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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Libertarianism as ideology (reply to Richard C.)
Message-ID: <1462@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Mar-85 18:14:39 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1462
Posted: Sat Mar 16 18:14:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Mar-85 20:55:18 EST
References: <342@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> <ucbvax.5308> <1450@dciem.UUCP> <topaz.962>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 66
Summary: 


>> 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.
>
>> 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

The problem is one of extremism.  I believe my article from which
JoSH quoted extracts said that ownership of property was a practical
thing.  I object to the notion that you have a right to exclude others
form ANY use of ANY of your gains.  JoSH counters with examples of
property that most people (certainly me) would agree are reasonable
things you would wish to keep in good condition: my burning of JoSH's
table would deprive him of its use, as would his filling my model
airplane with firecrackers.  He might well have a practical right
to deny me the use of the table on which he lavished so much care;
I might damage it, and he can't use it while I have borrowed it.

As for the sandwiches versus lobsters example, I can't see anyone
taking that seriously.  Who argued that people who take different
amounts of care, who do different things, who work hard or are lazy,
should all "have" the same benefits?  I don't think that's the
socialist ideal, and it certainly isn't mine.  But I don't want to
feed JoSH while he is putting in all his time on his table, either.
Perhaps he doesn't want me to, but it comes across that way.  To take
a less obvious example, I don't want to go to the trouble of fencing
off his driveway because he doesn't pay taxes for street upkeep.
And I don't want him claiming a beauty spot or natural resource
just because he decided he wanted it and no-one else had been
so selfish before.  That's what the "grab,grab" part of my earlier
posting referred to.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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