I like where you go towards the end there. The idea of selling liberty as self-interest rather than "morally righteous" is much more efficient imo. Idk about your concept of property, it seems like its only property if someone has a big enough gun to keep everyone else off. But the self-interest idea is much more pertinent, and very close to what I'm working on as well.
Awesome. One of the reasons I'm migrating to forums like mises and away from more "open" forums which are mostly about libertarians fighting off everyone else who is there to troll and mock is that I'm tired of *never* finding anyone who has anything positive to contribute to the lines of thinking I'm pursuing, so it's nice to find a place where we can focus on similarities rather than always on differences.W
When you say "you are working on it as well", what do you mean? I'm interesting in hearing more.
As for my derivation of property: I'm not very good at explaining it yet, that's clear to me. And it's not as fully formulated as what you are responding to positively above. But I'm 99% sure that it's basically the same construction, perhaps just in logic and form, perhaps as part of the exact same construction. After all, if I'm selling the idea of pairwise mutual non-aggression pacts, what exactly is that the people are agreeing to not agress *against*? Each others' persons, sure, but the same logic that says it is easily and obviously (to them, and thus sellable) that they would agree to not agress against each other's bodies says that they would also agree to not agress against each others' "property". But note there I'm not invoking some philosophical concept of "property" that pre-exists their agreement; I mean it in a very common-sense way, like "ok, clearly, you built that house and you planted those fields near that house; I have my house and my fields, and I'll agree not to agree against yours if you don't agress against mine because that's clearly in our mutual self interest." If one of the people says "and oh btw, my ancestors from 1000 years ago were the first to step foot in North America and they claimed it as their property so you have to agree to not agress against that either", that's probably *not* something that the other party is going to see as in their self-interest.
I kind of look at it like this: concepts like "property" and "NAP" are great philosophical constructs. We can argue about the nuances of thier philosophical construction, and we can debate the implications and consequences in the real world that would occur were we to adopt subly different definitions of these (or other) terms and concepts. Those are important and interesting conversations. But no matter what "we" decide, taking those definitions to the general public and saying "see here, we've devised the perfect definitions, now understand why they are perfect and you will voluntarily jump on board and off to libertopia we go" isn't going to work. What we need to do is to devise ways that most people will behave *more or less in accordance with those definitions*, and the best way to do that is to sell them much more easy to understand and easy to see as being in their self-interest *that effectively recreates those definitions*.
IOW, don't start with the perfect definition of "property" and then hope to get people to honor something "property like" by explaining to them your theory of property; instead, incentivize them to behavior from which more or less the same *functional* definition of "property" *emerges*. In both cases, the same analysis of the consequences and effects applies, since you have essentially the same functional thing happening in both cases, so all of the arguments that we have developed explaining why property and NAP are good things still apply. It's just that that's not necessarily the best way to get them to behave that way.
I'd argue that these pairwise bilateral contracts do exactly that, but they are much more sellable.
[And of course I don't *really* think that there are literally going to be pairwise contracts between *everyone*. It's kind of a shorthand. Most pairs of people will never interact and so they don't need contracts or any other construct to guide their interaction, by definition. And practically speaking, most remaining contracts would be "cliques" to use the graph-theory term: contracts that bind a group of people. That's basically what a PDA would define in AnCap: all of the "members" or "clients" of the PDA would be bound by the same contracts to all other members, thus taking care of that n(n-1)/2 pairwise relationships; the n1*n2/2 pairwise relationships between the n1 members of one PDA and the n2 members of a second PDA would be bound by a different "contract" (the decisions of whatever arbiter they have agreed to use to settle any conflicts between their members); etc.]
And as a very minor thing: who is "we"? I certainly didn't do any of those things you are talking about. I'm not guilty of anything. It's just a pet peeve: when someone places me in a "we" of their choosing unilaterally. No one is ever a part of a "we" that they don't explicitly agree to be part of, like when someone says I owe them something because I am part of their "society" by virtue of society being "we". Offer me the terms of your "society" we and then I'll make a decision about whether I want to be a part of it.
That one is easy...
Here are the terms:
Do as the ruling class tells you or figure out a way to defend yourself.
When you say "you are working on it as well", what do you mean? I'm interesting in hearing more
Well, I was meditating on world society and I figured something out. For the world to be democratic is entirely unfeasible. It would require possibly billions of "reps" and millions of "senators." It's hard enough making a democracy responsive to its people with a couple hundred of these things, let alone millions.
I'll never support a monarchy, many free people today wouldn't either. Dictatorship is out the question. So what does that leave us?
Ergo, I am trying to sell anarchy as the only known feasible world system.
But note there I'm not invoking some philosophical concept of "property" that pre-exists their agreement;
I like that. It seems less honky, and more pertinent to people's real lives.
If one of the people says "and oh btw, my ancestors from 1000 years ago were the first to step foot in North America and they claimed it as their property so you have to agree to not agress against that either", that's probably *not* something that the other party is going to see as in their self-interest.
This is where I differ. It would seem there needs to be something more. If two people just arbitrarily decide they don't respect my property, I am screwed, with no legal recourse to protect myself.
IOW, don't start with the perfect definition of "property" and then hope to get people to honor something "property like" by explaining to them your theory of property; instead, incentivize them to behavior from which more or less the same *functional* definition of "property" *emerges*.
IOW, get them to act like libertarians, rather than just think/theorize about it? I would think that would be a much better way of spreading the idea; teach through example.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
These are just asides
Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:Ergo, I am trying to sell anarchy as the only known feasible world system.
Feasible is subjective.
Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:But note there I'm not invoking some philosophical concept of "property" that pre-exists their agreement; I like that. It seems less honky, and more pertinent to people's real lives.
Philosophy is personal. What is pertinent for me, is different than what is pertinent for you. Any conception of our real lives which ignores scarcity doesn't seem very real to me.