Forums of the Libertarian Left

JosiahWarren wrote:

One person excercising his would lead to another being prevented from excercising his.

Right. And in the case of land, where two people can't locate in the same spot at the same time, one just needs to compensate those excluded who are in proximity and forced to an inferior location by your unjust exclusion.

Compensation is only owed if one person violated the rights of another. But, unless you think people can have a right to violate rights, this is not what happened - all one party was doing is excercising his "equal access rights," which inherently precluded others accessing theirs.

Which is tantamount to saying no apropriation is just.

It is unjust because you have harmed others by forcing them to less desirable locations. The amount of harm is calculated by the amount of economic rent attached to the location in question.

My comment referred to what is just, not what is unjust. Your interpretation of the lockean proviso would make any just appropriation impossible.

Thus, simple justice is served by requiring the sharing of the economic rent so everyone's right of self-ownership remains intact.

Why the economic rent? Why not, a la Nozick, simply say that if the appropriation doesn't worsen the position of others, then it is just?

If I may interject, if only to practice translating geo-speak:

Richard_A_Garner wrote:Compensation is only owed if one person violated the rights of another.

But recall that JW's Georgist position starts with a presumption that there is a collective ownership in the land. That sets up a right (in his view) that can be then violated because the "rogue" appropriator has not received the permission of all his co-owners to put up a boundary around his claim. But these co-owners can prefer that their joint right be interpreted as being a "standing order" to the effect of: you don't need to actually bother getting our permission as long as you recognize the market's ability to signal economic rent as a measure of the degree to which you are interfering with our joint ownership. Is that about right, JW?

Your interpretation of the lockean proviso would make any just appropriation impossible.

Actually, I don't think JW would deny that all appropriation is unjust (as noted above) to the degree that it generates economic rent but that it can be rectified with compensation in place of getting permission from everyone on the planet.

Why the economic rent? Why not, a la Nozick, simply say that if the appropriation doesn't worsen the position of others, then it is just?

Because that begs the question against the Georgist?

I guess the problem that always comes into play with the georgist language/terminology is that it is very counter-intuitive to act as if what seems to be completely baren, unowned land is actually in some sense owned by everyone. An "equal access oppurtunity right" to what seems to be priorly unused and unowned land (even if one agrees with it) does not seem to be the same thing as ownership of any sort at all. So the language is confusing, not only from a neo-lockean perspective but also from more of a use/occupancy perspective (since claims to ownership over what one doesnt use or occupy would seem to be manifested in "collective" claims just as much as "individual" ones).

JW's Georgist position starts with a presumption that there is a collective ownership in the land. That sets up a right (in his view) that can be then violated because the "rogue" appropriator has not received the permission of all his co-owners to put up a boundary around his claim. But these co-owners can prefer that their joint right be interpreted as being a "standing order" to the effect of: you don't need to actually bother getting our permission as long as you recognize the market's ability to signal economic rent as a measure of the degree to which you are interfering with our joint ownership. Is that about right, JW?

No. Not collective because that would require everyone's prior approval.

Everything starts out in common as an individual equal access opportunity right.

No one labored to create any location.

The extent to which the excluded's self-ownership rights are being unjustly violated is measured by the amount of economic rent that attaches to the location that is being exclusively used.

Sorry, JW. My fault.

JosiahWarren wrote:No. Not collective because that would require everyone's prior approval.

Everything starts out in common as an individual equal access opportunity right.

There is a tension here it seems between these two statements. If, one the one hand you recognize that collective claims require approval among the collective, why then wouldn't the same approval be required of a single person who has a claim on something before you even can into the world? How can you have an equal access right to her claim? If a universal collective ownership, in your opinion, carries the right to approval (making it a poor starting point), why don't smaller individual claims create the same problem?

neverfox wrote:If I may interject, if only to practice translating geo-speak:

Richard_A_Garner wrote:Compensation is only owed if one person violated the rights of another.

But recall that JW's Georgist position starts with a presumption that there is a collective ownership in the land. That sets up a right (in his view) that can be then violated because the "rogue" appropriator has not received the permission of all his co-owners to put up a boundary around his claim. But these co-owners can prefer that their joint right be interpreted as being a "standing order" to the effect of: you don't need to actually bother getting our permission as long as you recognize the market's ability to signal economic rent as a measure of the degree to which you are interfering with our joint ownership. Is that about right, JW?

But it seems to me - correct me if I am wrong - that he is saying for example that my taking for myself an apple owned in common is something I have a right to do, since I have an "individual access right" to things in the commons, but that taking that apple for myself would also be a violation of rights, since it would deprive others of that apple, and perhaps force them to put up with inferior apples. This, in other words, implies that exercising my right is a violation rights, or that I cannot exercise my rights without also violating rights. It means that I have a right to violate rights.

