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Author Topic: Geolibertarianism  (Read 24068 times)

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Level 20 Anklebiter

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #45 on: April 21, 2009, 01:57:36 PM »

The right to property is part of a fundamental circuit that is self-terminating/fulfilling. This circuit starts with the initial (and possibly arbitrary) assumption one has the right to live so long as that act of living does not conclude in the initiation of force to end that of another life. From that point on, it becomes obvious that the right to life leads to the right to liberty, which includes the liberty to labor for certain goals (to continue one's existence and how, and what to do with the time in between).

And if the right to liberty comes from the right to life, then the right of property solidifies the position further as it assumes one must be able to safely keep that which s/he has gathered without force or fraud (whether it's earned is another matter altogether. A pauper may never earn the coins that strangers throw to him in pity, but one could argue that he does, so it's a matter of context and possibly another outside of the theory of rights...). The right to property returns back to the original assumption of the right to life as that which you keep as property can be used to keep your life secure and to even improve it (property for food, shelter, and education. property for entertainment, psychological/spiritual growth, and so on...).

What that means is that the concept of land ownership can be argued both ways; that it is an absolute right originating from the right to life or that it a conditional right on the nature that all have a right to life of equal stature (excluding conditions where others are violating the right of others to live and other violations of rights). If one assumes land ownership is absolute, one is assuming that one could in theory (maybe not in practice) can own an entire planet. Such a thought does seem problematic, but what is more so troublesome is the nature of the upper bounds of one's land ownership in a finite space. Do I own the infinite volumes both up and down in respect to my speck of acreage on Earth? If not, why? If it's not infinite, then how high/low does the boundary go, and by what standard does one measure it? Conversely, if I cannot own any land or space, then how can I assume I own anything at all, as the assumption of no ownership in one sphere assumes no ownership in another as a human being needs space to simply exist (excluding Escher drawings here...). Thus, the problem isn't easily resolved by going to either extreme or at least not considering the possibility of dichotomies on this issue as valid.

In my opinion, land ownership is conditional in a social context just as all property rights are conditional. For example, I may own the cheeseburger I bought at the local greasy spoon, but I don't own the both, plate, or other things I used at the place. I'm simply 'renting' those from the restaurant owner (at cost). Equally, the restaurant owner cannot do any Jedi hand waving and claim that the cheeseburger is not mine anymore without reimbursement of funds which I tendered for the food. So, with that simple example it's clear to me that conditions are always being placed on the nature of property rights in as much as all parties are treated equally under the 'contract'/agreement/consensus met. It is that agreement/contract/and-or-consensus that defines the boundaries. Landownership must be treated similarly within reason.

Another example; it may be possible in some far off future to homestead an entire Earth-sized planet. Where the boundaries are marked by satellites and the limits of the boundaries include the orbit (in as much as logic allows, not as a static domain, but as a general "right of way" which all orbiting bodies require to exist (just like in road traffic)) of the planet. But, the limits are two-way, no one can magically park a Deathstar in the same orbit and then claim s/he owns the planet too. Rather, they own the Deathstar in that orbit, and nothing more. The same goes back to the planet homesteader; he does not now own the Deathstar because it now shares the same orbit. So, again, consensus/agreement plus context defines the boundaries, not static function headers that arbitrarily define the specific quantities of the variables measured.

As such, I think it's easy to see that the geolibertarian view does have some valid claims, but that they're not tempered by the reality of ownership both legally and ethically (and how these two domains overlap). And the knee jerk reaction in revulusion to the geolibertarian view is no more right as it too ignores the nature of consensus plus context.
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #46 on: April 25, 2009, 09:49:35 AM »

"Here to confuse and arouse" indeed.  :roll:

In the meantime, evolutionary pragmatism FTW!



Oh, and ...

