esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek) (10/14/84)
From: stuart@genrad.UUCP (stuart) > What I find quite revealing here is the "where did THOSE people get it > from (or from whom did they take it?)." This view that wealth is a static > entity simply found lying around in nature [...] Ah, the good old straw man technique! Take a passage and stretch it beyond recognition ... But wait! It's about to occur to him that I was referring to the fact that wealth is embodied in physical objects, which consist of physical matter that nobody (no human, anyway) created ... > Wealth is, for the most part, created by people. ... Of course, the > raw materials were just lying around, Precisely. Now, pray tell me, who owned those raw materials that went into the objects (if any) you claim an *absolute* property right to? (I'm not asking for names, just some explanation like, "the people who did so-&-so".) > but even then, alot of effort probably went into > obtaining and refining them. It is that EFFORT which the author of the > above passage thinks so very, very little of. A mindreader, eh? Well guess again. I just recognize that the EFFORT doesn't create *all* the value -- the raw materials had some value too. ------------------------------- The discussion of rights by danw@oliven.UUCP (danw) is helpful, but I wish he would go further and tell us *what* negative general rights libertarians believe in. I think what he's said so far includes some important points, and was accurate as to what libertarians believe. Anyway, I consider the most eloquent (and representative) libertarian to be Robert Nozick (in his book *Anarchy, State, and Utopia* -- widely available). Nozick tries (unsuccesfully, I think, but *at least he tries*) to show step-by-step what the implications of libertarian rights are for government and for property. ________________________________ From: trc@hou5a.UUCP > My "enthusiasm" stems from recognition that a legal property right (or > any proper legal right) is based upon a *moral* right in a social context. > I *am* an absolute proponent of this - though I call it a "principle", > since I hold it as absolutely true *in a social context*. OK, now you need to say what basic moral rights are involved, and trace step by step what conclusions about property and about government that they justify. (It would also be nice, although it might take an enormous number of bytes to explain, to see some *reasoned argument* for the existence of the rights (and corresponding obligations) invoked. That's a tall order, though, and a secondary one.) > Seriously - do you *really* think that the harm of coercion arises > primarily from humiliation and "shaking up"? YES!, in many cases. Rape, for example. Other harms are involved, of course. > Those are side effects of violence, which our government does try > to avoid. But is that the only basis for your (partial) opposition to > coercion!? If so, we need to go back and discuss morality. Other bases are that coercion prevents people from getting what they want, which is almost always bad; and that it usually has other side effects (lowering of trust, etc.). But we still do need to discuss morality. > Coercion is the initiation of force, not just any use of force. Nor is > it necessarily physcially violent. I'll accept this definition, though I wonder if the dictionary agrees. > I say that coercion is wrong because it violates an individual's moral > rights as a human being. Coercion is an attempt to prevent a person from > following a choice of moral action - and so short-circuits the human > faculty - reason - by which humans live (as well as merely "survive".) Well I think you know what I say -- coercion doesn't necessarily violate any rights. (I think people have exactly one basic right, the right to have their welfare considered in every decision. But then, my moral theory isn't very popular nowadays.) To show your view superior to mine, you need to explain why we have the obligation that corresponds to the right you posit. I don't think the above passage does that adequately. > I understand you to mean "kept to the creator" by "internalized". As I > pointed out, in the part of my quote that you chose to leave off, > "if side benefits accrue to others, they [the benefit's creators] wont > mind". I say they wont mind, because the creators of the values will > have *already gotten* the value that they feel is sufficient to justify > their creating the value. They wouldnt create the value otherwise! Exactly -- that's the problem! "Public goods" (in the economic sense -- goods such that "side benefits" necessarily accrue) will be UNDERPRODUCED (in the economic sense -- the resulting output will not be Pareto-optimal). In other words, there is a possible situation in which everyone would be better off, even though the free market has been allowed to operate! > You know as well as I do that an economist can be found to support > almost any position. True, but I'm talking about a result that has been *proven*, given assumptions that all parties agree to. To wit: it's been proven that, without coercion, "public goods" (economic sense) will be "underproduced" (also economic sense). The assumption that all parties agree to is that there *are* goods that fit the technical definition of "public goods". Of course, many point out that the government can not necessarily be trusted to provide public goods Pareto-optimally either. But that's an economic question, not a moral one; and if I have a chance to vote for politicians who support provision of public goods by the government in a Pareto-optimal way, I will. > You want economists? How about Milton and Rose Friedman? They quite > explicitly deal with the issue, as opposed to "many" other economists. Even they agree that govt. should provide some public goods (e.g. defense). > I repeat - *you* need to show that there is a need for a govt to > provide those "goods". I say you cant do it, because if there are enough > people who want something badly enough for them to support the government > forcing *them* as well as others to support it, they will be equally or > more willing to voluntarily support the effort, in a free market. > Tom Craver hou5a!trc *You* need to review the elementary economic theorems that show this. Until then, you are like one who argues calculus without knowing algebra. You are right about voluntary support in the case of people who are acting for the sake of others' welfare (charitable causes, e.g. -- at least your argument would be valid if it were not for an extremely wrongheaded atti- tude that many have, that they don't want to help unless others do). But public goods are different: with public goods, each person would prefer that the government force everyone *but* her to contribute; but everyone knows that won't be politically possible. __________________________________ I am replying to Richard Latimer's challenges by mail (which he said he preferred). Anyone wanting to see how I try to handle his points is welcome to write for a copy of my ramblings. --The aspiring iconoclast ... Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047 Please send any mail directly to this address, not the sender's. Thanks.