I find the notion incoherent, or at least a failure to accomplish what we presumably want rights to do, which is to break deadlocks by enabling us to rule in a party's favour in a dispute. Disputes arise because of incompossibilities of actions, but this theory of rights seems to have incompossibility written in.

Of course, it is no reason to reject varients of "geoism," because, for instance, Steiner's approach acknowledges the problem of incompossibility and rejects that the world is originally owned in common by everybody, but rather that it is all entirely privately owned, but every person should have an equal amount of land. new generations, deprived of an equal amount of land, are entitled to compensation for this fact.

Your interpretation of the lockean proviso would make any just appropriation impossible.

Actually, I don't think JW would deny that all appropriation is unjust (as noted above) to the degree that it generates economic rent but that it can be rectified with compensation in place of getting permission from everyone on the planet.

Why the economic rent? Why not, a la Nozick, simply say that if the appropriation doesn't worsen the position of others, then it is just?

Because that begs the question against the Georgist?

Perhaps, but it surely seems possible that if those deprived of the ability to excercise their "individual equal access rights" by an appropriation are no worse off than had the appropriation not occurred, it is difficult to see why they are entitled to compensation. And if they are better off, then we could imagine that compensation has been delivered in that means.

Personally, I, who own no house and no land, consider my position in even this imperfect and statist society, better than had I been a hunter gatherer exercising "individual equal access rights," which would suggest that I am compensated for the fact that I can't exercise these rights.

JosiahWarren wrote:

JW's Georgist position starts with a presumption that there is a collective ownership in the land. That sets up a right (in his view) that can be then violated because the "rogue" appropriator has not received the permission of all his co-owners to put up a boundary around his claim. But these co-owners can prefer that their joint right be interpreted as being a "standing order" to the effect of: you don't need to actually bother getting our permission as long as you recognize the market's ability to signal economic rent as a measure of the degree to which you are interfering with our joint ownership. Is that about right, JW?

No. Not collective because that would require everyone's prior approval.

Everything starts out in common as an individual equal access opportunity right.

No one labored to create any location.

But people may have laboured to discover that particular location.

This, in other words, implies that exercising my right is a violation rights, or that I cannot exercise my rights without also violating rights. It means that I have a right to violate rights.

That is what individual equal rights means.

You can have exclusive access/use so long as you do not economically disadvantage someone else.

This is what equal liberty means to me...

Disputes arise because of incompossibilities of actions, but this theory of rights seems to have incompossibility written in.

But that is the beauty and simplicity of the geoist position. The economic rent that attaches to the location someone is using exclusively - which is not the result of the excluder's labor by definition - defines the exact amount of equal access/use right infringement that is occurring and is easy to adjudicate.

Require an obligation to those you exclude for the privilege (law-based property rights) of exclusive use - sharing the economic rent with those in proximity.

I, who own no house and no land, consider my position in even this imperfect and statist society, better than had I been a hunter gatherer exercising "individual equal access rights," which would suggest that I am compensated for the fact that I can't exercise these rights.

Well in a hunter gatherer society there are no surpluses to trade.

In a geoist society, that portion of your lease payment (wherever you live) for economic rent wouldn't be there and you would have a share of the social surplus that is not the result of the landowner's labor

JosiahWarren wrote:

This, in other words, implies that exercising my right is a violation rights, or that I cannot exercise my rights without also violating rights. It means that I have a right to violate rights.

That is what individual equal rights means.

It is a right to violate rights? It is simply incoherent to say that I have a right to perform an action that others can legitimately prevent, sorry. The concept of a right to violate rights is incoherent nonsense, and yet it is what your "equal access rights" imply, making them incoherent nonsense too.

You can have exclusive access/use so long as you do not economically disadvantage someone else.

But that is introducing vague language? What does it mean to "economically disadvantage someone else"?

This is what equal liberty means to me...

But whenever I use anything I necessarily prevent somebody else from using it in anyway that would conflict with my use. Their actions are prevented by mine, so they are no longer at liberty to do those actions.

Disputes arise because of incompossibilities of actions, but this theory of rights seems to have incompossibility written in.

But that is the beauty and simplicity of the geoist position. The economic rent that attaches to the location someone is using exclusively - which is not the result of the excluder's labor by definition - defines the exact amount of equal access/use right infringement that is occurring and is easy to adjudicate.

Why? You are presuming that the value they place on being able to use that land they are excluded from is such that they would be indifferent between recieving the economic rent or recieving the land. Otherwise they would not be compensated by recieving the rent for their inability to appropriate the land. But this is implausible.

I, who own no house and no land, consider my position in even this imperfect and statist society, better than had I been a hunter gatherer exercising "individual equal access rights," which would suggest that I am compensated for the fact that I can't exercise these rights.

Well in a hunter gatherer society there are no surpluses to trade.

In a geoist society, that portion of your lease payment (wherever you live) for economic rent wouldn't be there and you would have a share of the social surplus that is not the result of the landowner's labor[/quote]

I don't see what this has to do with my comments: I am prevented from excercising an "individual equal access right" in this country because the land has been appropriated. But a world in which the land has not been appropriated, but everybody is free to use, without appropriating it, a hunter gatherer sworld, seems to me to be a world that is inferior to the present world: I am better off in this world than I would be in a world where everybody was free to use resources without appropriating anything, and nothing of nature was appropriated. So it would seem to me that I have already been compensated for being deprived of my ability to exercise my "individual equal access right." Geoism is unnecessary.

But whenever I use anything I necessarily prevent somebody else from using it in anyway that would conflict with my use. Their actions are prevented by mine, so they are no longer at liberty to do those actions.

That is the nature of rivalrous goods.

a world in which the land has not been appropriated, but everybody is free to use, without appropriating it, a hunter gatherer sworld, seems to me to be a world that is inferior to the present world: I am better off in this world than I would be in a world where everybody was free to use resources without appropriating anything, and nothing of nature was appropriated.

But those are not the only options. In a geoist world you would be better off than either.

JosiahWarren wrote:

But whenever I use anything I necessarily prevent somebody else from using it in anyway that would conflict with my use. Their actions are prevented by mine, so they are no longer at liberty to do those actions.

That is the nature of rivalrous goods.

I agree. That is why it would make more sense to say that the world was not initially owned either jointly or in common, but everybody owned an equal amount of it. Equal liberty is assigned that way, and everybody's rights are compossible. People could appropriate unequal amounts by buying land from others. Future generations who obviously would have no land, and so do not come into existence with equal rights, should be compensated by those who do.

a world in which the land has not been appropriated, but everybody is free to use, without appropriating it, a hunter gatherer sworld, seems to me to be a world that is inferior to the present world: I am better off in this world than I would be in a world where everybody was free to use resources without appropriating anything, and nothing of nature was appropriated.

But those are not the only options. In a geoist world you would be better off than either.

But that was not your argument. Your argument was that a geoist society should be created to compensate people deprived, due to private appropriation of the land, of their ability to excercise their "individual equal access rights." You did not say a Geoist society should be created to compensate people for not having the benefits of a geoist society. If you to make the second argument, the inability to exercise "individual equal access rights" becomes irrelavant - I am compensated for that under a non-geoist system several times over, so I don't need geoism to compensate me.

You did not say a Geoist society should be created to compensate people for not having the benefits of a geoist society.

The benefits of a geoist society is that everyone's right of self-ownership is intact or equal liberty while land is occupied exclusively.

JosiahWarren wrote:

You did not say a Geoist society should be created to compensate people for not having the benefits of a geoist society.

The benefits of a geoist society is that everyone's right of self-ownership is intact or equal liberty while land is occupied exclusively.

Appropriation of land doesn't violate self-ownership. It may render it insubstantial, formal, and valueless, since you couldn't do anything with yourself in a world where everything is owed by everybody except you, but that is no more a violation of self-ownership than having everybody else own all the wine bottles violates your ownership of a corkscrew.

The equal liberty thing is a different matter. It is possible, sure, but also possible that it will not provide for equal liberty: Giving me a wad of money because I have no land whilst others do doesn't guarantee I will be able to do anything, because it doesn't guarantee that people will sell to me.

that is no more a violation of self-ownership than having everybody else own all the wine bottles violates your ownership of a corkscrew.

To exist as self I need to occupy a location - no?

Giving me a wad of money because I have no land whilst others do doesn't guarantee I will be able to do anything, because it doesn't guarantee that people will sell to me.

Sell what?

JosiahWarren wrote:

that is no more a violation of self-ownership than having everybody else own all the wine bottles violates your ownership of a corkscrew.

To exist as self I need to occupy a location - no?

Giving me a wad of money because I have no land whilst others do doesn't guarantee I will be able to do anything, because it doesn't guarantee that people will sell to me.

Sell what?

A place to stand, for one.

Is the notion of the occupancy of space being a commodity, taken to the point of people simply not being allowed to exist, really sensible? I think that the scenario of every square inch of the planet being privately owned and some people not having a right to exist as a consequence of it is impossible if one has a reasonable theory of property rights to begin with. If one's theory of property rights logically entails people not having a right to exist in space, then I think it is incoherant. Realistically speaking, I have trouble seeing how the entire world could be homesteaded in such a way in the first place.

Brainpolice wrote:Is the notion of the occupancy of space being a commodity, taken to the point of people simply not being allowed to exist, really sensible? I think that the scenario of every square inch of the planet being privately owned and some people not having a right to exist as a consequence of it is impossible if one has a reasonable theory of property rights to begin with. If one's theory of property rights logically entails people not having a right to exist in space, then I think it is incoherant. Realistically speaking, I have trouble seeing how the entire world could be homesteaded in such a way in the first place.

