Skip to main content

Commentaryism - Private Property =/= Force

This is actually the first of a few Youtube dumps on this topic because I'm in a proprietary mood. What follows is a comment thread from Youtube followed by a brief defence of private property by one Theresa Klein in a couple of Disqus comments on the website of an organisation called Demos.





YOUTUBE



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free-Market Communist commented on a video on YouTube.
Shared publicly  -  May 30, 2015

Private property is the initiation of force, not taxation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anthony Haller
Jul 28, 2015

+Free-Market Communist But is property itself a initiation of force?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free-Market Communist
Jul 28, 2015

+Anthony Haller
Yes. If not, how do you plan on defending it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anthony Haller
Jul 29, 2015

+Free-Market Communist
property

noun, plural properties.
1.
that which a person owns; the possession or possessions of a particular owner:
They lost all their property in the fire.

2.
goods, land, etc., considered as possessions:
The corporation is a means for the common ownership of property.

3.
a piece of land or real estate:
property on Main Street.

4.
ownership; right of possession, enjoyment, or disposal of anything, especially of something tangible:
to have property in land.

5.
something at the disposal of a person, a group of persons, or the community or public:
The secret of the invention became common property.

6.
an essential or distinctive attribute or quality of a thing:
the chemical and physical properties of an element.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free-Market Communist
Jul 29, 2015

+Anthony Haller Answer my question.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anthony Haller
Jul 29, 2015

+Free-Market Communist
I will answer your question. Defending your property with force is necessary because one: you will have no where to live except on the street being a bum. Second: if you have a wife and child then it is your role to defend them from someone trying to STEAL away property you paid money for.    

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free-Market Communist
Aug 18, 2015

+Anthony Haller Necessity is irrelevant. My thesis was:

"Private property is the initiation of force, not taxation."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anthony Haller
Aug 18, 2015

+Free-Market Communist
It is relevant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matthew John Hayden
Sep 21, 2015+

+Free-Market Communist

Private property in what? And owned by whom? I assume you mean in capital goods/means of production, and that the owners can be any human or group of humans claiming such ownership.

Communes are private owners in themselves since each commune is basically a territorial co-op/company.

When the proletariat of Commune A own a tract of land and all the buildings and infrastructure on it that means the proletariat of Commune B do not, and don't get a say in how it's used.

That exclusionary principle is private property. That is what it means, has always meant, and will always mean regardless of what ButterflyCaught900 says to the contrary.

So communes are initiating force... as is everyone that ever asserts exclusionary control over anything they give up time and effort to procure or produce if the thing procured or produced can be used in the production of other things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Julker Ninesixteen
Sep 22, 2015

+Free-Market Communist Can I take your money? Or house? You will give it to me because if you resist you implode right? Give me your bank account information. Don't worry I know you will not defend it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



DEMOS

http://www.demos.org/blog/1/29/14/what-world-following-non-aggression-principle-looks

Theresa Klein
"When a person produces something himself out of some resource he is otherwise entitled to, a system that entitles other people to that product requires the use of agression to take that product from him. A system in which he himself is entitled to that product does not. The product stays with him sans aggression.

You can claim that the initial entitlement to resources requires aggression to enforce certain property rules, but you can't say that an entitlement to keep what you yourself produce does."

"For instance. Maybe I'm arbitrarily given a piece of wood. I make a spoon out of that wood. The spoon is physically in my possession, by virtue of the fact that I MADE IT. If you want to impose a property system in which I am not entitled to the spoon, you're going to have to physically assault me to take it out of my hand.
If you impose a property system in which I own the spoon, no physical assault is necessary."

In fact Theresa's argument holds just as much for land as long as the appropriator is not appropriating something already appropriated by somebody else.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Iain McKay, Bryan Caplan & the Case of the "Anarchist" Anarchist

In the past I have written blog posts disputing claims contained in the online document called An Anarchist FAQ principally written by Iain McKay. I spent those posts trying to contend with Iain's claims re  the ancap question  and  the mode of production called capitalism . McKay has a bee in his bonnet re anarcho-capitalists' insistence on referring to themselves as anarchists, that much is obvious. Every reference to ancapism runs something along the lines of "an"cap or "anarcho"-capitalism. I find this very amusing because 'anarchist' or 'anarchism' are words (articulate mouth-sounds) first and specific concepts second.  Ditto 'socialist' and 'socialism' friends. Speaking of socialism... In  the comment section of one of his videos  the Youtuber called StatelessLiberty responded to a criticism by linking to Caplan's work  on the Anarchist adventure in Spain in the 1930's . The critic shot back with a  critic

The 'neoliberal optimism industry' industry

A podcast, Citations Needed , forgot that poverty, violence, hunger and infant mortality are declining and decided that all of the media folk saying positive things about the major trend of our time (modern economic growth) are all wrong. The neoliberal optimism industry is hard at work pushing a cherry-picked slab of bias in our faces and we fellow optimists are all being bamboozled. Of course this is completely wrong, per abundant scholarship and evidence, some even tweeted by Pinker himself on November 24th 2018, four days before this podcast was released. At 05:00 into the podcast they seem to suggest that liberal capitalism = alt-right and fascism! You might wonder why I bother mentioning this since they say they don't take the fish hook theory very seriously themselves. It's because they insist on reading things Pinker isn't saying into Pinker's public statements, so I will work from the assumption that I am supposed to read things these podcasters aren'

Doomer Eternal?

Youtuber Sarah Z talks about the Doomers, those who despair of the world. I am not trying to criticize Sarah Z's take since it is remarkably similar to mine, but I will dump my thoughts below anyway. [ 1 ] ~ ~ ~ The media has broadcast nothing but wall-to-wall doom-and-gloom for a-hundred years and then some. If things feel more hopeless now it's because so much of that media is social media generated by us, so that we are sharing the doom-and-gloom meme with each other AS WELL AS getting it from the mainstream media. Human life is in less peril than ever before (barring the possibility of WW3 between China & Russia v. NATO & SEATO) as economic development makes comfortable civilized living more and more accessible to more and more people every year, and the carbon intensity of every unit of GDP is continually declining. CO2 emissions could plausibly lead to specific calamities with identifiable bodycounts in the near future, and preventing CO2 emissions by the one plau