AC in the US: Respect for property rights

[bobman0330]

A workable anarchocapitalist system requires more than simply the absence of government. It also requires that the people generally respect property and the legitimacy of voluntary transactions. That is why Somalia, though thoroughly governmentless, has no had economic success. Its people don't value private property, and, as a result, time-preferences are rationally high.

(The reason why respect for property rights is so important has to do with the nature of property. ACists often claim that property is "natural," but this is false. Property is everywhere and always a community phenomenon. It may be natural for me to pluck an apple out of a tree and eat it; that is, possession is natural. But it is not at all natural for random strangers to defend my right to possess the apple against anyone who tries to take it from me. They could just as easily not care. This community recognition of my right of possession is the key to property. I digress...]

The implicit assumption in the ACist argument is that the US would be different. That assumption, however, rests on shaky foundations. True, most people recognize my right to possess an apple and eat it. But the majority of people are far less willing to recognize my right to possess, say, $75 billion. If you took a poll, most people would say that hedge fund managers make too much money. Bill Gates has too much money.

Likewise with voluntary transactions. If I sell my couch on Craigslist, no one will care. But if I own the only factory in a small town and employ starving workers for a very low wage, people will start to look at me askance. And if I start employing children or provide unsafe working conditions, I'd better start looking over my shoulder.

It's hard to predict what the results of limited lack of respect for property rights might be. Perhaps the hypothetical low-wage factory owner just has to build a high-security compound and employ armed guards. But it's also possible that the workers get really mad, storm the compound, and kill the owner and his family. Maybe that happens in a lot of places and there's a repeat of the Russian Revolution.

A critical and often-overlooked function of the democratic system is to mediate the competing demands (legitimate or illegitimate, rational or irrational) of various parties. Bill Gates can keep his billions, but he has to pay higher taxes, hedge-fund managers can get paid what they want, but maybe they don't get capital-gains treatment. Viewing democracy as solely a decision-making prospect (a role for which it is laughably ill-suited) is unfair. Even if we accept that democratic interventions are never efficient, it might still be the case that they resolve non-economic problems. The world has never experienced a society where wealth inequality was allowed to increase without limitation or responsibility. It's possible that irrational jealousies on the part of the underclass would make such a world unstable.

[Nielsio]

So why exactly can't I be free?

[MrMon]

Because the paranoid are always prisoners of their own delusions.

[ShakeZula06]

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The world has never experienced a society where wealth inequality was allowed to increase without limitation or responsibility.

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Do you think that wealth inequality would increase in an ACist America? While government can decrease inequality, is it a realistic goal? And even if it is a realistic goal, how much wealth will we have to destroy to get there?

[bobman0330]

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The world has never experienced a society where wealth inequality was allowed to increase without limitation or responsibility.

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Do you think that wealth inequality would increase in an ACist America? While government can decrease inequality, is it a realistic goal? And even if it is a realistic goal, how much wealth will we have to destroy to get there?

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Would inequality increase? I can't say for sure, but I would guess yes. The elimination of progressive taxation and estate taxation would make it easier to amass great wealth, and low-income individuals would (I think?) experience regressive pseudo-taxes for things like roads, police protection, etc. OTOH, some people have suggested that megacorporations and the financial industry would shrink, so maybe some of the paths to great wealth would also be eliminated. Who knows?

Is less inequality realistic, almost certainly. Most European countries have lower measures of inequality, and our taxation system could be (and has been) much more progressive.

Is it worth it is the big question. Personally, I oppose reduction of inequality per se as a government goal. But the point of my post wasn't to argue that redistribution is good or necessary, but that one precondition for a stable society is the possibility of government redistribution. One result from psychology is that people generally feel better about things they feel they can control. Perhaps the illusion of control provided by the democratic process makes people more willing to abide great wealth disparity (or jobs being sent to India, or the high price of gas).

[ianlippert]

Not to mention the half trillion dollars a year that would be pumped back into the economy once military spending is decreased.

[Moseley]

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Because the paranoid are always prisoners of their own delusions.

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delusions are those illusions in which the elite in power chose not to promote as reality.

[Borodog]

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A workable anarchocapitalist system requires more than simply the absence of government. It also requires that the people generally respect property and the legitimacy of voluntary transactions. That is why Somalia, though thoroughly governmentless, has no had economic success. Its people don't value private property, and, as a result, time-preferences are rationally high.

[/ QUOTE ]

Capital accumulation is the key; but you address it implicitly.

