Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site ratex.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!ratex!mck
From: mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Liberty and Acquistion -- Reply to Wego
Message-ID: <1085@ratex.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 16:23:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ratex.1085
Posted: Thu Apr 25 16:23:51 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Apr-85 09:22:45 EST
Organization: Squids R Us
Lines: 80
Keywords: motorcade


Lines marked with one '>' are those of Walter Wego.  Lines marked with two
are apparently those of JoSH.  Lines marked '>>>' are from a posting of
mine.

>Jeff Sonntag already wrote a good reply to an article which criticized
>mine.  Here's what I have to add.
>
>>I disagree with the derivation of property rights from non-agression
>>principles (even though it is quite logically consistent);  [rather,
>>JoSH suggests doing it the other way around; thus he calls himself
>>"propertarian" (vs. "libertarian") to highlight this difference]
>>--JoSH
>
>I think JoSH's suggestion is a bad one just because I think non-aggression
>principles are more compelling as a starting point.  Also because non-
>aggression principles imply quite specific conclusions about property
>rights; so if you deny those conclusions you would also have to deny the 
>principles.  Hopefully you wouldn't do that lightly.

One cannot use the concept of 'aggression' without (implicitly or explicitly)
using that of 'property', and vice versa.  It may be more compelling to talk
of aggression without intially explicitly talking of property, but is it wise
to exploit (and, I think, thereby promote) fuzzy-headedness?

>DKMcK writes:
>>Some time ago [...] I posted:
>>>In a Free Economy, the following rules are observed:
>>>     Each person is initially sole owner of himself.
>>>     Unowned resources may be acquired by taking possession of them and
>>>      putting them to productive use.
>
>I disagree with the last sentence if it is supposed that using unowned
>resources always and automatically implies acquiring ownership.  In my last
>article I explained that only abundant resources can be acquired simply by
>putting them into use.

You may have DECLARED such a thing, but it cannot be EXPLAINED on the basis
of Libertarian principle (and, in fact, I am convinced that it cannot be
justified at all).  Send me (at cbosgd!dlm, NOT ratex!mck) a copy of what
you think to be such an explanation, and I will post its gaps and/or errors.

>                        (This was the 3rd of 3 methods I described whereby
>an object can first become owned.)  For scarce resources, the situation is
>more complicated; just using them does not give ownership.

Virtually all resources are scarce, and there is little point in having
property in those which are not.  If we declare that: What is scarce cannot
be property, then no one can establish claim to many of the things which are
necessary for life.

>                                                            Suppose Alpha
>makes a statue out of (previously unowned and unused) gold.  Does Beta
>have an obligation to let Alpha keep the statue, if gold is scarce and
>Beta wants to use it for something else?  I think not.  Beta has an
>obligation to avoid unnecessary interference with Alpha's activities and 
>goals, but Beta need not accept interfence with *his* (Beta's) activities
>by Alpha.  By taking the gold (which Beta would have found and been able
>to use the next day, had it not been for Alpha), Alpha is inflicting as
>much harm on Beta as Beta would be doing if he took the statue and melted
>it down.  The situation is symmetric:  each gets his preferred use only
>by making the other worse off.  Therefore, neither one has an obligation
>to concede the object, they can legitimately compete over its use.

If we accepted that each member of Mankind has an equal claim to that which
is scarce, then your conclusion might well follow.  I reject such a notion,
in that it logically leads (by virtue of the scarcity of many resources) to
a Hobbesian State of Nature in which each is continually at the mercy of
another.

>--the TRUE libertarian, Walter Wego

Your position is clearly within the tradition of Classical Liberalism, and
it can probably be well argued to be Libertarian; however, it is neither
typical nor definitive.

                               A TRUE Libertarian,
                               Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan

Arguing in netnews is like battling the Hydra!