Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site topaz.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbdkc1!desoto!packard!topaz!josh From: josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: Libertarianism as ideology (reply to Richard C.) Message-ID: <962@topaz.ARPA> Date: Wed, 13-Mar-85 22:35:49 EST Article-I.D.: topaz.962 Posted: Wed Mar 13 22:35:49 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 14-Mar-85 23:53:37 EST References: <342@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <1450@dciem.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 86 > mmt: > JoSH once distinguished between "libertarian" and "propertarian". > > I think here we have a "propertarian" talking. If you can't see the > difference between ownership of one's mind and body and ownership of > other things, it is going to be hard to discuss anything having an > ethical basis. This looks like it's worth talking about... First, let's make clear that there are innumerable differences which can be drawn between owning one's own body and anything else (or in general between owning any two different kinds of things). However, being able to distinguish does not necessarily make one of the things distinguished wrong, per se. So let's not assume that because someone claims that a particular distinction makes no moral difference, that they are blind, stupid, etc. In the libertarian (or propertarian) schemes of things, owning oneself is usually considered a special case: one is not the fruit of one's own labor (at least originally); one did not exchange fruits of one's labor for oneself with one's original rightful owner in voluntary trade. > > To me, there are many admirable things about libertarian objectives > and ideals, but I find the "Grab,grab,hold,hold" ideology to be almost > obscene. Here we have a basic difference. Libertarians generally assume that people have a built-in tendency to greed (among many other things), and that all else being equal things will work better in a system that allows for it at the outset. My understanding of socialists is that they condemn greed in people, and wish to change their basic natures, by force if necessary. I personally consider this "I'm a god, you're clay for my molding" attitude considerably more "obscene" than one which accepts people as they are. > My objections to propertarianism are fundamental and deep. > I abhore and abjure the philosophy that you have any inalienable right > to refuse other people the use of anything other than your person. I have a finely crafted table that I spent hundreds of hours carving, sanding, and polishing, because I enjoy what I consider the finer things in life and am willing to spend the effort to obtain them. You want to build a bonfire at the homecoming game higher than last year. You have put in every weekend for the last year working on your scale-model B-29 getting every last detail right--it's your pride and joy. I want to fill it with firecrackers and celebrate July 4 in a big way. I ate peanut butter sandwiches for five years saving to buy a house. you had lobster every night. Now you feel you have an equal right to the house. You spent the last five years writing the perfect operating system. I take a copy, remove your name, put mine on, and distribute it to everyone I know with a smug air of accomplishment. > ... But never could these things > be done without the assistance, visible or ignored, of a huge range of > other people (society). You take the benefit of their labour whether > you want to or not. This is in some sense true, but it seems to be quite orthogonal to the idea of property rights. If someone builds a store nearby, I am benefitted even if I never go in; I may not have to stockpile some emergency supplies to achieve the same level of security, for example. However, this does give him the right to take anything of mine by force--and I've never seen any serious arguments from anybody to the contrary. Indeed, all the socialist argument I've seen has as its burden that we must be forced to give to people who *haven't* benefitted society at all, but "deserve" the fruits of others' labor by virtue of their need. > You have no right to keep for yourself all the > benefits of your labour, and if you are so selfish as to wish to do > so, society has the right to trample you until you squeal. > Martin Taylor This is, to coin a phrase (:^)), obscene. I fail to understand how it's so great for everybody to help everybody else, but so horrible for everybody to help themselves. If you take the overall view, it's coming from the same everybody, and going to the same everybody. Looked at from an individual point of view, someone who produces something, deserves it; someone who doesn't, doesn't. --JoSH