... here's what you append to all your forum posts if you want every person viewing them to hammer maqs.com for ~8MB of bandwidth: 




:twisted:
« Last Edit: April 28, 2009, 01:46:20 PM by the ghost of Alex Libman »
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fatcat

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #47 on: April 28, 2009, 10:59:08 AM »

As I've already explained, the mere act of homesteading creates value.  By getting there and proving that the homesteaded property is mine (i.e. no one got there before me), I've made it more accessible to the people who didn't get there before me, but may now be interested in buying it.  I've made an effort to bring this property into the human economy, and my ownership of it is my reward.

You seem to have dodged the issue again.

As I was saying, the "value" you perceive, is merely subjective. While a jury of 12 might recognize one claim more legitimate than another, they are both arbitrary

Even the boundaries within that subjective concept are subjective. How long to you have to homestead before its yours? 10 seconds? 10 hours? 10 years? Any point you pick can only be "this seems okay/fair to me", nothing more.

There's only an arbitrary principle behind it (wealth creation = ownership)

This model would be much more satisfactory if people actually created the atoms, not just rearranged them.

If you build a car, and I smash it to piece with a sledge hammer, theres no objective sense of which is more valuable. I could claim that I have created wealth by making something better out of your car, though under the standards of a car being a vehicle for transportation it would be destruction, but that's exactly the point, it depends on nothing but subjective opinion.

I agree that under certain qualifiers, homesteading can be perceived as value creation, its just I find the value creation model of ownership fairly shaky, given that many people (my shaman blessing the ocean example being one of them) have wildly varying concepts of what is value and what counts as creation of value, or merely steading what value was already there.

What counts as "wealth" is purely in peoples head, so it can never be a standard for becoming owner of previously unowned land, as there would be no legitimate owner in any dispute.

The humanity wasn't created with an instruction manual on how to live rightly, we had to evolve from primordial goo and figure it out for ourselves.  We've made many huge mistakes along the way: "divine right" of governments, wars, failure to recognize the property rights of more primitive cultures (or fairly document the exchange of land for trinkets), colonization, altruism, democracy, and so on.  But that doesn't mean we can't be civilized and recognize the natural human right to property going forward.

There's been a lot of circle dancing in the rest of your post, so I'll keep this short.

I've mainly been trying to dispute your apparent acceptance that homesteading is some inherently proper way to devise ownership.

I haven't seen shit to see you back up what you think is "natural rights", other than some arbitrary standard you have concocted.

I've said before, I'm perfectly willing to use arbitrary measures of property ownership in the stead of any objetive measure, I just don't feel the need to call i anything other than arbitrary and pragmatic.

As such, I do not believe we have any fundamental dispute.

You seem to be claiming that, whatever people recognize as legitimate, and whatever you count as wealth, and whatever you count as pragmatic is what is right.

To a point I agree with you, although I would prefer to label it as "what will work", rather than what is right.

I much prefer to work from a point of voluntary interaction onwards, as it is axiomatically pure, and

I think somewhere between Zhwazi's idea of no one owning land but everyone getting to use it, and a homesteading idea would be most practical.

Although as I've said before, I don't think either idea is based on any objective standard.

At some point each argument just says, well let's count this as given, and then work from there.
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Ghost of Alex Libman

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #48 on: April 28, 2009, 11:52:40 AM »

Yeah, yeah, everything in the universe is "arbitrary", let's all kill ourselves.  :roll:

Look, I've made a bulletproof logical case for property rights.  Your failure to understand it is not my problem.  If someone has a rational rebuttal, I will address it, but I'm done repeating myself for now.

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JosiahWarren

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Re: Geolibertarianism
« Reply #49 on: May 04, 2009, 01:20:15 PM »

If you don't own the space you occupy you don't own yourself. As the libertarian ethical system is derived from the axiom of self-ownership, there's absolutely nothing libertarian about Geolibertarianism.

Except that the argument you made AGAINST geo-libertarianism IS the exact argument FOR geo-libertarianism.

Kind of confounding isn't it?

Because if all the locations were privately owned and you didn't own any - then where could you go to exercise your absolute right of self-ownership??
« Last Edit: October 16, 2009, 11:35:17 AM by JosiahWarren »
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