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(The reason why respect for property rights is so important has to do with the nature of property. ACists often claim that property is "natural," but this is false. Property is everywhere and always a community phenomenon. It may be natural for me to pluck an apple out of a tree and eat it; that is, possession is natural. But it is not at all natural for random strangers to defend my right to possess the apple against anyone who tries to take it from me. They could just as easily not care. This community recognition of my right of possession is the key to property. I digress...]

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Property is, in fact, natural, in as much as "property" is "that which is owned", and "ownership" might be defined as "objectively defensible exclusive control over" a thing. Under such definitions, which I believe are perfectly reasonable (let me know if you disagree), property in one's body is clearly natural, it obviously exists. Evolution, like economics, is about minimization of costs, and it is very costly to try to control someone else's body, but almost costless to control one's "own." The very concepts are implicit in the language.

Now, the kind of property you're talking about, individual ownership of scarce goods, from which conflicts can arise, that certainly is a social phenomenon, but that deos not in the slightest make it "unnatural". Dogs and other animals clearly have concepts of property, and have rules that act to minimize conflicts over those scarce goods and the costs that arise from them.

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The implicit assumption in the ACist argument is that the US would be different.

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No, the excplicit prerequisite is a culture that respects property rights in all orders of goods. This has been made clear multiple times, so I'm not sure why you are attempting to misconstrue the position, except perhaps to set up a strawman?

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That assumption, however, rests on shaky foundations. True, most people recognize my right to possess an apple and eat it. But the majority of people are far less willing to recognize my right to possess, say, $75 billion. If you took a poll, most people would say that hedge fund managers make too much money. Bill Gates has too much money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Duh. This is the result of many generations of government-run indoctrination. Are you really claiming that there is some evolutionary imperitive to steal from those that have more than you? If this were true, civilization would not exist. No capital would be accumulated. The extremely high regard for property rights, in all orders of goods, was very strong in early America, and persisted longer in the frontiers. It was only slowly eroded over time because the people also had the (mistaken) respect for government; they erroneously believed that it was perfectly reasonable for there to be a separate class of people that are allowed to commit what for others are easily recognized as crimes. These two beliefs are fundamentally incompatible. How can respect for property rights withstand a value system that holds the class of property-rights-violators in the highest regard? It can't.

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Likewise with voluntary transactions. If I sell my couch on Craigslist, no one will care. But if I own the only factory in a small town and employ starving workers for a very low wage, people will start to look at me askance. And if I start employing children or provide unsafe working conditions, I'd better start looking over my shoulder.

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Who will look at you askance, the workers who would otherwise starve, or the children who would otherwise be pickpocketing, prostituting themselves, or toiling at backbreaking subsistence farming until the first drought starved them and their families? It is only centuries of union demogoguery that has convinced you that helping someone is evil and that harming them is good. Strangely enough, if you asked the starving workers and children which they would prefer, they would always choose the factories and their "unsafe working conditions", which by definition were less unsafe than the alternative. In fact, that were asked, in their tens of millions, and that is exactly what they chose.

Nor can you wave a magical wand and cause factory owners to increase wages or "improve working conditions" out of the benevolence of their hearts. It is not the benevolence nor malevolence of capitalists hearts that sets wages or determines "working conditions", it is rather the level of accumulated capital and the increased productivity that it creates coupled with free market competition for scarce workers that increases all these things.

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It's hard to predict what the results of limited lack of respect for property rights might be.

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No, it isn't.

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Perhaps the hypothetical low-wage factory owner just has to build a high-security compound and employ armed guards. But it's also possible that the workers get really mad, storm the compound, and kill the owner and his family. Maybe that happens in a lot of places and there's a repeat of the Russian Revolution.

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And this is exactly what you get in places like Haiti, where demogogues, such as yourself, tell people that it's okay to steal from people if they have more than you. And the inevitable result is decivilization. Rather than telling people to work hard, don't let anyone steal what is theirs, you tell them that it is perfectly just that a special class of people can eat out the bulk of their work and saving, and that, even better, it is perfectly just for the people to then try to employ that parasitic class to rob from those who are left with more than they are. Such a society can only result in a kleptoclysm of violence.

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A critical and often-overlooked function of the democratic system is to mediate the competing demands (legitimate or illegitimate, rational or irrational) of various parties.

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I boggle at the irony. If one had to identify which system had the express purpose of "mediating the competing demands of various parties", it would emphatically NOT be democracy, it would be the free market. THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT. THAT IS WHAT IT DOES. It "mediates" competing demands for scarce resources in order to minimize conflicts and the costs associated with them, for the maximal possible wellbeing of all participants. And it does it a damn sight better than a centrally planned, coercive monopoly.

