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From: josh@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis
Message-ID: <4164@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 20:56:41 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.4164
Posted: Tue Nov  5 20:56:41 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 06:53:43 EST
Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall)
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 50

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".

>Nat's argument seems to be that the only way a person could unjustly
>hold property in Libertaria is through imperfections in the judicial
>system, which I would certainly allow in socialism or any other
>proposed social system.  But:  my argument is not that Libertaria is
>imperfect in practice, like all other systems.  My argument is that
>it permits systematic distributive injustice, i.e., it is *based on
>theft* (unjust appropriation).  It is not a question of random
>imperfection, but of systematic blindness to questions about the
>moral legitimacy of certain kinds of private property.

Put simply, you don't believe in private property, so you object
to any system based on it.  This is a consistant position, but
you are mostly wasting time debating particular points of the system.
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.  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.

Since I *know* Richard disagrees with this definition of "just distribution"
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.

>But socialism, at least versions that I could accept, would allow
>individuals to express their preference and choose between taking
>risks and the security of the status quo, 

... and eat their cake and have it?  Sounds great, like a campaign
promise, but if you really allow people to take risks *and get the
consequenses*, you will *still* have paupers (having risked and lost)
and capitalists (having risked and won).  So let's see the details, 
please.

--JoSH