Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!MC.LCS.MIT.EDU!kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu From: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU Newsgroups: mod.politics Subject: Property rights Message-ID: <12228205669.23.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Mon, 4-Aug-86 17:39:56 EDT Article-I.D.: RED.12228205669.23.MCGREW Posted: Mon Aug 4 17:39:56 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Aug-86 23:24:25 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 66 Approved: poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu From: "James B. VanBokkelen" You don't want big corporations throwing their weight around, like arranging their rates so their competitors get undercut where they have competition, and their customers get raped where they don't. I would prefer that they don't, just as I would prefer that people don't smoke and use dangerous drugs. But I don't think that *I* should have veto power over behavior I don't like. You do want a land-owner to be able to do *anything* he wants with his property, even to destroying all life on it. Who else should be allowed to decide? Who should have veto power over the landowner's decisions? THese come into conflict. I would like to see less smoking. A ban on tobacco advertising would certainly do this. So I would be pleased such a ban. But I oppose the ban. Yes, there is a conflict. Truly supporting freedom of speech means supporting it even when the speaker is saying something uttely vile. Similarly, truly supporting individual rights including property rights (and can there be any rights without property rights?) means supporting the right of a landowner to do things I don't like with his land. Please understand that there is an enormous difference between supporting a right and agreeing with how an individual chooses to excercise it. There is an enormous difference between disapproving of a behavior and supporting a law against it. Reader's Digest refuses to allow tobacco advertisements. I applaud this exercise of their rights. And I buy their magazine every month partly to show my support. If they had instead chosen to ban advertisements by any minority owned firm I would be dismayed, and would refuse to buy the magazine, and would advocate a boycott. But I would support their RIGHT in EITHER case. You are free to boycott dealing with someone whose conduct you find reprehensible. You are free to try to talk others into also boycotting the individual or the corporation. Suppose Nelson Bunker Hunt had succeeded, and succeeded with gold or platinum instead of silver. He then owns almost *all* of it in the world. Not likely. The more he owned, the more the remainder would cost. Other investors would notice, and would buy and would refuse to sell. He was not trying to own ALL the silver. He only wanted to own a sufficient percentage of it that its price would go up by a few percent. Then he would quickly sell it at the higher price. He was very wealthy, but not even he could afford to buy several percent of the silver in the world. He borrowed enormous amounts of money to do so. This is a risky game. It depends on being able to outguess the other investors. He played it and lost. The price went up more slowly than he thought when he bought the silver. The price went down more quickly then he thought when he sold it. What is the alternative to allowing people to play this game? Do you advocate nobody but the government being allowed to own silver? Seems to me that policy simply trades the remote possibility of a partial monopoly for the certainty of a (government) monopoly. And does so at the expense of individual liberties. I fail to see the sense in that. ...Keith -------