From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!rocheste!sher
Newsgroups: net.politics
Title: Re: The Roots of Socialism are rotted
Article-I.D.: rocheste.776
Posted: Wed Feb 23 16:43:59 1983
Received: Thu Feb 24 08:58:01 1983

From: David.Sher
I feel that there seems to be a semantic flaw in the argument as stated
against socialism which you ascribe to Ayn Rand.  This is the section I
refer to:

Do humans have a right to possess non-human things?
	Yes - because those things help achieve values, and so enhance ones'
	life.  (Living but non-rational things are an interesting case,
	but do not void my answer.)

What does it mean to possess something?
	To have the right to make choices about that thing in order to
	achieve one's own values.  This MUST include the right to not
	allow others to make choices with regard to that thing.

Is it possible for more than one person to TOTALLY (ie not in shares)
possess something?
	No - for different individuals have different values, which will
	lead to different choices for that thing.  Since both choices
	cannot be taken, the individuals will not both have full choice
	with regard to the thing.


Note that in the statement that people need to posses things you can
substitute any word for posses (say rape) and make the same statement.
Of course you can say that people do not have the right to do things
that interfere with other peoples ability to acheive values but then
you have to contend with the fact that any action can be found to
interfare somehow with someone's ability to acheive their desires.  

Why must people have the right of exclusive access to anything?  I can
acheive most of my desires through sharing things (such as my apartment
which I rent or access to this net).  It would seem that married
couples would not be able to acheive any of their desires according to
the above argument since they do not have the right to exclude each
other from access to their stuff (of course this is an
oversimplification).  Since this is one of the foundations to your
argument I find the whole argument is open to question.

-David sher (oftimes AI project)