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Bill Gates can keep his billions, but he has to pay higher taxes,

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How much taxes? 10%? 20%? 40%? 60% When is the mob sated? Answer: never, of course. You've told them that it's perfectly ok to steal with those who have more than you. Since theft is better than work, these gains will likely lead to no long-lasting improvement of economic position (just look at the plight of most lotto winners), while the victim, still blessed with whatever talents allowed him to excel at providing for consumers, will continue to do so, and least until the plunder incentivizies him to either leave the country and take his productive capital with him (can you say Haiti?), or much more likely seize the apparatus of coercion and use it to his own benefit, which of course then becomes at the expense of those who believe they are robbing him. Fantastic system you advocate.

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hedge-fund managers can get paid what they want, but maybe they don't get capital-gains treatment. Viewing democracy as solely a decision-making prospect (a role for which it is laughably ill-suited) is unfair. Even if we accept that democratic interventions are never efficient, it might still be the case that they resolve non-economic problems.

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No, they do not and cannot. First, there are no non-economic problems, and second, a system which is set up to have specially classes of people with special rights to violate the property with others will be an endless source of resentment and target for the power-hungry. In fact, since the power-hungry set up the system, the target wasn't even moving. It's just there, growing like a cancer, a parasite, devouring all it can reasonably get away with.

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The world has never experienced a society where wealth inequality was allowed to increase without limitation or responsibility.

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Nor would there be one under the free market. Do you see why?

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It's possible that irrational jealousies on the part of the underclass would make such a world unstable.

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Especially with people like you waving the class warfare banner telling that it is correct to destroy civilization because of their "irrational jealousies", rather than joining the fight to shine the light of reason on them.

[bobman0330]

Boro,

Thanks for your post: it gave me a lot to think about. First, though, we should clear up a misunderstanding. I'm not advocating stealing from Bill Gates or murdering factory owners unless they increase their wages. I'm merely postulating that a large number of people would. So, not only are your attempts to convince me that Industrial Revolution-era factories were a good thing (I wholeheartedly agree), but your repeated attempts to label me a demagogue are quite unfair. Really, the only political persuasion I engage in this forum, and I doubt the libertarians and anarchists who are the majority here are in much danger from my clumsy rhetoric.

There are a couple of points you made that I disagree with. First, you claim the fact that civilization exists means there is no inherent inclination to jealousy and covetousness. Since all our evidence comes from government-indoctrinated societies, I don't see how we can solve the problem. (Maybe 100 guys named Og tried to invent agriculture in prehistoric times, but their tribemembers, also named Og, got greedy and stole all their seeds and ate them. Perhaps it was only an exceptionally tough 101st Og who managed to invent agriculture, beat the hell out of all the other Ogs, name himself Priest-King and start indoctrinating everyone.) Fortunately, it's not all that important. The important question is what people believe now, or what they'll believe in the near future. And right now, I think it's pretty clear that people are jealous. Read the editorial page of any newspaper for two consecutive days and you're almost certain to find some class resentment. Nor is it likely that these beliefs are going to go away. Libertarian beliefs are attractive to a certain subset, but it's hardly the demographic that I fear will be trying to storm Bill Gates' house. Those people are far less likely to succumb to economic explanations and rational arguments than the denizens of this forum.

(I do have to note here that it's ironic that you cite early America as an example of the natural state. Post-revolutionary America was probably the most libertarian society that ever existed everywhere (with the unfortunate exception of slavery). Furthermore, that libertarianism was the result of the exceptionally skillful propaganda campaign that led up to the Revolution. Again, though, not especially relevant. )

Second, you claimed that my hypothetical "oppressed" factory workers would support their factory owner. Sure, they would choose working for him over their other voluntary options, but my whole point is that that's not the only choice. Maybe they and their friends (perhaps fired up by some union demagogues who no longer have a non-violent path to power) are going to trash the factory or murder the owner or whatever. The mere fact that the existence of the factory is an objective benefit to them doesn't mean they understand it, and even if they did, it doesn't mean they wouldn't fight to get a better deal.

Finally, you've claimed in several places that the market is the best arbiter of any kind of conflict. What sort of free-market solution do we have to one person's demand for a piece of another person's property or for a higher wage than supply and demand dictates? The very definition of the free market implies (I think) that the solution is "[censored] off, you parasite." That may be the morally justified answer, but it does a very poor job of actually resolving the conflict, and that's what I worry about. With these conflicts unsolved, how can we be sure that the US would be on the road to free-market paradise and not the Haitian kleptoclysm?

[Borodog]

bobman,

Your entire thesis seems to be that we need the state to accede to the demands of the mob to prevent the mob from enacting its demands.

I find this argument less than convincing, to say the least.

But I will post a point by point rebuttal when I have the energy.