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I could be wrong, but I see that as overcomplicating things and possibly distracting from the purpose of the concept. The fundamental reason for the existence of property is to settle conflict over scarce resources. It wouldn't make sense to say that multiple people own anything simultaneously, because the conflict is not resolved if both/all of them want to use it differently. Someone will need to have the final say, and that person is acting as the owner.
But I'm open to hearing a counterargument to that...
I offer: air & oceans. The Law of the Sea is such that oceans are either: 1) State Property when close to the shores, or 2) near open access at the high seas.
The air is a common good. It is not subject to individual control. Regulatory control is the only control possible.
I offer: air & oceans. The Law of the Sea is such that oceans are either: 1) State Property when close to the shores, or 2) near open access at the high seas.
The air is a common good. It is not subject to individual control. Regulatory control is the only control possible.
I'd say air isn't a scarce resource, so it wouldn't apply. If air was scarce and there was conflict over who got to use it, property would come into play.
Oceans...whichever state controls that area would be the owner, and more specifically, whichever individual has the final say in a conflict (or to complicate things, whoever a third party arbitrator/judge ruled in favor of). I also think some could be considered unclaimed, so it wouldn't be anyone's property.
I'd say air isn't a scarce resource, so it wouldn't apply. If air was scarce and there was conflict over who got to use it, property would come into play.
Oceans...whichever state controls that area would be the owner, and more specifically, whichever individual has the final say in a conflict (or to complicate things, whoever a third party arbitrator/judge ruled in favor of). I also think some could be considered unclaimed, so it wouldn't be anyone's property.
Air is a common good. I'd make a substantial bet you weren't around a city in the early 70s, because the air can be bad & can cause a host of health problems. Thus we regulate it to limit the emission of harmful pollutants.
As I said: oceans are in essence state property near the shore (a particular form of collective good), but on the high seas they are open access. Meaning: they are not private property. They are a collective property under our legal regime.
The reasons behind the term "pursuit of happiness" would probably be impossible to convey to many of those here who have known only the comforts of life in a mature and industrialized society. The distortions of slavery aside for the moment, life for the majority of the population engaged in the subsistence agriculture of the times was, to borrow from the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, "mean, nasty, brutish, and short".
But it's the word "short" that most needs to be emphasized here; because the phenomenon that came to be called the Enlightenment had been under way, and recognized, for several decades. Journals of early entrepreneurs reveal a recognition of the benefits of mass production, division of labor, and the first serious "internal improvements", such as canals, and primitive roads The process fed upon itself, and accelerated, and it was only when it was held up by short-sight and resentment, such as the crude populism and cronyism of Andrew Jackson some years later, that the process stagnated. Conversely, when outgoing President James Madison pocket-vetoed an "internal improvements" bill (which was little more than "pork-barreling") in 1817, thereby returning the responsibility for financing to the states and, by implication, to individual efforts, it set the stage for one pf the longest and fastest periods of expansion in American history -- ending with Jackson's vindictive veto of a central banking bill.
This phenomenon, unlike the burst of entrepreneurial activity in the early 1980's, goes unnoticed largely because the Snowflake Generation and the helicopter parenting which created, coddled and spoiled it views it as so much ancient history -- but the pattern is the same. And should the United States stumble, the number of emerging democracies ready to assume the mantle of leadership is growing.
Last edited by 2nd trick op; 07-05-2017 at 06:38 PM..
A caller asked him why the "property" right of which Locke wrote ("life, liberty, and property") was changed in the Declaration of Independence to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Mark explained that "pursuit of happiness" was understood at the time to encompass more than mere real or personal property.
Okay, but why then is property the weakest right of the three? Why is the right to property so insecure, so tenuous?
Maybe because the idea that happiness is indelibly dependent on material possessions is kind of disgusting? Or maybe because the idea that God takes an interest in material wealth is kind of disgusting? Or maybe because life and liberty are more like abstract philosophical ideas, and it's difficult to "entitle" anyone to something tangible?
Air is a common good. I'd make a substantial bet you weren't around a city in the early 70s, because the air can be bad & can cause a host of health problems. Thus we regulate it to limit the emission of harmful pollutants.
As I said: oceans are in essence state property near the shore (a particular form of collective good), but on the high seas they are open access. Meaning: they are not private property. They are a collective property under our legal regime.
This is actually an interesting perspective. Most statists can't reason this well.
Air (pollution as a whole) is one area Rothbard struggled with. I struggle with it too.
If you mix your labor with something you can make a claim to it as your property. Locke noted this and Rothbard agreed.
The question is: where does my use of air (and any damaging effects I may induce on it) end and your use of air (with the right to not have aggression committed against you by breathing in bad air) begin?
The best and most logically consistent answer (for an anarcho-capitalist like myself) would be that since you do not produce air, potable water, soil from within your physical body any air,water, or soil you come into contact with is your responsibility to filter as you see fit.
Of course, the best way to do this in a free society (Stateless) would be to form contracts and resolution councils that encouraged actions by yourself and others to put the elements surrounding you into the condition you find most ideal.
Life itself can be construed as an act of aggression on another person because that person must now work harder to find resources for himself due to stronger demand/decreased supply.
So life itself, and byproducts of life itself (expelling carbon dioxide, producing bodily waste) left in unclaimed property or that engages another in their own private property (smells, noises) are not acts of aggression.
Air is a common good. I'd make a substantial bet you weren't around a city in the early 70s, because the air can be bad & can cause a host of health problems. Thus we regulate it to limit the emission of harmful pollutants.
As I said: oceans are in essence state property near the shore (a particular form of collective good), but on the high seas they are open access. Meaning: they are not private property. They are a collective property under our legal regime.
With air pollution, I wouldn't consider it a property issue necessarily...as if it's theft of people's air to pollute it. I would say that whoever is polluting and causing a health hazard is performing a sort of aggression against people (which I suppose would be a violation of property rights in the sense that your body is your property, and they are damaging it). It's not about deciding who gets to use the air as much as it's about someone doing damage to your body or possibly your possessions.
Yes, oceans are state property near the shore, sure. That means that the state is the owner, and calling it collective ownership is not very meaningful. In another thread I mentioned that the state owns everything within it's borders, so we don't truly own anything, and someone disagreed. I then compared it to your boss telling you you're the boss and he's your employee, but your relationship stays exactly the same...people can call you the boss, but it's meaningless if you're still reporting to him and he doesn't have to do anything you ask.
With open access, it depends. If nobody has any claim over it, then it truly belongs to no one. If a government decides "this is open to everyone", they are the owner because they are the one making that decision or preventing anyone else from owning it. It's the same as if a private entity bought/homesteaded a park and said it's open to the public.
A caller asked him why the "property" right of which Locke wrote ("life, liberty, and property") was changed in the Declaration of Independence to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
Mark explained that "pursuit of happiness" was understood at the time to encompass more than mere real or personal property.
Okay, but why then is property the weakest right of the three? Why is the right to property so insecure, so tenuous?
Because not everyone has this right, or not everyone has it in the same degree may be?
"Property right" is something tangible, while "right to life" and "liberty" can be interpreted in many ways.
As much as "pursuit of happiness."
You can get an idea what "train of thought" Mark follows here;
Maybe because the idea that happiness is indelibly dependent on material possessions is kind of disgusting? Or maybe because the idea that God takes an interest in material wealth is kind of disgusting?
It might SOUND disgusting, but why live in denial? This is what the US was founded on, is it not?
"Gayraud Wilmore characterizes the Puritan social ethic as focused on the "acquisition and proper stewardship of wealth as outward symbols of God's favor and the consequent salvation of the individual."[34] Puritans were urged to be producers rather than consumers and to invest their profits to create more jobs for industrious workers who would thus be enabled to "contribute to a productive society and a vital, expansive church." Puritans were counseled to seek sufficient comfort and economic self-sufficiency but to avoid the pursuit of luxuries or the accumulation of material wealth for its own sake.[33]"
Even one of the slaveowners among them, Thomas Jefferson himself, was conflicted on the subject of slavery. This is doubtless the reason for changing 'property' to 'pursuit of happiness.' 1840 is not contemporary to the Declaration.
Pursuit of happiness avoided the thorny issue of slavery. It is also a superior piece of rhetoric. To the ears of 1776 (as of today, really), proclaiming the superiority of property rights would harken to the British class system, conjuring images of near-feudal Lords with vast holdings. Pursuit of happiness speaks to something greater: to each a dream.
Agree the earliest designers of the US were conflicted when it came to property. The alleged 'right to own people as property' was present from day 1, was one of the most hotly debated issues at the Constitutional Convention, with the 'end product' worded vaguely in regards to the institutionalized 'right'. They agreed to disagree, so to speak, for 20 years. Thomas Jefferson, while President, on the first day it was possible to do so (as per the Constitution) prohibited the importation of slaves:
Quote:
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that stated that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect in 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.
...On December 2, 1806, in his annual message to Congress, widely reprinted in most newspapers, President Thomas Jefferson denounced the "violations of human rights" attending the international slave trade and called for its criminalization on the first day that was possible (January 1, 1808). He said:
Quote:
I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe.[8]
The House and Senate agreed on a bill, approved on March 2, 1807, called An Act to prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eight. The bound measure also regulated the coastwise slave trade. President Thomas Jefferson signed the bill into law on March 2, 1807.[9] Many in Congress believed the act would doom slavery in the South, but they were mistaken.[10]
Not only mistaken, the United States would War over the issue.
The earliest designers were also likely conflicted about property after the 'dealings' with the people who were already here. The idea of owning land, however 'natural' it may seem in the present day context & culture, in the long sweep of humanity's existence, it's a fairly recent invention.
Most kids (at least here in NY) learn about the purchase of Manhattan island:
Quote:
Minuit is generally credited with orchestrating the purchase of Manhattan Island for the Dutch from the Lenape Native Americans. Manhattan later became the site of the Dutch city of New Amsterdam, modern-day New York City. A common myth states that Minuit purchased Manhattan for $24 worth of trinkets; However, a letter written by Dutch merchant Peter Schaghen to directors of the Dutch East India Company stated that Manhattan was purchased "for the value of 60 guilders,"[2] an amount worth around $1,050 in 2015 dollars.[3] Minuit also founded the Delaware colony in the early 1600s. ...
Also agree with what you're saying about attempting to avoid the property rights of the British caste system & of smacking of feudalism.
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