A Critique of Rothbardian Natural Rights (sorta long)

[moorobot]

As for the 1st part, you essentially don't argue with my point that what you say would happen in a stateless society is not what would really happen under one.

As to the 2nd, I have no idea why you made those points. Neither paragraph has anything to do with anything. Please try and understand my point before criticizing it. Let me try again.


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

[ConstantineX]

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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.

This isn't because it is socialistic or communistic, but because such authority is rejected under anarchist principles.

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This is annoying. No authority has to be given for property to exist. Just the mere long-term usage is property. No matter how much Castro protests that he has no bank accounts to his name, the fact that the leader's perks are reserved to him makes him a de facto (rich) proprietor. The reason authority is closely tied to the concept of property is because society at large realized that disputes arose and there needed be a legitimate method of resolving them. If any good is rationed, it implies an implicit concept of property because the concept of rationing implies certain groups are EXCLUDED from the use of that good. That means those groups excluded cannot possibly claim any sort of "ownership" rights. And a world without any rationing implies a world of no or little scarcity.

[ConstantineX]

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As for the 1st part, you essentially don't argue with my point that what you say would happen in a stateless society is not what would really happen under one.

As to the 2nd, I have no idea why you made those points. Neither paragraph has anything to do with anything. Please try and understand my point before criticizing it. Let me try again.


[ QUOTE ]
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. 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) 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?" This question, while perhaps of some interest philosophically, is utterly irrelevant politically. 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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Great post again. And the fact there exist monopolies on force implies that local monopolies can and do exist. I tend to think of the market system as transforming illegitimate competition (in the form of violence) to legitimate competition. Drug dealing is an ideal example. In the inefficient system we have now, they compete through inefficient and illegitimate means to preserve and increase their market share, such as theft and murder. Allowing legal protections by monopolizing force allows the firms not to focus on those production lines, and conduct their legitimate business through technical innovations like delivery and a higher-quality product.

[AlexM]

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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.

This isn't because it is socialistic or communistic, but because such authority is rejected under anarchist principles.

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BS. The cooperation of others is necessary for any society. You think that "true anarchists" reject the necessity of people not killing each other? BS. You're just being contrary for the sake of being contrary here.

[AlexM]

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What you're advocating is pure ANARCHY.

These guys are advocating anarcho-CAPITALISM.

A world of difference-

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No, it's not different at all.

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ANARCHIST : "Property is theft".

Anarcho-CAPITALIST : "Property is sacrosanct".

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False. Anarchist just means !government. It doesn't imply anything about property. If you want to make a statement about what property should be, you need to add some form of adjective to the label "anarchist".

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Ofcourse not, if you want to make claims to authority over property in an anarchist society you have to make contract.

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No, you don't, although it does make things easier most of the time.

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Lack of property rights beyond right of use (gathered through cooperative means) is meaningless to a true anarchist, if lack of property rights are an inviolable absolute then you give the state legitimacy over land in the same degree you give someone who pointed at an unowned piece of land 500 years ago legitimacy over it. There would be no difference.

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I completely agree with what you obviously meant to say here from my correction. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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

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Yes, in a world where "half" means "completely".

[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.)

What they did is they tried to establish direct rule, i.e. participatory democracy, through the rule of local councils. They tried to have as much as possible participation of all classes of people except for priests, landlords, bosses and the like, but without any other restrictions as to sex, nationality, etc. Workers, peasants, and the intelligentsia were supposed to have an equal say with prostitutes in this. Of course, all preconceived, bourgeois notions of individual morality were trashed. Yes, the anarchists were serious about the slogan "All Power To The Soviets!" while the true-red Communists of the (official) communist party were certainly not. The Commies wanted all power to the party...

"Soviet" means "council", in Russian.

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So what you're saying is that communists who called themselves anarchists, but very obvious weren't, came to power. Uhm... k.

[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!

[Zygote]

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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.

This isn't because it is socialistic or communistic, but because such authority is rejected under anarchist principles.

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what about the land the they stand on, they energy they consume to make any movement, and the air the they breathe, etc.?

How can these not be instantly viewed as property

[AlexM]

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what about the land the they stand on

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I really wish you would stop saying this. All you're doing is making AC look bad. The land you stand on? You're standing on the land in my house. You don't own it, now GTFO. So easily refuted it's not even funny.

[tame_deuces]

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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.

This isn't because it is socialistic or communistic, but because such authority is rejected under anarchist principles.

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BS. The cooperation of others is necessary for any society. You think that "true anarchists" reject the necessity of people not killing each other? BS. You're just being contrary for the sake of being contrary here.

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Not at all. The problem isn't property rights per se, but the view of property rights as a perpetual absolute. 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. Only the socialist anarchist models rejects personal property as a whole.