http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73930&start=0
Also, I don't know why the images are broken so you're gonna have to deal with it.
Quote:
OK, using venn diagrams, I will more clearly explain my position on property. This post begins with the assumption of the homestead principle aka the labor principle -- that property ownership is justified by labor.
Without any further ado...
First of all, the classic definition of property is the homestead principle, which seems intuitive:
Land, mixed with labor, creates property.
The problem with this is that if you apply the homestead principle to land itself, land cannot be owned. If labor is the basis of ownership, well, nobody ever labored for land (in the economic sense of "natural resources"), so nobody can claim ownership over it.
This is the core problem of land-ownership, but there are other conceivable flaws: Claims to land ownership always create an ambiguous radius around labor. (I.E., in some cases historically, a guy plants a garden and builds a house, then claims ownership over an acre surrounding the house, not just the land he's used). Virtually every case of land appropriation has created this ambiguous radius. Furthermore, utility cannot be encapsulated because of externalities: What you do with your property affects others' property, so that you have implicit responsibilities to not pollute, create waste, over-fish, over-hunt, or otherwise harm the environment. "Noise pollution," is another example. Your neighbor can't be blasting music at 3 A.M., can he?
There also doesn't seem to be any explanation as to why there is such a focus on land (literally land), but air and the ocean, and space or the essences and energies contained within them cannot be owned. Some of the more novel theories in theoretical physics create problems for the labor principle (I.E., if everything is really made of strings, then, well, shouldn't property be defined by labor upon those strings? It doesn't make any sense at all to focus entirely upon matter.)
Georgism's solution to this problem, though, is nonsensical:
OK, so nobody can own land, but they can still labor to create property -- labor upon what? In the absence of the ability to own land, you can't own anything. The analogy I often use: If I steal your cow, I don't own the dairy products I make from it, even if I labored for them. There is such a thing as "illegitimate," labor.
Furthermore, there is another ambiguity: The definition of "man-made," is ambiguous. Technically, if I just step on a piece of land, it has been mixed with my labor. Footprints and indentations in land are man-made, yet Georgists still think that such aren't truly "man-made." The only conceivable solution to this is to say it must be "useful," labor, but utility is ultimately subjective.
Some Georgists will say that land can be owned, but that people must pay economic rent to account for its value. My objection to this is that the economic rent is because of their ethical principle that land cannot be owned. Land cannot be owned, so economic rent is a pragmatic way to carry out that principle.
But again, if you can't own the cow, you can't own the cheese. If you can't own the land, you can't own the goods.
And so, when one takes the classical liberal conception of property, applies the labor principle to land itself, recognizes the inconsistency of Georgism, what do you end up with?
This:
Property does not exist.
It was this realization that led me to another intuitive idea: The whole problem with property-theory to begin with was that it assumed that people even want or need property. What people want, need, and labor for is perpetual use, which does not need to be based upon any form of "property."
Without any further ado...
First of all, the classic definition of property is the homestead principle, which seems intuitive:
Land, mixed with labor, creates property.
The problem with this is that if you apply the homestead principle to land itself, land cannot be owned. If labor is the basis of ownership, well, nobody ever labored for land (in the economic sense of "natural resources"), so nobody can claim ownership over it.
This is the core problem of land-ownership, but there are other conceivable flaws: Claims to land ownership always create an ambiguous radius around labor. (I.E., in some cases historically, a guy plants a garden and builds a house, then claims ownership over an acre surrounding the house, not just the land he's used). Virtually every case of land appropriation has created this ambiguous radius. Furthermore, utility cannot be encapsulated because of externalities: What you do with your property affects others' property, so that you have implicit responsibilities to not pollute, create waste, over-fish, over-hunt, or otherwise harm the environment. "Noise pollution," is another example. Your neighbor can't be blasting music at 3 A.M., can he?
There also doesn't seem to be any explanation as to why there is such a focus on land (literally land), but air and the ocean, and space or the essences and energies contained within them cannot be owned. Some of the more novel theories in theoretical physics create problems for the labor principle (I.E., if everything is really made of strings, then, well, shouldn't property be defined by labor upon those strings? It doesn't make any sense at all to focus entirely upon matter.)
Georgism's solution to this problem, though, is nonsensical:
OK, so nobody can own land, but they can still labor to create property -- labor upon what? In the absence of the ability to own land, you can't own anything. The analogy I often use: If I steal your cow, I don't own the dairy products I make from it, even if I labored for them. There is such a thing as "illegitimate," labor.
Furthermore, there is another ambiguity: The definition of "man-made," is ambiguous. Technically, if I just step on a piece of land, it has been mixed with my labor. Footprints and indentations in land are man-made, yet Georgists still think that such aren't truly "man-made." The only conceivable solution to this is to say it must be "useful," labor, but utility is ultimately subjective.
Some Georgists will say that land can be owned, but that people must pay economic rent to account for its value. My objection to this is that the economic rent is because of their ethical principle that land cannot be owned. Land cannot be owned, so economic rent is a pragmatic way to carry out that principle.
But again, if you can't own the cow, you can't own the cheese. If you can't own the land, you can't own the goods.
And so, when one takes the classical liberal conception of property, applies the labor principle to land itself, recognizes the inconsistency of Georgism, what do you end up with?
This:
Property does not exist.
It was this realization that led me to another intuitive idea: The whole problem with property-theory to begin with was that it assumed that people even want or need property. What people want, need, and labor for is perpetual use, which does not need to be based upon any form of "property."
