CDZ Libertarian Error: Locke And The Natural Right To Property

[skews13]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

We are all born propertyless.

This is as true for the person who eventually becomes a billionaire as it is for the impoverished. The only way to acquire property in a settled society, where all the natural resources have been divvied up and are already owned by someone, is to acquire it from those who already have it. Those who cannot acquire property from those who own it will die.

If we now say that property owners have the right to do whatever they like with their property – share it or not, hire people or not – this is as much as to say that they have the right to determine, at their sole discretion, who, among those who do not yet have property, shall live and who shall die, who shall prosper and who shall founder, who shall have the opportunity to fulfill their potentialities and whose potentialities shall be quashed. In effect, it is to say that property owners have a right to establish a tyranny over everyone else.

In other words, to grant that people have the property rights that libertarians claim is to grant that some (the propertied) have the right to deprive others of the very things libertarians themselves generally claim we all have a right to – life, liberty, and property.

But this amounts to a contradiction. By definition, no one can have a right to deprive others of those things they have a right to.

It follows that there must be a flaw in the libertarian understanding of the right to property – and indeed there is. Wherein lies this flaw? To answer this we need to take a closer look at what the ‘right to property’ really means.



The Libertarian Error

 

[TNHarley]

This is 2017. What the hek is "private property?"

 

[AVISSSER]

We are all born propertyless.

No, your person is your property...my body my choice?

The only way to acquire property in a settled society, where all the natural resources have been divvied up and are already owned by someone, is to acquire it from those who already have it.

Invention? Intellectual Property?

If we now say that property owners have the right to do whatever they like with their property – share it or not, hire people or not – this is as much as to say that they have the right to determine, at their sole discretion, who, among those who do not yet have property, shall live and who shall die.

Maybe in a closed state monopoly but certainly not in a free market. Free markets provide alternatives. If a person, who owns a store decides not to hire additional employees at the detriment of his business then he will suffer and his business will fail. Other competitors will fill the gap.

In other words, to grant that people have the property rights that libertarians claim is to grant that some (the propertied) have the right to deprive others of the very things libertarians themselves generally claim we all have a right to – life, liberty, and property

Your argument is conflating the corporeal (things we can touch/houses/cars/land) with the incorporeal (life/liberty/pursuit of happiness)

 

[flacaltenn]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

We are all born propertyless.

This is as true for the person who eventually becomes a billionaire as it is for the impoverished. The only way to acquire property in a settled society, where all the natural resources have been divvied up and are already owned by someone, is to acquire it from those who already have it. Those who cannot acquire property from those who own it will die.

If we now say that property owners have the right to do whatever they like with their property – share it or not, hire people or not – this is as much as to say that they have the right to determine, at their sole discretion, who, among those who do not yet have property, shall live and who shall die, who shall prosper and who shall founder, who shall have the opportunity to fulfill their potentialities and whose potentialities shall be quashed. In effect, it is to say that property owners have a right to establish a tyranny over everyone else.

In other words, to grant that people have the property rights that libertarians claim is to grant that some (the propertied) have the right to deprive others of the very things libertarians themselves generally claim we all have a right to – life, liberty, and property.

But this amounts to a contradiction. By definition, no one can have a right to deprive others of those things they have a right to.

It follows that there must be a flaw in the libertarian understanding of the right to property – and indeed there is. Wherein lies this flaw? To answer this we need to take a closer look at what the ‘right to property’ really means.



The Libertarian Error

The only error here is the apparent lack of respect for individual achievement and labor. Doesn't matter what you're born with. You provide goods and services to others during your life and they reward you with cash and property.

No one TAKES properties from a "limited pool" that you imagine. They BUY in exchange for all the happy "thank-yous" in their wallet from others. To be UNAWARE that's where the transfer starts and that it's VOLUNTARY, means a lack of respect for labor and dedication to others. We might be a VILLAGE --- but it's a village that actually PAYS PEOPLE for their work.

