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!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis
Message-ID: <233@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 3-Nov-85 20:22:52 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.233
Posted: Sun Nov  3 20:22:52 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 4-Nov-85 20:47:35 EST
References: <876@water.UUCP> <28200245@inmet.UUCP>
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 130
Keywords: property rights, justice
Summary: Reply to Nat Howard

Nat Howard, writing of property rights in Anarcholibertaria (a.k.a.
Anarchocapitalistia):

>... try this: property is yours which you claim, build, and  use
>without employing force or fraud.  Take it as given that you own your
>own body once you declare independence from your parents.  

Self-ownership, the view that each human being is the morally
rightful owner of his own person and powers, is a highly debatable
thesis.  I haven't time to discuss it now; I will simply note that
one of the battle lines is drawn here.

>In the case
>of *in situ* resources such as land or mineral rights,  the
>requirement for building is relaxed, but the requirement for use is
>strengthened.  You are free to give your property away, or to make
>agreements with others regarding its use.  To the extent you initiate
>force or fraud to obtain property, you fail to obtain ownership of
>the property.

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 mean that mere
use of a plot of land gives one just ownership (i.e., an exclusive
right to its use) regardless of the effect of the exclusion on the
people who now cannot use it, even if they do not now (after the
appropriation) have enough land to provide a sustenance?  Please
clarify.

>>For
>>instance, if J.B. Moneyswine inherited his vast fortune from his
>>grandfather who made his fortune through lying, cheating, stealing,
>>etc., does he get to keep his fortune?  If not, who does it go to?  
>
>Let me see here.  Moneyswine got his fortune on the basis of past
>injustice, so *HE* didn't have the right to it.  On the other hand,
>Moneyswine's  grandson was given it fairly (he didn't swindle
>Moneyswine himself out of it), so should Junior have the rights to the
>wealth?  Is this a big deal, Richard?  Moneyswine didn't own the stuff
>Junior inherited (the money was  force-or-fraud money) ****BUT****
>your example depends for its interest on a semantic trick which I must
>now expose.
>
>You say that Moneyswine "made his fortune through lying, cheating,
>stealing, etc.".  Does that mean that Moneyswine was convicted in
>court of doing such things?  Clearly not -- he still has the money.
>(if you object, by the way that the court might be rigged, you're
>right -- we'll get back to that) So implicit in your example is the
>notion that Moneyswine, although he may have cheated, stolen, bribed,
>and corrupted, has NOT BEEN CONVICTED IN  LAW of such things.
>
>Interestingly, any property which you own now depends upon such a
>claim.  Ditto for any property I own.  In short, Richard, any
>property anywhere depends for its legal legitimacy upon the absence
>of a successful legal challenge.  
>[....]
>So the short answer to your question, Moneyswine the grandson (call
>him Junior) gets to keep the ill-gotten gains unless courts take the
>i-gg's away from him.  Does he have the MORAL right to the i-gg's?  Of
>course not! But this is Libertaria, not Utopia, not in any sense a 
>"paradise".  

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.

Nat does not state (at least in the quotation above) exactly how the
courts ideally should define theft.  But this is the whole crux of
the matter.  What exactly constitutes a just or unjust private
appropriation of property?  My argument is that the Libertarian
courts, and Libertarians in general, would judge by a false standard.
They permit the private ownership of WHAT NO ONE HAS A NATURAL RIGHT
TO OWN PRIVATELY, namely the productive resources that we need to
live.  The ownership of these resources was originally acquired
unjustly, by the theft of what was jointly owned (or perhaps owned by
no one), and the (spurious) titles to these resources have been
bequeathed or exchanged in the formally correct ways, down to
Libertaria, which refuses to question these titles.  For if indeed
these titles were questioned, it would be bad news for the
property-owning class.  Hence I maintain that Libertaria is based on
theft, or the ideologically motivated unwillingness to rectify past 
thefts.

> Libertarians don't promise you Utopia
>(at least, none I've read do) and it's just silly of you to poke holes
>in Libertaria on the basis that it is NOT utopia.

By utopia I mean "an impossibility," not "perfection."  My use of the
term was ironic.  

>Try this, then: Libertaria seems to us to be LESS liable to
>institutionalize injustice because it minimizes the primary mechanism
>for systematic injustice ...

...and for *rectifying* the systematic injustice of the past.

>  Also, who is pressing the legal claim
>of the working class to their rights to become tenant farmers again?

Why should they want to become tenant farmers, who were also
exploited?

>How amusing!  It's one of the great claims of socialism that it
>provides security for its citizens.  

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, unlike slavery, where
individuals are forcibly prevented from running away to take risks,
and unlike capitalism, where many individuals do not own sufficient
property to become risk-taking entrepreneurs.  

>Excuse me, but libertarians don't object to "exploitation", merely to
>initiation of force or fraud.  

Well excuuuuuuse me.  Is it really true that libertarians don't find
exploitation objectionable, even some of the time, in some
circumstances (I grant that sometimes it may not be morally
objectionable)?  This is not only going out on a limb, but sawing it
off as well.

This is fun, but I'll have to break off for now.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes