeboat scenarios. Lifeboat scenarios are only one kind of situation. The fact that one refuses to adopt an absolute a priori rule does not mean that one has no standard. The problem is that the very nature of an absolute apriori rule cannot account for particulars/details.

Re: Ownership for use only?

liberty student — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:56:32 GMT

nirgrahamUK:
or If so then isn't your theory *really* that situational necessity determines property and negotiation comes second ?

I want to point out that in law, the word "necessity" is defined as being beyond or outside law. So whenever someone claims or implies necessity, I naturally assume they feel that laws (as they apply to rights, contracts, norms) do not apply.

Hence when our friends of the left talk about the necessity of doing this or that, what they are really saying is that the laws don't apply to the situations they are concerned with.

What appears to be an ad hoc philosophy wrt property, is in fact ad hoc, although they will tell you their perception of necessity (the very thing which makes it ad hoc) is systematically derived.

Necessity is not meant to be used as a systematic excuse, but as we can see in this discussion, and many others, every situation is a lifeboat, and so, every situation is outside the law.

Re: Ownership for use only?

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:53:15 GMT

[EDIT: OOPS, WRONG THREAD]

Re: Ownership for use only?

Daniel James Sanchez — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 09:23:27 GMT

Yet we can also argue that the way rights are assigned, as a pramatic matter, should embody some idea of justice.

Ideas of justice themselves are fundamentally derived, for the vast preponderance of humanity, from tradition and interest. Traditions change (largely because ideas about efficacy with regard to interests change). The preponderant interest in improved livelihood that Mises pointed out in his writings is near constant. Only a handful of metaphysical thinkers have ideas of justice derived from abstruse principles, and even those are often at bottom about interest. How you assign rights effects the very roots of the social system of production, and therefore has a tremendous impact on how bountiful that social system is. Therefore, tweaking the social system of production at the roots-level for the sole purpose of assuaging some largely ephemeral, often misunderstanding-based, and frequently contrary "ideas of justice" would be decidedly non-pragmatic.

Understand the bounty of capitalism, then teach the intellectuals about it, then they will convince the media about it, then they will convince the public about it. Then you will see a sea-change in "ideas of justice".

Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis: "...if they stubbornly persist in the attempt to compensate by further interventions for the shortcomings of earlier interventions, they will find eventually that they have adopted socialism."

Right, this is prophetic. Mises is criticizing the idea of adopting any interventions in the first place. He's saying that one intervention necessitates another. What's being criticized is the original intervention.

No, he's criticizing both. Yes, it would have been best not to have the original intervention. But his point is that that road leads to socialism because further "corrective" interventions only compound the problem.

Would you oppose a one-time tax to take away precisely the amount of money given in the bailouts, for immediate shredding?

For shredding, no. I would support restitution: that is, taking back the bail-out money to give back to the taxpayers.

Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis: "...if they stubbornly persist in the attempt to compensate by further interventions for the shortcomings of earlier interventions, they will find eventually that they have adopted socialism."

Right, this is prophetic. Mises is criticizing the idea of adopting any interventions in the first place. He's saying that one intervention necessitates another. What's being criticized is the original intervention.

Re: Ownership for use only?

Autolykos — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:45:01 GMT

Danny Sanchez:
Does nobody in this thread find economics (the study of the workings of market societies, like the one we actually live in, and hopefully will always live in) useful for this problem? Adopting any given approach to property ownership will either benefit virtually all of humanity or harm virtually all of humanity. If a given approach does the latter, are you really going to advocate it just because of how it suits your "libertarian intuitions" or fits with your idea of "Lockean property rights"?

From a value-free perspective, I think it's useful to investigate what kind of property concepts emerge spontaneously from human action and interaction. Is that what you mean by "[finding] economics useful for this problem"?

Of course, economics itself implies certain axioms of human behavior.

Danny Sanchez:
Can anyone who is interested in actually making the world a better place, according to the standards of actual living human purposes, and not metaphysical musings, please share your opinion about whether this analysis is sound?

"Outside of freak coincidences, the individual whose judgment is best at deciding a land site's most value-productive allocation will not be the same person as the individual whose specific skilled labor is best suited for working the land. And humans qua consumers are served best if land sites are allocated to their most value-productive uses. Benjamin Tucker's plan would harm the interests of virtually all of humanity, since we are all consumers."

I think your argument follows from the phenomenon of specialization. Manager-labor distinctions are just one example of this phenomenon. Since a free market does not prevent such specializations from occurring, it follows that they will eventually appear over time. Preventing them from coming about would constitute an intervention in the market economy. As specialization allows people to concentrate their efforts in areas they find to be most productive for themselves, interfering in that process would hamper productivity. Note also that the areas people find most productive for themselves are revealed through market processes.

Re: Ownership for use only?

JAlanKatz — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:06:53 GMT

Determining the most expedient rights to establish with regard to issues relating to corporate welfare is to an enormous extent a matter for economics.

Yet we can also argue that the way rights are assigned, as a pramatic matter, should embody some idea of justice.

Mises, Interventionism: An Economic Analysis: "...if they stubbornly persist in the attempt to compensate by further interventions for the shortcomings of earlier interventions, they will find eventually that they have adopted socialism."

Would you oppose a one-time tax to take away precisely the amount of money given in the bailouts, for immediate shredding?

Re: Ownership for use only?

Daniel James Sanchez — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:39:36 GMT

I agree with you about what rights are, actually, as far as being pragmatic precepts, or social agreements. That doesn't exactly make them part of economics, though.

Determining the most expedient rights to establish with regard to issues relating to corporate welfare is to an enormous extent a matter for economics.

I tend to think Mises was speaking of laying interventions on top of interventions, rather than directly counteracting the existing intervention.

Re: Ownership for use only?

JAlanKatz — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:53:16 GMT

The vast majority of people would benefit the most from a liberal social order. And social orders, as la Boetie, Hume, Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe, all agree, are based on majority opinion. If the majority opinion is convinced of the efficacy of liberalism (either by understanding it or trusting those who do), then the laws will reflect that. You don't need some spurious deontological "noble lie" to effect a legal order. You can have (effective) rights. But recognize them for what they are: pragmatic precepts, and not natural laws.

Yes, social orders are based on majority opinion, I agree. The point about corporate welfare is precisely that those pushing it the most would claim for it exactly the benefits of a free market. In fact, they clothe it in free market rhetoric. When we talk about higher standard of living, we have to be clear that we mean only higher standard of living without harming others. I agree with you about what rights are, actually, as far as being pragmatic precepts, or social agreements. That doesn't exactly make them part of economics, though.

Your proposed means of "addressing" the problem is an economic intervention. As Mises explains, trying to ameliorate the ills of an intervention with another intervention will only create new ills. And a consistent application of this approach only tends toward socialism. This is just as true for the intervener with "libertarian motives" as it is for the intervener with "statist motives".

I tend to think Mises was speaking of laying interventions on top of interventions, rather than directly counteracting the existing intervention. An example is the Obamacare bill, which was supposed to (at least when it was first proposed) address the real problems in healthcare (caused by government) with more government. This was a clear-cut case of Mises principle. Would his principle prohibit, for instance, taking back the bailout money, if it were done the day after it was given, and shredded immediately? I tend to think not.

Re: Ownership for use only?

Daniel James Sanchez — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:32:54 GMT

"But what if a proposed change makes some worse off while benefiting others, as corporate welfare does?"

"We can either continue on as if the interventions weren't there, or we can try to address them to avoid the problem I mentioned above."

Re: Ownership for use only?

