A Critique of Rothbardian Natural Rights (sorta long)

[tame_deuces]

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As for the anarchism = no government thingy, that is...well...half true.

[/ QUOTE ]Anarchists have come to power, in History. in 1848, in Paris, France, also in 1937, in areas of Spain, etc. They have never abolished all government. They were anarchists, not fans of Jesse James. (Though some anarchists were ex-bandits.)

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Yeah this is pretty much what I meant. What seems to trouble most anarchists about a government isn't that it is a government, but how it governs.

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Then they are not anarchists! No government is what the damned word means!

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No, it means no compulsory government, it doesn't mean no government. And it means no permanent authority, not no authority.

ACism otoh tends to hold an absolute 'no government' view.

[AlexM]

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The problem isn't lack of property rights per se, but the view of lack of property rights as a perpetual absolute.

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Especially when initial claims to raw resources (for example land) should always be debatable in a truly free society, thus you should have a more fluid and cooperative means of stating property right.

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Oh, so you agree with AC then. Jolly good.

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Only the socialist anarchist models rejects personal property as a whole.

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Which is what you've been advocating as "true anarchism". Fun to see you starting to change your story though.

[AlexM]

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As for the anarchism = no government thingy, that is...well...half true.

[/ QUOTE ]Anarchists have come to power, in History. in 1848, in Paris, France, also in 1937, in areas of Spain, etc. They have never abolished all government. They were anarchists, not fans of Jesse James. (Though some anarchists were ex-bandits.)

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Yeah this is pretty much what I meant. What seems to trouble most anarchists about a government isn't that it is a government, but how it governs.

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Then they are not anarchists! No government is what the damned word means!

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No, it means no compulsory government, it doesn't mean no government. And it means no permanent authority, not no authority.

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If it's not compulsory, it's not government.

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ACism otoh tends to hold an absolute 'no government' view.

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Yes, because all government is compulsory. We support anything that's not compulsory though, so if you have something you call government that isn't compulsory, go for it.

[Zygote]

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But my primary point is that this is utterly utopian. Human beings are not going to stop joining with one another for common purposes, no matter if you think that is a good idea or not.

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Nothing wrong with humans joining each other for common purposes. No reason that must mean violence.

If hundred people are standing by a bridge in a democracy and 51 say jump and 49 say no, then the 49 who refuse are pushed over the edge. In anarchy, 51 will have a common interest, 49 will have a common interest, but since there is no majority rules, 51 will jump and 49 will leave.

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Groups are going to come together, they are going to have more power than isolated individuals, and the groups, therefore, are going to have there way.

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Nothing wrong with groups being successful. This doesnt instantly imply coercion against anyone. You seem to think people can only have their way at the expense of other but in fact that is more a function of government then freely acting individuals, then you seem to understand. Lastly, if the group becomes coercive and successfully maintains a social structure of coercion then they are a state and we are no longer in anarchy. This is the same as your first point from the last point.

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In fact simple economics should tell you that anarchy incentivizes the use violent cooperation amongst people for common goals, as there is no longer a state (the 'monopoly on the legitimate use of force' which puts its competitors-other producers of violence-out of business, so to speak, so they are unable to achieve there goals via violence)

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The state only has a monopoly on institutional violence. If different firms were competing the incentive would be for cooperation and most likely respect for private property. Without the state, everyone must bare their own costs and cant externalize the cost onto the citizenry. This means war is very costly and the major incentive will be to cooperate. Different capitalist firms in todays world dont bother solving disputes with other firms violently and the reasoning isnt necessarily because of the government. I'd say the reasoning has more to do with costs, shareholders, and the benefit of each respecting each other.

One more point is the government proclaims a monopoly on force, but this isnt entirely true. The government creates and maintains mob groups for example.

You also seem to think there is more a peaceful scenario by the government having a monopoly on force rather than that power being dispersed. So far as i can see, the worst you can say about anarchy is that it descends into what we have now.

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"Given that humans will try to coerce each other and will engage in collective action, what should our institutions look like?"

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They should be private property based. This is the best Schelling Point and the most efficient way of solving conflicts.

[mrick]

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If "everyone owns everything" then you've already got a concept of property.

[/ QUOTE ]Nope, you have a negation of property.

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Wrong. You can't have it both ways. If nobody owns resource X, then nobody has any legitimate reason to complain when resource X is consumed. If someone does have a right to resource X, than that person has an ownership interest in that resource.

[/ QUOTE ] You are engaging in sophistry. Resource Air is a common resource, meaning it belongs to everybody and nobody owns it. If someone claims that he owns the Air (whether the whole planet's air or the wind passing over his farm), then that person is stealing from everybody else -- even though nobody else has laid claim to the air!

Classical anarchists simply expand this notion of common ownership to almost everything. So, according to them, an individual stating that he "owns the forest outside Paris" is an individual who is a thief. Even if nobody else has claimed to be the forest's owner. Their reasoning is mostly archetypally Christian, radically libertine and anthropo-centric.

Wait, I thought all this was mere rhetoric for you. I see now that you're ready to engage in some meaty arguments. Goody.

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The people who claim property is theft are just generating slogans.

[/ QUOTE ] "Generating slogans" could just as easily be said of your lot too, the ACists.

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My lot? Other people do it, so you want to accuse me of doing it?

[/ QUOTE ] Yes, ACists do it too, in my opinion. This is what I believe, i.e. that ACists discuss things with generalities, respond to questions with more questions and use a lot of sloganeering. I don't think this is relevant to the discussion but since you asked...

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You threw out the "property is theft" line.

