Thread: The Morality of Capitalism

What allowed you to originally make resources yours?

By using your resources to attain it without coercing anyone else.

Originally Posted by Feslin

By using your resources to attain it without coercing anyone else.

If you mean labour(and you must as we start with no other resources), you are correct, this is what all libertarian property rights systems are based on, but there are questions which cannot be answered either way.

Do you have the right to as much natural resources and land as you want, even though you didn't use your labour(resources.) to create them?

Can you only claim ownership as Locke said, to natural resources and land as long as there is enough left for all?

Do you have a right to waste resources such as leaving fields fallow or houses empty for years?

Do you have a right to absentee landlordism or should ownership be based simply on direct, current occpuancy and use?

These questions as I've said can't really be settled either way using the starting libertarian principles, and some group or territory will have to decide upon them, as you can't really have each individual deciding upon them.
I say the local community should decide, your state whether you like it or not will have to make the decision and I think my massively decentralised local decision is far more libertarian, particularly as the local community is not a state nor does it have hardly any other duties, except perhaps in emergencies.

Do you have the right to as much natural resources and land as you want, even though you didn't use your labour(resources.) to create them?

Sure, as long as you didn't coerce other to get them.

For instance, time. Time is a resource, very much natural, and very much our own. Unless you want to claim that time is not our own.

And then there's labor in the first place, which we traded no resources to attain.

Can you only claim ownership as Locke said, to natural resources and land as long as there is enough left for all?

Land ownership is a tough issue.

HOWEVER! Claiming that the community can own it is just as, if not more, absurd as saying that the individual can own it.

Do you have a right to waste resources such as leaving fields fallow or houses empty for years?

Yes. It's your resource, do as you wish with it.

Do you have a right to absentee landlordism or should ownership be based simply on direct, current occpuancy and use?

Yes. If you used your resources to attain the land (bought it), it's yours.

Originally Posted by Feslin

Land ownership is a tough issue.

HOWEVER! Claiming that the community can own it is just as, if not more, absurd as saying that the individual can own it.

No it isnt. It means that every member of that community who paid for it can use it.

Originally Posted by Ausinus

No it isnt. It means that every member of that community who paid for it can use it.

Where does the community get the right to own land?

Originally Posted by Feslin

Sure, as long as you didn't coerce other to get them.

For instance, time. Time is a resource, very much natural, and very much our own. Unless you want to claim that time is not our own.

And then there's labor in the first place, which we traded no resources to attain.

But the argument that you didn't create them and can't claim monopoly rights to them is equally as valid from a libertarian position.

And time is not a valid form of claiming ownership, because it doesn't involve the object, if you go and collect the object or work on it you use labour and can own, if you don't do that you cannot, time doesn't come into it.

Land ownership is a tough issue.

HOWEVER! Claiming that the community can own it is just as, if not more, absurd as saying that the individual can own it.

Actually it is much the same, but that is not what I was saying, I was saying, I was saying why should you own natural resources you didn't create when there is not enough to go around, this again is very hard to settle from a libertarian perspective.

Yes. It's your resource, do as you wish with it.

This again cannot be solved using libertarian principles, Locke thought you had not right to waste resources.

Yes. If you used your resources to attain the land (bought it), it's yours.

Same as all the above, cannot be decided.

Your state will have to decide these issues and yours is even in theory more controlling than my society and in practise yours will simply be tyranny.

Originally Posted by Feslin

Where does the community get the right to own land?

I wasn't saying that, but where does the individual? It is much of a muchness.

But the argument that you didn't create them and can't claim monopoly rights to them is equally as valid from a libertarian position.

So why are people allowed to own their own labor, again?

And time is not a valid form of claiming ownership, because it doesn't involve the object, if you go and collect the object or work on it you use labour and can own, if you don't do that you cannot, time doesn't come into it.

Time is the brunt of labor.

Actually it is much the same, but that is not what I was saying, I was saying, I was saying why should you own natural resources you didn't create when there is not enough to go around, this again is very hard to settle from a libertarian perspective.

If you uncoercively gained that resource with the use of your own resources (money), it's yours.

Like land. My family bought this land, which means they gave their resources to attain it, which means it's theirs.

This again cannot be solved using libertarian principles, Locke thought you had not right to waste resources.

Yes it can.

What's mine is mine, regardless of what I'm doing with it.

It's mine.

Originally Posted by Feslin

So why are people allowed to own their own labor, again?

Because they own their own body and it follows on.

Time is the brunt of labor.

How can you claim ownership of anything through time?

If you uncoercively gained that resource with the use of your own resources (money), it's yours.

Like land. My family bought this land, which means they gave their resources to attain it, which means it's theirs.

Nope, there are many different views and it is impossible to solve it from libertarian principles.

Yes it can.

What's mine is mine, regardless of what I'm doing with it.

It's mine.

But why is it yours? Just because you legally own it? This is not a basis for libertarian property rights, and when you look into a philosophical basis for libertarian property rights, there are questions which can have more than one answer using the starting principles and each is equally logically valid.


Btw Here again he shows his complete ignorance of real property rights theory, so I advise you who debate against american style libertarians to seize on this, Freedom for all does it too.

Originally Posted by Feslin

Indeed, it's an example of Socialist Policy in the Gilded Age.

Thanks for more evidence with which I can further demolish Johnlocke's strawmen.

No, it was endorsed criminal activities. It was no more socialism than when you rob your neighbors. While you no doubt will use that against me, let me remind that socialism is a form of socio-political interaction where the government controls the economy. That's the definition, not robbery as you believe. Although, true socialism (not your version of socialism which you use to persecute legitimate capitalists) can be likened to robbery, there's a distinction. Poor strawman.