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I'm goddam laughing as I'm writing this; all rightists react like this when their irrationality is slapped by the 5 foot dick of reason.
@ RSWU:
There is no inherent restriction in property unless, as I said, you feel it's unfair to be restricted from immoral acts of aggression against others. What about self-ownership, the most basic form of property? Should we lament the restriction of raping a woman? Or should we instead praise it because it protects her liberty from such atrocious acts? The liberty here is the woman's freedom to not be raped. It is not "anti-liberty" for the rapist.
Liberty outside a social construct is still liberty, even if you don't see the value in it. Maybe someone wants to live on a deserted island. Maybe they value it, despite the fact that you don't. It is still liberty, nonetheless.
In fact, I'm glad I used marijuana as an analogy. The man on the deserted island can smoke all the marijuana he wants (if he has some). In most societies, one cannot. Society tends to attack liberty to force conformity. The social construct poses a threat to liberty, more often than not.
Private property isa construct of liberty -- it is not antithetical. Again, unless you consider the world your personal stomping ground where you can rape, pillage, steal and murder at will and call that "liberty". Property protects what an individual has rightfully obtained, and even ones own body. I'd hate to live in a world with no respect for property...
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
Im not talking fair or unfair. All that can be, and was, dealt with without private property or self-ownership. Im talking about property, which is inherently restrictive. Just because I think it's unfair that someone gets stolen from does not make private property any less restrictive.
Self-ownership is a laughable belief. I can't sell myself. Even if I could sell myself into slavery, I couldn't actually sell myself (or trade). This laughable concept not only allows for slavery (ownership means you can sell it, right) it also IS slavery. Either myself is 1 thing, and as such cannot own itself (how does something own itself) or it is two things, and my body is slave to my mind.
Self-ownership is crap.
It is from the rapist's perspective. But for the rest of us it's not.
And these things can be dealth with, and were, perfectly fine without private property.
I agree with that. And I said, at that point, liberty becomes meaningless.
I feel like I am talking to a brick wall. Private property is inherently restrictive. I don't care that you and I don't like thieves. Private property means this is mine, and the only say you have in the matter is the say I give you. That's called a restriction; mine not yours.
You're begging the question.
In nearly all pre-historical societies rules of the group only applied to individuals if they chose to follow them. That is liberty, no? These people practiced a social property system, which had nearly no resemblance at all to private property.
Save a species, have ginger babies!
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~Albert Einstein
THere is no self ownership, YOU ARE YOU, you don't own yourself, you ARE yourself, there is no ownership there.
Yeah, and maybe someone ELSE wants to live there to, if your on the island and try not to let him you restricting his liberty, thats the problem with capitalist property and liberty.
You're not understanding this, which is probably due to my failure to adequately explain...
This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's correct. If I go out into the forest and collect some tree branches, and make myself a bow and arrow, I'm at liberty to keep it and control it. It becomes mine. This is a simple human concept. It becomes my means of production for creating food resources. You may consider yourself at liberty to take my bow and arrows, and consider it restrictive if social rules or laws try to prevent you, but it's not. Liberty applies to the rightful owner, not the would-be thief.
Argue about this with the greatest philosophical grandeur you can muster, but it's not going to work. Explain to me how it makes sense for this basic human (and animal) concept to work any differently. And why all human languages would have the words "my", "mine", "yours", "theirs" if property is some recent capitalist invention.
Actually it's not. You could technically sell yourself. The fact that it's not advantageous to sell yourself into slavery means nothing. Prostitutes sell themselves all the time. And ownership doesn't necessarily mean you can sell something.
A book cannot own itself, but an intelligent, sentient being can. And if this is laughable, who owns me? The government? You? If self-ownership is not respected, you can justify some horrible things...
Sure, in ways that make no sense and can easily evade all sense of morality.
Meaningless is in the eye of the beholder...
You've still been unable to offer a compelling argument as to why, and why I'm not at liberty to keep and control something I've acquired. Denying me the ability to do so is restrictive.
American families do the same thing.
Those very same tribes who shared with their kin would kill other tribes who came and tried to take their hunting grounds, resources, tools and weapons... or their women and children (they were treated as property back then).
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
I have read a lot of libertarian arguments on this forum and several other places, I just have to say that I love libertarian logic:
the financial crisis happened because of regulations. If it wasnt regulations, the banks wouldnt given away loans to people that couldnt pay them. The billionares would donate almost all their money, and everybody would have been hugging each other and world peace would have been established.
Well, first, if you make a bow and arrow out of tree branches you are either just dumb, or 12
Second, it only becomes yours to keep and control if you are better with a bow and arrow than I am. If not, I will just take it, if that's what I want.
Third... exactly! It becomes YOURS not MINE. It has certain restrictions placed on it, by virtue of being your property... namely that it is not my property.
You're making all these moralistic arguments, but they do not matter. It doesn't make property any less restrcitive by saying stealing is wrong. Nature doesn't care if you're a thief. Only humans develop social constructs like "stealing is wrong." Liberty applies to everyone, else we wouldn't care about things like due process, and a right to a jury.
Private property is a recent capitalist development. Pre historic cultures tend to view property as "yours but subject to community interpretation." To be yours, it doesn't have to be exclusively yours. Why do they have a concept of "ours" if public property is some recent socialist invention?
Again, you can't literally sell your "self." Even if you can sell your services as a prostitute or a slave you can't sell your "self." That doesn't even make sense. Neither does the concept of "things can't own their self but a being can." Why? What does "ownership" even mean at that point? And yes, "ownership" implies "ability to transfer." I control my house. But I can't sell it, because I don't own it.
Self-ownership is a laughable concept absolutely unnecessary for the things it claims to protect. Whoever thought it up, really, should be embarassed.
You miss the point. You bring up these moralistic arguments and claim property is the only way to stop them. But they were dealt with long before private property.
Ya exactly
Ya, denying you the ability to do so is restrctive. Which is why, as I originally argued, that liberty meaning "lack of restrictions" is a contradictory and piss poor definition of liberty. True liberty is "ability to express will." And we have found it extremely hard to find true liberty under the thumb of private property.You've still been unable to offer a compelling argument as to why, and why I'm not at liberty to keep and control something I've acquired. Denying me the ability to do so is restrictive.
More often than not they would actually marry into that other tribe and trade. Actual warfare rarely practiced in tribal society. Ritualistic warfare is common, but the spilling of actual blood is not... not to say it is non-existent. It's just not common.American families do the same thing.
Those very same tribes who shared with their kin would kill other tribes who came and tried to take their hunting grounds, resources, tools and weapons... or their women and children (they were treated as property back then).
If you want the majority's lives and belongings protected you do democracy. If you want the ruling classes lives and belongings protected above all else you do oligarchy. Capitalism is oligarchy; its mine, I make the rules, the only say you have is what I give you.
Save a species, have ginger babies!
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~Albert Einstein
What if that forest is "owned" by some dude? Guess what, that bow and arrow is HIS.
THIS is hte problem with Capitalist property.
We say the bow and arrow is the guy who made it as long as its not restricting anyone else, which its not.
The guy owning the forest IS restricting ... obviously. That guy owning hte forest is the basis of capitalism, not the guy making the bow and arrow.
Yeah, that's exactly what we think...I have read a lot of libertarian arguments on this forum and several other places, I just have to say that I love libertarian logic:
the financial crisis happened because of regulations. If it wasnt regulations, the banks wouldnt given away loans to people that couldnt pay them. The billionares would donate almost all their money, and everybody would have been hugging each other and world peace would have been established.
Banks gave out those loans through pressure from your beloved nanny state model and the ease of starting (and winning) frivolous lawsuits for "discrimination" when part of a minority group or "disadvantaged". You might wanna look up Billy-boy Clinton's role in that. Furthermore, Fannie and Freddie essentially monopolized mortgages... both cronies of the state. Plus, the government gave false assurances it would guarantee MBS's, and created a phenomenon of trading MBS's and their derivatives like Pokemon cards. The proof is in the pudding: they bailed all the dip shit corporates/banks out of the mess they created together. Cronyism at its finest...
Quite a few billionaires donate the majority of their acquired wealth to charity, and do more good for people than you ever will. And no one ever said they all would do that.
"[...]and everybody would have been hugging each other and world peace would have been established."Erm... That's exactly what you think you're going to accomplish, not us...
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
Actually, very effective bows and arrows can be made from the proper tree branches. And of course, yew is the best!Well, first, if you make a bow and arrow out of tree branches you are either just dumb, or 12
Second, it only becomes yours to keep and control if you are better with a bow and arrow than I am. If not, I will just take it, if that's what I want.
Third... exactly! It becomes YOURS not MINE. It has certain restrictions placed on it, by virtue of being your property... namely that it is not my property.