Well, I don't know if ownership of 'space' makes any sort of sense, even from a physics perspective. But to counter some Georgist-type objections to conceptions of total proprietorship - it's not the 'space' of land, it's the stuff of land that you own. It just so happens to be the surface of a ball in space which most people happen to habitate. But I can see no more reason why a person couldn't 'legitimately' come to own the entire surface of the planet, without saying whether this is likely to happen.

this is interesting to me because its about myself. i was looking through old posts a forum i frequented (*shudder*) and came across this from five and a half years ago:

"I could be described at this point in time as something of a (theoretically) left leaning libertarian (anarchist who isn't opposed to property?)"

it looks like i was reading kropotkin and was trying to shed some ancap baggage.

anyone come across old stuff they wrote on the internet along these lines?

(I identify with a few others on the poll, but I voted Agorist.)

This compilation of quotes from myself over the last four years is the best.

"Past = property
Present = liberty
Future = life
Right is when you respect others rights, wrong is when you violate those.
You mess with me, you become a part of my past, you become my property, that's why I can mess with you without justifying my actions (since I own my past). My worldview is - you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you. You attack me, you are giving me the right to attack you."

^I said that in January 2007. There's more quotes from my past self that I'm reluctant to post. xD

Noor wrote:"Past = property
Present = liberty
Future = life
Right is when you respect others rights, wrong is when you violate those.
You mess with me, you become a part of my past, you become my property, that's why I can mess with you without justifying my actions (since I own my past). My worldview is - you don't mess with me, I won't mess with you. You attack me, you are giving me the right to attack you."

^I said that in January 2007. There's more quotes from my past self that I'm reluctant to post. xD

Wow, that's some Argumentum ad Metaphorum Cheesicum.

Anarchist Without Adjectives, with personal preference towards Agorism (market anarchism through counter-economics)

I don't think there's any objective definition of property, or ownership, which is why I tolerate diverse ones, and would expect to see several in anarchy. This conclusion directly derives from confederalsocialist's video on the subject (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eShZ76P3jWc). I also like his definition of state.

I also don't oppose non-legal private property, rent and interest.

*palmface @ confederalsocialist reference*

From my perspective, the problem is that absolutist propertarianism, in fact, reduces to a justification for a state (a claim of absolute authority derived from land ownership) and "restrictive covenants" are rigid intergenerational social contracts - regaurdless of whether or not you think property definitions are "objective".

I think stodles has done a lot of damage.

Brainpolice wrote:*palmface @ confederalsocialist reference*

From my perspective, the problem is that absolutist propertarianism, in fact, reduces to a justification for a state (a claim of absolute authority derived from land ownership) and "restrictive covenants" are rigid intergenerational social contracts - regaurdless of whether or not you think property definitions are "objective".

I think stodles has done a lot of damage.

Well seems like you and I are talking of different people. By his definition of property, absolutist propertarianism is impossible. For him, you can only own something if the other people around you let you own it. This is why I believe that several different property societies would appear based on the surrounding communities' preferences. You would have communities where all property were collectivized, communities were the only legitimate property would be the one derived from possession, others similar to today except without a state but with protection services, etc. A state would be the entity (person or group of persons) that would claim ownership from different means than the surrounding community intersubjective criteria. Example:

If in a certain community the intersubjective criteria/consensus for property is homesteading, then a state would be a person or group of people who claim ownership of property by simply stating it so out loud, or by any other action that was not homesteading.

The usefulness of this definition, is that it draws a line of distinction between someone defending their property (not a state), and someone forcefully taking another persons legitimate property (statist behavior).

Edit: I'd like to add i'm perfectly aware of confederalsocialist's (aka stodles) previous racist comments, although I don't think such reference qualifies as a valid counter-argument (it is ad hom, after all)

I do think there are limits though to community standards. There are certain conceptual boundaries to something like "property" that any indeterminacy would have to operate in, otherwise it would cease to be libertarian. I think it is possible to strain the concept of aggression too far to be coherent, which I think is true of both communism and radical propertarianism as extremes in this regard.

neverfox wrote:I do think there are limits though to community standards. There are certain conceptual boundaries to something like "property" that any indeterminacy would have to operate in, otherwise it would cease to be libertarian. I think it is possible to strain the concept of aggression too far to be coherent, which I think is true of both communism and radical propertarianism as extremes in this regard.

The only way to deal with natural non-libertarian institutions (such as racist communities for example), would be to use statist force (which goes against the non-aggression principle,, because racist communities are imposing restrictions on their property like we all do, no matter how irrational) or to believe that natural "market" incentives and activities would make such communities disappear or make such ideology inherent to the given community fade away.

Unless you got another suggestion ^^?