And the insinuation that's there is only a limited pool of property laying is awkward and revealing. Might show a severe misunderstanding of the repurposing or expanding pool of material goods -- or the way stuff gets exchanged.

THere are WILLING sellers. You are often helping them out by buying their stuff. And everyday somewhere, a 400 acre farm is divided up for subdivisions where 400 NEW owners can come in and buy.

NOBODY gets deprived by WILLINGLY exchanging goods, services, property.

 

[Picaro]

Well first of all, Locke didn't invent 'natural rights', he merely plagiarized from a long history of philosophical inquiry that began with Plato, greatly expanded under the dynamism of the Christian paradigm through Justin Martyr, Origen, Ignatius, Augustine, and Aquinas, to Thomas Helwys and others. He in fact adds nothing new to the idea himself. Instead of Locke, read F.A. Hayek's The Fatal Conceit; it covers that territory much more thoroughly. The idea of 'private property' is an artificial construct, based on Lamarckian social evolution and a tested and tried advance in social evolution necessary to progress; it is dependent on a state for enforcement, so one has to be careful when claiming 'libertarianism' is some sort of anarchy devoted to mindless self-indulgence; it isn't. It has it problems, and its weirdos and wingnuts, but the term covers a lot of territory, which doesn't include anarchy and no state at all.

 

[skews13]

Well first of all, Locke didn't invent 'natural rights', he merely plagiarized from a long history of philosophical inquiry that began with Plato, greatly expanded under the dynamism of the Christian paradigm through Justin Martyr, Origen, Ignatius, Augustine, and Aquinas, to Thomas Helwys and others. He in fact adds nothing new to the idea himself. Instead of Locke, read F.A. Hayek's The Fatal Conceit; it covers that territory much more thoroughly. The idea of 'private property' is an artificial construct, based on Lamarckian social evolution and a tested and tried advance in social evolution necessary to progress; it is dependent on a state for enforcement, so one has to be careful when claiming 'libertarianism' is some sort of anarchy devoted to mindless self-indulgence; it isn't. It has it problems, and its weirdos and wingnuts, but the term covers a lot of territory, which doesn't include anarchy and no state at all.

I presented the article in hopes of creating a discussion both pro and con. While I agree with much of your premise, I lend just as much credence to the OP's. I posted it here to prevent the usual suspects of red scare zealots from being able to hijack it and devolve it into the usual talking points. I'm actually encouraged there are posters here that have the intellectual capacity to even comment with any coherence on it. Thanks for the reply.

 

[usmbguest5318]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

I don't agree that is the or a fundamental flaw of Libertarianism. I think that philosophy's fundamental flaw is that it aims to design and implement policy without regard to the common man's capacity to feed his greed and envy, along with most people being given to acting out of fear rather than reason.

to grant that people have the property rights that libertarians claim is to grant that some (the propertied) have the right to deprive others of the very things libertarians themselves generally claim we all have a right to – life, liberty, and property.

A right to something and possession of the object to which one has a right are not the same things. Possession of any physical resource, including property, with which one is not born must be earned one way or another -- by one's birth, through the generosity of others, or by one's efforts, or perhaps a combination of the three.

 

[SeaGal]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

The author does a poor job of comparing libertarian thought with socialist thought - attributing to the former the flaws of the latter.

The beauty in libertarian thinking is its ability to realistically take into account the nature of human nature and its role in shaping a society - and the realization that prosperity and liberty are dependent upon the free and open exchange of goods and services, mutual respect for property, not subject to the whims of bureaucracy. A society in which each member is free to choose to define their own level of satisfaction...as well as the amount of effort they choose to apply toward the attainment of that level.

The failure in the thinking of a socialist by the continued denial in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is the belief that a 'government' has the duty to arbitrarily determine what portion of the property (income or otherwise) one person has acquired is actually deserved by another. Another flaw is in the use of vague terms - such as living 'well', or 'satisfactorily' - terms it has never fully defined. In essence the immorality of that delusion denies the nature of the human social construct and clears the path to tyranny - as it was in the beginning so it shall ever be.

Our society falls somewhere in between libertarianism and socialism. The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now.

Example - the bear needs the bee to produce the honey, the bee needs the flower to produce the pollen, the flower needs the sunlight and rain to grow. A socialist government would attempt to ration the rain and sunlight to give it to those who live in a gloomier climate, regulate the population of the bee, and be the sole arbiter of just how much honey does a bear need anyhow - a capitalist economy would willingly pay for the honey and sell it to the gloomier places...which enables the bear, the bees and the flowers to be happily productive...the gloomier places are happy too because they can buy as much honey as they wish with the fruits of their labor.

 

[usmbguest5318]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

The author does a poor job of comparing libertarian thought with socialist thought - attributing to the former the flaws of the latter.

The beauty in libertarian thinking is its ability to realistically take into account the nature of human nature and its role in shaping a society - and the realization that prosperity and liberty are dependent upon the free and open exchange of goods and services, mutual respect for property, not subject to the whims of bureaucracy. A society in which each member is free to choose to define their own level of satisfaction...as well as the amount of effort they choose to apply toward the attainment of that level.

The failure in the thinking of a socialist by the continued denial in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is the belief that a 'government' has the duty to arbitrarily determine what portion of the property (income or otherwise) one person has acquired is actually deserved by another. Another flaw is in the use of vague terms - such as living 'well', or 'satisfactorily' - terms it has never fully defined. In essence the immorality of that delusion denies the nature of the human social construct and clears the path to tyranny - as it was in the beginning so it shall ever be.

Our society falls somewhere in between libertarianism and socialism. The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now.

Example - the bear needs the bee to produce the honey, the bee needs the flower to produce the pollen, the flower needs the sunlight and rain to grow. A socialist government would attempt to ration the rain and sunlight to give it to those who live in a gloomier climate, regulate the population of the bee, and be the sole arbiter of just how much honey does a bear need anyhow - a capitalist economy would willingly pay for the honey and sell it to the gloomier places...which enables the bear, the bees and the flowers to be happily productive...the gloomier places are happy too because they can buy as much honey as they wish with the fruits of their labor.

The beauty in libertarian thinking is its ability to realistically take into account the nature of human nature and its role in shaping a society - and the realization that prosperity and liberty are dependent upon the free and open exchange of goods and services, mutual respect for property

Human nature does not have any inherent respect for property. Humans, like all other creatures, would as soon from others take property/resource they desire as elsewhere and otherwise obtain substantively the same property/resource. Respect for property/resource, or more accurately, respect for the fact that such property/resources currently belong to someone other than oneself, is borne of codified jurisprudence and exigencies of its enforcement. not of nature, and codified jurisprudence is a human construct, not an aspect of nature, be it human, bovine, canine, or any other.

The beauty in libertarian thinking is its ability to realistically take into account the nature of human nature and its role in shaping a society - and the realization that prosperity and liberty are dependent upon the free and open exchange of goods and services, mutual respect for property

You've got it partly backwards and partly wrong.

• Backwards -- Free and open exchange of goods and services depends on liberty, not the other way round. Liberty facilitates the free and open exchange of goods and services. Having the latter will not effect the former; however having the former, liberty, can effect environment/economy wherein the free and open exchange of goods and services occurs. Think about it. How can a society deliver free and open exchange of goods and services without first according to the members of society the liberty to conduct the transactions of free and open exchange of goods and services? It cannot.
• Wrong -- Prosperity does not depend on liberty, the free and open exchange of goods and services, or mutual respect for property.
  
  Prosperity is not a binary thing; however, whether one is prosperous can be binarily assessed. Most people in the U.S., for example are, by Western standards, prosperous whereas most people in, say, the Solomon Islands are not. Be that as it may, to the extent people and/or individuals there (or anywhere, for that matter) aren't desirous of living a westernized lifestyle, they have no need to prosperous in the Western sense of that word. Similarly, within the westernized world, prosperity appears on a scale. For instance, upper-middle income American, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are all prosperous, though not equally so.
  
  It is quite possible to enjoy a lot of prosperity and have none, or few of those three things. For example, the subjects of many a monarchy had the freedom to do or own nothing without the monarch's implicit or explicit approval -- such is the way of absolute monarchies -- and yet there existed a large (though not in proportion to the overall population size) aristocracy comprised of hundreds of thousands of people who enjoyed prosperity, largely as a result of the monarch's benevolence and perspicacity.
  
  Liberty, the free and open exchange of goods and services, and respect for property combine to facilitate prosperity. No one of the three has an express dependency on any of the other two, and one or a society can be prosperous with having any of three, though it'll be a pretty bellicose society -- about as much as are "cultures"/communities of other creatures that vie for critical resources -- if there no respect for property rights.
  

 

[SeaGal]

Human nature does not have any inherent respect for property. Humans, like all other creatures, would as soon from others take property/resource they desire as elsewhere and otherwise obtain substantively the same property/resource. Respect for property/resource, or more accurately, respect for the fact that such property/resources currently belong to someone other than oneself, is borne of codified jurisprudence and exigencies of its enforcement. not of nature, and codified jurisprudence is a human construct, not an aspect of nature, be it human, bovine, canine, or any other.

Exactly - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy. It is far closer to the vision of the framers than socialism.

• It is quite possible to enjoy a lot of prosperity and have none, or few of those three things. For example, the subjects of many a monarchy had the freedom to do or own nothing without the monarch's implicit or explicit approval -- such is the way of absolute monarchies -- and yet there existed a large (though not in proportion to the overall population size) aristocracy comprised of hundreds of thousands of people who enjoyed prosperity, largely as a result of the monarch's benevolence and perspicacity.

...and whim...and presence. Which is why societies offering a 'least restrictive environment' foster the opportunity for the prosperity to all of its citizens. Whereas a totalitarian society suppresses innovation and creativity. A totalitarian society is more likely to eat the golden egg lying goose - a less restrictive society is more likely to encourage the goose to reproduce.

Again, a reminder - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy and is far more aware that human nature cannot be transformed, only mitigated.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Human nature does not have any inherent respect for property. Humans, like all other creatures, would as soon from others take property/resource they desire as elsewhere and otherwise obtain substantively the same property/resource. Respect for property/resource, or more accurately, respect for the fact that such property/resources currently belong to someone other than oneself, is borne of codified jurisprudence and exigencies of its enforcement. not of nature, and codified jurisprudence is a human construct, not an aspect of nature, be it human, bovine, canine, or any other.

Exactly - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy. It is far closer to the vision of the framers than socialism.

• It is quite possible to enjoy a lot of prosperity and have none, or few of those three things. For example, the subjects of many a monarchy had the freedom to do or own nothing without the monarch's implicit or explicit approval -- such is the way of absolute monarchies -- and yet there existed a large (though not in proportion to the overall population size) aristocracy comprised of hundreds of thousands of people who enjoyed prosperity, largely as a result of the monarch's benevolence and perspicacity.

...and whim...and presence. Which is why societies offering a 'least restrictive environment' foster the opportunity for the prosperity to all of its citizens. Whereas a totalitarian society suppresses innovation and creativity. A totalitarian society is more likely to eat the golden egg lying goose - a less restrictive society is more likely to encourage the goose to reproduce.

Again, a reminder - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy and is far more aware that human nature cannot be transformed, only mitigated.

Exactly - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy. It is far closer to the vision of the framers than socialism.

??? Who, other than you, was talking about anarchy? What point is there to introducing anything have to do with anarchy when the discussion topic is libertarianism rather than a comparison of libertarianism with anarchy? Nobody who knows what they are talking confuses libertarianism with anarchy.

