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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Walter Wego sponsor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Liberty and Acquistion -- Reply to Wego
Message-ID: <6162@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 02:04:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.6162
Posted: Thu May 30 02:04:16 1985
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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[Since esk@wucs has gone, I'm Walter Wego's new sponsor --pvt]

DKMcK writes:
>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?

I don't see how 'aggression' implicitly assumes a concept of 'property' except
perhaps in a trivial sense, in which my right not to be aggressed against 
implies that my body can be called my "property".  The reason I seek to derive
property rights from non-aggression principles is that the latter are more
easily seen to be justified.  Although in a sense you could call non-aggression
principles "property rights principles", they enjoy wider appeal than most
(other) concepts of property rights.  It is too question-begging to start with
a whole plethora of property rights -- non-libertarians will not be moved.

> 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.

OK.

> 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.

That is not what I declare, as you will see when you get my essay.

> >                                                            Suppose Alpha
> >makes a statue out of (previously unowned and unused) gold.  
> >          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.

It is at best an exaggeration to call my conclusions Hobbesian.  I do not
stipulate that each person "has an equal claim" to that which is scarce;
I do not assume them to have any *claim-rights* in the matter at all.  I
simply acknowledge that removing a scarce resource from circulation does
as much to interfere with the activity of others, as does taking it from
someone who is already using it.  (Actually, I have oversimplified a little
here, by ignoring the improvements on the resource.  However, in my example
of the gold statue, there were no improvements, at least in Beta's eyes.)

>>--the TRUE libertarian, Walter Wego
>                               A TRUE Libertarian,  Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan
Just scratching my itch to offend!  --THE ... wALTER wEGO