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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