[/ QUOTE ] I did. It's a line from the classics. I intended to sum up the differences between anarchism proper and anarchism of the Capital. One hates the idea of private property, the other worships it.

The important thing is that the classics were not merely "sloganeering". They had built up quite a case. One needs to go the gist of their arguments and try to refute them. Not dismiss the slogans.

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If exposing inconsistent but slickly-phrased arguments is condescending and trollish, then guilty as charged.

[/ QUOTE ] So far you have done nothing of the sort. I briefly reported what the classics of anarchism believed. You dismissed them all as mere producers of slogans. You exposed nothing but contempt.

Oh and you asked one question, something like "who's the owner of all that public property". (Only it was rhetorical - right.)

[tame_deuces]

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The problem isn't lack of property rights per se, but the view of lack of property rights as a perpetual absolute.

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Especially when initial claims to raw resources (for example land) should always be debatable in a truly free society, thus you should have a more fluid and cooperative means of stating property right.

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Oh, so you agree with AC then. Jolly good.

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Only the socialist anarchist models rejects personal property as a whole.

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Which is what you've been advocating as "true anarchism". Fun to see you starting to change your story though.

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Not really a change of story, what these other models state as property rights has nothing to do with ACist property rights.

[tomdemaine]

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If "everyone owns everything" then you've already got a concept of property.

[/ QUOTE ]Nope, you have a negation of property.

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Wrong. You can't have it both ways. If nobody owns resource X, then nobody has any legitimate reason to complain when resource X is consumed. If someone does have a right to resource X, than that person has an ownership interest in that resource.

[/ QUOTE ] You are engaging in sophistry. Resource Air is a common resource, meaning it belongs to everybody and nobody owns it. If someone claims that he owns the Air (whether the whole planet's air or the wind passing over his farm), then that person is stealing from everybody else -- even though nobody else has laid claim to the air!

Classical anarchists simply expand this notion of common ownership to almost everything. So, according to them, an individual stating that he "owns the forest outside Paris" is an individual who is a thief. Even if nobody else has claimed to be the forest's owner. Their reasoning is mostly archetypally Christian, radically libertine and anthropo-centric.

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Nope sorry. You claim ownership of the air the second that you take it into your lungs and separate the oxygen from the carbon dioxide. Noone has a higher claim to that resource at that time than you do at that time. that's all that "ownership" means the highest claim to a particular resource at a given time. If I spend $100's taking that air and bottling it and creating scuba gear are you saying that I can't own the air? If someone wants to show ownership of the forest outside paris they have to show that they have the highest claim to it, usually a property deed. There are something that at this point in time noone has any claim to nor wants any claim to say an acre of land at the bottom of the ocean but that isn't to say it's unownable just that noone claims it currently.

[pvn]

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ACists are not anarchists no matter how much they like to tag the wikipedia pages. There is no legitimacy to a property claim in a truly free society unless it is obtained through cooperation with others.

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First note that the second part of this paragraph, if true, does not prove the first half, nor does it imply it.

But let's go with it.

If there's no legitimacy without voluntary cooperation, then the claim that "everyone" owns resource X is ALSO illegitimate without voluntary cooperation. Just because YOU say everyone owns it (or that NOBODY owns it) doesn't mean that's true, especially if I disagree with you.

Now what?

[pvn]

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Anarchists aren't satisfied until bargaining comes down to the individual.

[/ QUOTE ] But my primary point is that this is utterly utopian. Human beings are not going to stop joining with one another for common purposes, no matter if you think that is a good idea or not.

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Of course they aren't. Luckily, anarchist principles are fully compatible with people joining with one another for common purposes.

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It simply doesn't matter whether you think this would be a good idea...it is a fact and needs to be built into all sane political theories. Groups are going to come together, they are going to have more power than isolated individuals, and the groups, therefore, are going to have there way. In fact simple economics should tell you that anarchy incentivizes the use violent cooperation amongst people for common goals, as there is no longer a state (the 'monopoly on the legitimate use of force' which puts its competitors-other producers of violence-out of business, so to speak, so they are unable to achieve there goals via violence)

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Total non sequitur. Cooperation > violence, therefore violence is incentivized? You've totally contradicted yourself. Your concept of violent cooperation is a total oxymoron.

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Essentially, anarchocapitalists ask, as you admit, "What would a capitalist economy in which there is no collective action and no willingness to coerce one another look like?"

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No they don't, because no anarchocapitalist I've seen has ever advocated a world without collective action.

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This question, while perhaps of some interest philosophically, is utterly irrelevant politically.

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Agreed.

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The better question to ask politically is: "Given that humans will try to coerce each other and will engage in collective action, what should our institutions look like?"

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And the answer could be different for different people, and there's no reason a one-size-fits-all answer needs to be imposed upon anyone.

[pvn]

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As for the anarchism = no government thingy, that is...well...half true.

[/ QUOTE ]Anarchists have come to power, in History. in 1848, in Paris, France, also in 1937, in areas of Spain, etc. They have never abolished all government. They were anarchists, not fans of Jesse James. (Though some anarchists were ex-bandits.)

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah this is pretty much what I meant. What seems to trouble most anarchists about a government isn't that it is a government, but how it governs.

[/ QUOTE ]

Then they are not anarchists! No government is what the damned word means!

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it means no compulsory government, it doesn't mean no government. And it means no permanent authority, not no authority.

ACism otoh tends to hold an absolute 'no government' view.

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Oh, the semantics game. The "two people deciding where to go eat lunch are forming a government" semantics game. Please, get real.