Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Property,justice,freedom Message-ID: <238@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Thu, 7-Nov-85 20:48:07 EST Article-I.D.: gargoyle.238 Posted: Thu Nov 7 20:48:07 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Nov-85 07:25:53 EST References: <1099@mtuxo.UUCP> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 71 Some quick comments on Adam Reed's recent posting: >I take exception to the assertion that advocates of Capitalism suffer >from "a systematic blindness to questions about the moral legitimacy of >certain kinds of private property". I, for one, am as certain of the >(moral) proposition that "each human being is morally the rightful owner >of his own person and powers" as it is possible for a human being to be. Why are you so certain? >(2) Libertarians hold that the conversion into individual property (through >use or trade) of things not previously owned by anyone is an instance of >productive creation of wealth (rather than "theft"). (i) Conversion into private property is (by definition) private appropriation, which may be justified or not, but cannot itself be regarded as production of wealth. Production and appropriation are two different things, however closely related. (ii) What about the case of the private appropriation of things which were previously owned jointly by everyone? In any case in which this is unjustified, we have a case of theft. It is in this sense (primarily) I claim that Libertaria and capitalism are based on theft. > ... if one is the rightful >owner of one's own person and powers, then one is also the rightful >owner of anything produced by one's person and powers, or obtained in >voluntary exchange for the services or products of one's person. But what about land and other natural productive resources, which no one has produced? (No human being, that is.) The primary question is what justifies the private ownership of these resources. > Note, however, that justice (dealing with each person as >he or she deserves to be dealt with) and freedom (maximizing the >individual's control, or effective ownership, over his or her own person >and powers) are two different moral values. The Libertarian's preference >for maximizing freedom rather than justice is hardly "blindness to >moral questions". (i) The definition of freedom offered above is too vague or too restricted. Does it include, for example, the individual's power to do as he wishes with external objects, areas of land, etc.? (ii) Libertarians do not advocate maximizing freedom. First, libertarians have no objection to the employer-employee relationship, and some even permit voluntary enslavement contracts. But an employer obviously has power, in some relevant sense, over his employee, (and a fortiori a slaveowner over his slave), if the employee has no other way of making a living, or if the alternatives are less attractive to the employee. This seems to be a diminution of the employee's freedom in an important sense. A person who is subject to another's commands is thereby less free, it would seem. Second, libertarians advocate the private ownership of just about everything. This is just as much a distribution of unfreedom as freedom; it means BOTH that A can do what he wants with his private property, AND that no one else is free to use it. In Libertaria you would be forcibly prevented from driving someone else's car without his or her permission. I will accept the statement that libertarians advocate maximizing the freedom of property-owners to do as they wish with their own property. But this is not the same thing as freedom per se, any more than freedom of speech, freedom to emigrate, etc., are identical with freedom. It is a particular kind of freedom. A society (such as our own) in which many people are subject to the power of others in the worker-employer relationship, and in which most people can freely use only a extremely small fraction of existing objects, land, and so on (namely what they own privately), is hardly a society in which freedom is maximized -- on the contrary. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes