RadioRaheem84
14th July 2013, 21:11
I need help perfecting this analogy for my father in laws reactionary newsletter:
Let's say there is a small town that has gone through a drought and may experience a famine. A few miles on the outskirts of the town there is a huge landowner sitting on the only arable land for miles. The towns people are clamoring the mayor of the town to go and purchase the land from him. The mayor obliges the town folk and seeks the approval of the landowner to purchase the land. The landowner refuses and says that this land is not for sale and no way will he give it up. He can rent it out to them but his price is far too much for the towns folk to afford.
The mayor comes back and tells the town folk that they cannot have the land. Anger stirs up in the town and they all agree to expropriate the land and use it to farm before they all starve. Politics has failed and they go after the land. Upon meeting the land owner, he put his foot down and gives a riveting speech about how they're impeding on his rights to property and individual liberty. This land he says, has been in his family six generations and it belongs to him. If they give in to this unruliness they're giving in to mob rule and it will lead to tyranny.
The question I ask is what is the right thing to do here? Should the towns people take this man's land to keep from starving or should they respect his rights to property, thus solidifying the sacred law of private property?
Since I've asked this question after telling this little story, a lot of my friends have said that it's not right for the towns folk to steal his land. It's the man's land he says and his family worked so hard for it so it would be wrong for them to take it. What if that was your land, they ask?
Apparently the exercise is supposed to determine how much people will defend the ideal of private property over the reality that people will starve if they do uphold it.
Need help to see this from all angles. Libertarians feel free to give your insight.
Let's say there is a small town that has gone through a drought and may experience a famine. A few miles on the outskirts of the town there is a huge landowner sitting on the only arable land for miles. The towns people are clamoring the mayor of the town to go and purchase the land from him. The mayor obliges the town folk and seeks the approval of the landowner to purchase the land. The landowner refuses and says that this land is not for sale and no way will he give it up. He can rent it out to them but his price is far too much for the towns folk to afford.
The mayor comes back and tells the town folk that they cannot have the land. Anger stirs up in the town and they all agree to expropriate the land and use it to farm before they all starve. Politics has failed and they go after the land. Upon meeting the land owner, he put his foot down and gives a riveting speech about how they're impeding on his rights to property and individual liberty. This land he says, has been in his family six generations and it belongs to him. If they give in to this unruliness they're giving in to mob rule and it will lead to tyranny.
The question I ask is what is the right thing to do here? Should the towns people take this man's land to keep from starving or should they respect his rights to property, thus solidifying the sacred law of private property?
Since I've asked this question after telling this little story, a lot of my friends have said that it's not right for the towns folk to steal his land. It's the man's land he says and his family worked so hard for it so it would be wrong for them to take it. What if that was your land, they ask?
Apparently the exercise is supposed to determine how much people will defend the ideal of private property over the reality that people will starve if they do uphold it.
Need help to see this from all angles. Libertarians feel free to give your insight.