JAlanKatz — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:08:09 GMT

In the meantime, most people in the world are primarily concerned with living standards. I think, at bottom, a lot of people who promote deontological ethics are actually primarily concerned with living standards too, and that they are trying to promote what they think are the most expedient precepts by wrapping them in absolutist garb. So, until someone, after centuries of trying, finally successfully derives an ought from an is, or discovers the categorical imperative, I'm going to busy myself trying to further real human purposes by promoting capitalism, which just so happens to be the most important means (whether immediate or mediate) to virtually everybody's foremost ends.

I agree on the importance of living standards, and that just about everyone favors increased living standards. The problem is that we can't measure living standards due to subjective values, and so we substitute material improvement - it is better, all else being equal, if we make changes so that everyone, or some people, have material improvement, or at least more options, without harming anyone else. But what if a proposed change makes some worse off while benefiting others, as corporate welfare does? If you don't have a concept of rights, why not do it? We can't say, due to subjective values, that the benefit exceeds the harm, but neither can we say that the harm exceeds the benefit. We can only make estimates of liklihood unless we invoke some idea of rights or justice. I say we should not make such changes, compared to the free market. (See on this topic the Block/Nozick exchange, where Nozick claims that Austrian economics can only tell us that voluntary trades are good, not that involuntary trades are bad. I think he's right, but that involuntary trades are still bad. Block concedes the point as well that we need to invoke some sort of ethical claim.)

Moving away from the general and to specific policies, everyone involved in this discussion favors the free market. There is no bigger proponent of the free market than I. The question is not "there's something wrong with free markets" it is "what do we do in a world were markets are not free?" We can either continue on as if the interventions weren't there, or we can try to address them to avoid the problem I mentioned above.

Re: Ownership for use only?

Daniel James Sanchez — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:50:59 GMT

JAlanKatz:
Danny Sanchez:
Like Mises said, rights are nothing but pragmatic precepts. In a market society, economic considerations are necessary for discovering the most expedient precepts. That is why Mises said that economics is the pith of civilization.

So happens that I'm a Rothbardian. Mises also said that we cannot tell someone what the appropriate ends are for them to adopt, only whether or not a set of means will accomplish those ends.

If your own personal ends lead you to prefer a given social arrangement even though it harms the interest of most everybody else, relative to an alternative system, then that's your business. If you're going to try to influence people to share your ends through social pressure, that's your business too. But if you're going to try to scientifically establish absolute moral values like Rothbard tried to do, then I see nothing wrong with pointing out the fallacies and incoherence in that endeavor.

Re: Ownership for use only?

JAlanKatz — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 16:31:44 GMT

Like Mises said, rights are nothing but pragmatic precepts. In a market society, economic considerations are necessary for discovering the most expedient precepts. That is why Mises said that economics is the pith of civilization.

So happens that I'm a Rothbardian. Mises also said that we cannot tell someone what the appropriate ends are for them to adopt, only whether or not a set of means will accomplish those ends.

Re: Ownership for use only?

JAlanKatz — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 16:30:18 GMT

How could somebody throw one thing for another, if those two things are the same?

Because that's a leap of faith.

It commits us to that sort of sophistry?

Seriously when's the last time that you put such a ridiculously low burden of proof on one of your economic arguments?

The suggestion is that we should ignore questions about justice and just do whatever is most economically productive.

Re: Ownership for use only?

z1235 — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 14:52:39 GMT

Danny Sanchez:
Like Mises said, rights are nothing but pragmatic precepts. In a market society, economic considerations are necessary for discovering the most expedient precepts. That is why Mises said that economics is the pith of civilization.

In the testing lab called reality, various "rights" and social norms will emerge. Whether they remain or get smothered will only be decided by the level of flourish they produce in the society which created them (and which they created, in return).

I view such "utilitarianism" as the science (or art) of predicting the social norms and arrangements (or "rights") that would produce the most flourishing society. AE has convinced me that individual freedom and private property are inevitable means to that end. Without the "utilitarian" aspect of AE, I would've been long gone from these forums.