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From: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Newsflash! [JoSH on Socialis
Message-ID: <266@meccts.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 14:04:47 EST
Article-I.D.: meccts.266
Posted: Sat Nov  9 14:04:47 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Nov-85 22:02:35 EST
References: <876@water.UUCP> <28200245@inmet.UUCP> <233@gargoyle.UUCP>
Reply-To: mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein)
Organization: MECC Technical Services, St.Paul, MN
Lines: 46
Keywords: property rights, justice

In article <233@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes:

>What exactly constitutes a just or unjust private
>appropriation of property?  My argument is that the Libertarian
>courts, and Libertarians in general, would judge by a false standard.
>They permit the private ownership of WHAT NO ONE HAS A NATURAL RIGHT
>TO OWN PRIVATELY, namely the productive resources that we need to
>live.  The ownership of these resources was originally acquired
>unjustly, by the theft of what was jointly owned (or perhaps owned by
>no one), and the (spurious) titles to these resources have been
>bequeathed or exchanged in the formally correct ways, down to
>Libertaria, which refuses to question these titles.  For if indeed
>these titles were questioned, it would be bad news for the
>property-owning class.  Hence I maintain that Libertaria is based on
>theft, or the ideologically motivated unwillingness to rectify past 
>thefts.

Gaining wealth from the state of nature requires human effort.  Given
this, is it not appropriate then that the person who puts forth this
effort is granted ownership of that he was able to produce? A good
example of this might be the Homestead acts of the US. In the
Homestead acts if an individual was willing to work and live on the
land granted for several years and make it productive , they then
were given title to the land.  Such a move certainly entailed a 
lot of hard work and risk for the individual. Are you saying 
that granting them this land was a "theft" from you and I?  
If so, please explain more clearly why you think that such 
individuals should be our slave.

It is a pretty fundamental theorem of Welfare Economics that given 
any initial property endowments, eventually the property will 
be distributed to those who are most efficient.  One can 
see this process continuing every day.  Any firm that stops 
making a profit (producing social benefits better then
their competitors) will go out of business and be replaced by someone
who can.  One hundred years ago, railroads were very rich and powerful
companies, now look at them.  Therefore even accepting your argument
defining "theft" does not lead to your conclusion, since property
endowments are not static and they will tend to optimal social benefit
(a nice side benefit of individual freedom).
-- 

Michael V. Stein
Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services

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