No... you will not take my bow and arrow, and you don't decide what I "need". I do. I will knock an arrow on that bow, draw and slay you like the evil commie dragon-thief you are! lol
And your idea that I cannot have property is restrictive. We have a dilemma here. I say "thief be damned"...
They're not moralistic arguments. My point is that it can be viewed as restrictive to have property, yes, but it's also restrictive to deny property. One or the other must be decided upon. And as I've already said, fuck thieves!
"Ours" does not mean public property, and public property never has and never will exist. It's a silly myth. You would need a new word like "alls" to convey that concept, lol.
It makes perfect sense. An inanimate object can't own itself because it cannot own anything. A free agent can and does own itself. I can create an virtual agent (computer programming) which owns itself -- literally and theoretically.
I think it's laughable to deny. Plus, you're totally misrepresenting or misunderstanding what it actually is. I suggest you read this in its entirety:
"Self-ownership (or sovereignty of the individual, individual sovereignty or individual autonomy) is the concept of property in one's own person, expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to be the exclusive controller of his own body and life. According to G. Cohen, the concept of self-ownership is that "each person enjoys, over himself and his powers, full and exclusive rights of control and use, and therefore owes no service or product to anyone else that he has not contracted to supply."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-ownership
It even touches on your argument:
"Another third view holds that labor is alienable, because it can be contracted out, thus alienating it from the self. In this view, the freedom of a person to voluntarily sell himself into slavery is also preserved by the principle of self-ownership."That's not at all where I'm coming from. Private property has always existed. Public property never has, never will.
That definition means exactly the same thing. Ability to express will = lack of restriction against expressing will.
That's total BS...
And so is this!
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
Says yew.And of course, yew is the best!
Of course, you're right, but I couldn't resist ....
How about common? How do you call primitive communism?
Like Primitive Capitalism it is similar to what is practiced today except with a bone in one's nose.
I love yew!
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
except primitive capitalism never existed.
You can totally make a great bow out of tree branches if you know what you're doing, sadly I never got far with it though. :/
Anyhow, private property is not a recent capitalist development.
Simplistic but look under "Slave Society" in Marx's theory of history on wikipedia:
"The Second Stage: may be called Slave Society, considered to be the beginning of "class society" where private property appears."
The rise of agriculture and subsequent events caused private property develop.
RedLibre
Are you saying that if the banks could easilier give away bad loans they wouldnt?
Treated tree branches maybe. I have one of those. But you're not going to just plop a branch off a tree and make a bowActually, very effective bows and arrows can be made from the proper tree branches. And of course, yew is the best!
I need only worry about drawing my arrow faster than you, UtziNo... you will not take my bow and arrow, and you don't decide what I "need". I do. I will knock an arrow on that bow, draw and slay you like the evil commie dragon-thief you are! lol
You can have property; personal property. And you can engage productively in communal property. But you cannot have the restrictive and oligarchical privelage of private property.
"Thievery is bad" is a moralistic argument.They're not moralistic arguments. My point is that it can be viewed as restrictive to have property, yes, but it's also restrictive to deny property. One or the other must be decided upon. And as I've already said, fuck thieves!
And again, you can have property.
Ya, it kind of renders the whole concept of property obsolete, doesn't it
... that's just absolutely backwards... where do you get your information? Private property is a very, very new concept. Public property is as old as dirt.
No, they don't say the same thing, or they would say the same thing
If I live on an island (to continue the analogy) liberty, in the definition of lack of restriction, is meaningless to me. Sure, I have liberty. I have no human-made restrictions, but all I can really do is catch fish and pick coconuts all day.
If I live on an island, liberty, in the definition of ability to express will, still maintains its meaning. I have no liberty, because I can only have liberty within a social context (under my definition). Again, this avoids all the contradictions of a more negative view of liberty, such as carried by yourself.
Ya, reality is always bs to a right winger
That's total BS...
And so is this!
Preclass societies rarely engage in violent warfare. I didn't say it doesn't happen. But it is rare, and even rarer that the violence involves death.
Now, primitive agricultural/late tribal society can be a whole different matter. But that's when classes start being differentiated, and property becoming more restrictive.
What do you call it when a group involves 20 people and only 1-5 of them have the final say in any matters? Oligarchy.
What do you call it when society says that anything you buy is exclusively yours to make all final decisions on? Private Property.
Save a species, have ginger babies!
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." ~Albert Einstein
Neither did primitive Communism.
what
yeah it did
I'm on some sickle-hammer shit
Collective Bruce Banner shit
FKA: #FF0000, AKA Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath
