torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek ) (11/08/85)
In article <4164@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes: >In article <233@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>Do you obtain just ownership of (say) land even if your appropriation >>of it makes others, who are no longer at liberty to use the land, >>worse off than they would otherwise have been? > >Do you have the right to stand undisturbed, even though I would like to swing >my arms through the space you occupy, and I am thus discommoded by your >existance? Of course you do--my right to swing ends where your nose >begins. Rights of *any* kind are circumscriptions on the actions >of others, and the others are thus "worse off than they would have been". Cute, real cute. Of course rights are circumscriptions (at least you realize what many libertarians fail to). But some rights are easier to believe in than others. Your right to stand undisturbed is easy to believe in. Your right to fence off vast tracts of land and treat them as "yours" is a little harder. >I personally believe that the market tends to redistribute property >in a just way over time, so that if you were to hand property out >completely at random, it would tend to approach a just distribution >anyway. I personally believe that God exists ... (not really). >The reason is that people tend to use up resources, and >thus large holdings tend to diminish; whereas people who are productive >and frugal will amass wealth whether they had it or not at first. The first part is just wrong; any 3/4-wit rich kid can hire a bright investment manager and just sit back and get richer... (oh I'm sorry, did I contradict libertarian mythology?) Yes to the latter part, but you fail to make the correct comparison: to what they would have had, which might be much more. (At least I think that's the right comparison, given a libertarian view of justice; I thought I understood that view long ago but so many purported libertarians keep contradicting it (but then JoSH is a `propertarian').) >let me state a weaker version about which we can argue enlightenedly >without merely screaming contradictory axioms: Given two different >distributions of property (over the same population) A and B, over time >subsequent distributions as determined by the market, A' and B', >A'' and B'', ... A(n) and B(n), then A(n) and B(n) tend to approach >each other, and do not continue to resemble A and B significantly. (I'm trying to be more like Rich Rosen, so I can make "top 25" news submitters -- now let's see, how does that go --) Wishful thinking! >--JoSH --Paul V. Torek "turn up those flames -- I hate cold weather!"