Panoply/spectrum of Political Systems

​

Which is why societies offering a 'least restrictive environment' foster the opportunity for the prosperity to all of its citizens. Whereas a totalitarian society suppresses innovation and creativity. A totalitarian society is more likely to eat the golden egg lying goose - a less restrictive society is more likely to encourage the goose to reproduce.

That's not a given. What is a given is that under totalitarianism, the individual or group holding power dictates the nature and extent to which individuals and entities are permitted to innovate and be creative, and the power wielders dictate who among the ruled is permitted to be innovative/creative. An adequately adept absolute and benevolent dictatorship (absolute monarchy) is a vastly more productive, efficient and beneficial system than are all the rest. Such a model suffers not from it's not being unable to produce great prosperity for the society, but rather in finding and emplacing in power an individual (or group thereof) who is both adequately adept and benevolent.

Again, a reminder - libertarian thought does not advocate anarchy and is far more aware that human nature cannot be transformed, only mitigated.

Be that as it may, libertarianism's laissez faire approach to governance and economics brokers practically little mitigation of human nature, which is the problem with libertarianism (see also: Libertarianism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)). To wit, avarice is intrinsic to human nature, yet libertarianism suffers little mitigation of it, declaring as paramount one's right property and subordinating the society to the individual.

Put another way, libertarianism would allow a million people in a given libertarian polity to starve or freeze in the cold before it insisted that the 200,000 people, in that same polity and having more than adequate resources, share some of them to prevent those million folks dying of hunger/exposure. Libertarianism is essentially social and economic Darwinism "on steroids."

 

[Picaro]

Our society falls somewhere in between libertarianism and socialism. The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now.

The libertarianism of the Founders wasn't uniform, nor would how they perceived and implemented 'freedom' be even remotely popular with modern Libertarians, and without govt. regulation and protections 'free' markets' can't exist in the first place.

With the Founders, you have the Hamiltonian Federalists, who believed in establishing aristocratic classes and that total corruption was the only viable type of govt., and the Jeffersonians, far more influenced by Bolingbrokism than Locke, despite all the name-dropping sophistry they indulged in on all sides when political expediency called for it, especially Jefferson.. Jefferson's voter base was the evangelicals from the First and Second Great Awakenings, for instance, and neither wing outside of Hamilton's faction of the Federalists favored 'free and unrestricted' businesses and centralized wealth dominating the country. They most certainly would have hated their views on heavy restrictions of the privilege of 'unlimited liability' and state control of business practices. Jefferson wanted the U.S. capital out of New York City precisely because he recognized the hazards of it being in such a corrupt city and the influences of centralized wealth.

 

[SeaGal]

Our society falls somewhere in between libertarianism and socialism. The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now.

The libertarianism of the Founders wasn't uniform, nor would how they perceived and implemented 'freedom' be even remotely popular with modern Libertarians, and without govt. regulation and protections 'free' markets' can't exist in the first place.

Read what I wrote - and dispute that. 'We' is a reference to 'our society' today - nowhere did I claim the framers were libertarians, uniform or not. 'More, than' indicates a comparative. Tho' I believe that they envisioned a society that puts a high value on personal property and liberty...but not one free of gov't regulation and protections...another claim I have not made.

I am disputing the authors claim re the fatal flaw in libertarian thinking...not to make a case that the founders were libertarian anarchists.

 

[Picaro]

Our society falls somewhere in between libertarianism and socialism. The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now.

The libertarianism of the Founders wasn't uniform, nor would how they perceived and implemented 'freedom' be even remotely popular with modern Libertarians, and without govt. regulation and protections 'free' markets' can't exist in the first place.

Read what I wrote - and dispute that. 'We' is a reference to 'our society' today - nowhere did I claim the framers were libertarians, uniform or not. 'More, than' indicates a comparative. Tho' I believe that they envisioned a society that puts a high value on personal property and liberty...but not one free of gov't regulation and protections...another claim I have not made.

I am disputing the authors claim re the fatal flaw in libertarian thinking...not to make a case that the founders were libertarian anarchists.

I never said you were making such a case, and the 'Founders' were not more libertarian than the modern libertarians; their 'libertarianism' wouldn't fly with today's libertarians. They didn't have a problem with states having established religions, for instance; the last state legislature to disestablish its state religion was Massachusetts, in 1833 or so; they all did so gradually, as the demographics of their states changed. Most corporations had to lobby the state govt. for charters to allow them to form as well, and almost none got the benefits of 'limited liability' unless they were a business that did something that benefited most of the state, like railroads having to be public carriers, or canal and road companies, for another example; such a benefit wasn't handed out to just any idiot with a couple hundred bucks, as it is today. New Jersey required the Camden and Amboy share ownership with the state before they would grant it eminent domain status, and take on operation of the Delaware canal as well, the state took a 20% share of it. The latter example is how it should generally work in all cases of limited liability, actually, and with patents protection and other types of state bennies and business subsidies.

 

[SeaGal]

I appreciate your thoughtful and informative post.

However...

... 'Founders' were not more libertarian than the modern libertarians...

nor did I claim they were.

 

[Picaro]

I appreciate your thoughtful and informative post.

However...

... 'Founders' were not more libertarian than the modern libertarians...

nor did I claim they were.

Post #8 ...The Founders of this nation were certainly more libertarian than we are now. ... which is what I was addressing. They weren't.

 

[SeaGal]

Okay - one more attempt. By 'we', I'm not speaking for the Libertarian Party. I'm not a Libertarian. I'm speaking of the current state of policies affecting 'We the People'.

Do you believe that the framers of the Constitution would have approved the Patriot Act...Obamacare...the current welfare system...interventionism in world affairs...or did their ideology follow more closely with the below? Generally speaking.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor...

 

[flacaltenn]

The fundamental flaw in libertarian thinking is its failure to take into account the interdependent nature of social life and, in particular, how property is acquired, and must be acquired, in a settled society.

I don't agree that is the or a fundamental flaw of Libertarianism. I think that philosophy's fundamental flaw is that it aims to design and implement policy without regard to the common man's capacity to feed his greed and envy, along with most people being given to acting out of fear rather than reason.

to grant that people have the property rights that libertarians claim is to grant that some (the propertied) have the right to deprive others of the very things libertarians themselves generally claim we all have a right to – life, liberty, and property.

A right to something and possession of the object to which one has a right are not the same things. Possession of any physical resource, including property, with which one is not born must be earned one way or another -- by one's birth, through the generosity of others, or by one's efforts, or perhaps a combination of the three.

The open exchange of goods, services and the LIBERTY to retain your earnings -- is what channels greed into useful COOPERATIVE social contracts. Greed in itself is not a bad thing. As in entrepreneurs who want to KNOCK OFF and recycle the rigimortus of OLD lazy established businesses who are no longer serving or respecting their customers. And you can't "help others" from a position of economic failure or weakness. Can't even help your own family if you don't HAVE Economic Liberty.

In comparison, when all those "market contractuals" become EDICTS -- managed only by POLITICAL power -- THEN a purer, more naked kind of greed is evoked. A form not BASED on dedication, vision, problem solving, but on pandering and "fairness".

 

[flacaltenn]

Human nature does not have any inherent respect for property. Humans, like all other creatures, would as soon from others take property/resource they desire as elsewhere and otherwise obtain substantively the same property/resource.

Humans that implement civil law institutions do. And Libertarians are BIG FANS of using that system to assert the sovereignty of property... RATHER than relying on the sketchy performance of govt bureaucracy to oversee or manage the markets. Those minions are always YEARS late and far short of doing any effective job at LEGISLATING market/property issues.

Also people raised morally and ethically have far less problems with respecting property rights.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Greed in itself is not a bad thing.

Greed is one of the seven cardinal sins, and for good reason. Greed itself is indeed a bad thing.

• Why Greed Begets More Greed
  
• The Global Financial Crisis of 2008: The Role of Greed, Fear, and Oligarchs