Regarding perfect freedom

[Pointedstick]

In our recent debates on libertarianism, there seems to be this real hangup about how private property restricts the freedom of everyone else. Whenever we talk about property, we get a lot of responses like, "well, your right to fence off an arbitrary patch of ground restricts my ability to travel the world as I please." Similarly, If I choose to stand on a patch of ground, you cannot do the same unless I leave it. If I pick up a rock, you cannot have that rock as well unless I put it down. In probing, it's been revealed that these truths are also seen as coercive: my picking up the rock coerces you into not being able to simultaneously hold the same rock.

I think this could basically be boiled down to defining freedom itself as "Freedom to do what I please unrestricted by your choices." But this strikes me as an unrealistic, impossible fantasy. Concentrating on how any human action at all restricts others' ability to take the exact same action, or make use of the space, objects, or resources that the first person is using is something that can do nothing but make you feel oppressed by everyone and everything. If perfect freedom requires the total absence of scarcity--up to and including the abolition of scarcity of physical space--then I'm afraid the only place you'll ever achieve it is in a video game or other type of purely virtual world. It doesn't exist on this earth.

Arguing that libertarianism isn't actually about freedom because of the absence of a perfect, scarcity-free world where there are no constraints or consequences reveals the messy, subjective, intensely personal definition of "freedom" and misses the entire point of what libertarianism is actually about: dealing with the reality of scarcity inherent in the world we all inhabit in a way that's fair.

The designation of private property is deemed to be a method that works for this purpose because of a whole host of reasons, including the fact that every human society independently came up with it in some form or other, because it provides a strong framework for conflict resolution, because it sets clear and unambiguous boundaries, because it inherently encourages trade and production and discourages violence and conflict, and so on and so forth.

And while it's true that ultimately the defense of property boils down to "might makes right" in that indefensible property can be taken or destroyed, this is true of not only all political philosophies but all animal life as well. We can never escape the need to have might--never. Libertarians see might as just and moral when it's used in defense of a concept that is itself viewed as just and moral. Basically you can only use might when the "story" for that use of might can be boiled down to something defensive such as "Stop hurting me", rather than something aggressive using motives such as "I can make better use of it than you," or "You have too much; give some to me," or "you're doing it wrong; do what I say or I'll kill you," or "fight in my army or I kidnap you and put you in a small box," which are the types of justifications given by the state for the use of might.

Since freedom is such an ambiguous term, it might be better to say that libertarianism is actually about property ownership, starting with the ownership of one's own body, because that's really what it's all about. Everything a libertarian-minded person believes about freedom can basically be boiled down to the belief in self-ownership, and flowing from that, ownership of what one voluntarily acquires in trade and ownership of what one first makes use of and removes from its state of nature.

[Libertarian666]

Good stuff, but I think I can actually make the issue a lot simpler.

There will be property. That is not in dispute, in any modern society, whether it uses a socialist, capitalist, or any other type of economic system. And that property will be defended by the use of force, if necessary (and it will be necessary on occasion).

The only question is how it is decided who is the owner of a particular piece of property in question. There are only two proposals that I'm aware of:
-----------------
A. Libertarian

If it is a previously unowned piece of property, the first person to appropriate it from nature (enclose a pasture, etc.), is the owner.
If it is already owned by someone, which is true in 99.99% of cases, then whoever that person voluntarily transacts with, i.e., by selling for money, trading for another piece of property, trading for labor, etc., is the owner.

B. Non-libertarian

Whatever group has the most guns ("government") takes whatever they want, possibly with supposed "restrictions" such as laws, Constitutions, etc., which are not enforced in practice because the same group that has the guns also employs the "judges", "regulators", etc.
-------------------

I don't know of any other proposals, but I do know which of these proposals appeals to me the most.

[AgAuMoney]

In our recent debates on libertarianism, there seems to be this real hangup about how private property restricts the freedom of everyone else. Whenever we talk about property, we get a lot of responses like, "well, your right to fence off an arbitrary patch of ground restricts my ability to travel the world as I please." Similarly, If I choose to stand on a patch of ground, you cannot do the same unless I leave it. If I pick up a rock, you cannot have that rock as well unless I put it down. In probing, it's been revealed that these truths are also seen as coercive: my picking up the rock coerces you into not being able to simultaneously hold the same rock.

I think this could basically be boiled down to defining freedom itself as "Freedom to do what I please unrestricted by your choices." But this strikes me as an unrealistic, impossible fantasy. Concentrating on how any human action at all restricts others' ability to take the exact same action, or make use of the space, objects, or resources that the first person is using is something that can do nothing but make you feel oppressed by everyone and everything. If perfect freedom requires the total absence of scarcity--up to and including the abolition of scarcity of physical space--then I'm afraid the only place you'll ever achieve it is in a video game or other type of purely virtual world. It doesn't exist on this earth.

it sounds like this understanding of freedom comes from a view of property being theft, if you hold the rock i cant hold it and you have stolen that opportunity from me, but if that was the case what is the best option for deciding best use of the rock? i suspect the conclusion they might come to is that we must need some central authority to distribute the rock holding time fairly according to their (the central authority's) "superior" understanding of need (and fairness)..

Exactly.  Libertarianism requires granting to others all the liberties you yourself are granted -- property ownership being a key one, including owning oneself but not others.

Ownership is part, but libertarianism also means liberty from the initiation of force.  I.e. you have no right to force me to do anything.  Concurrently I also have no right to force anyone else.  If I do initiate force, then I have justified others' use of any force necessary applied to me to put an end to the matter.

Living in society always requires limits or compromise to one's actions.  The problem comes when some think they are above others and so impose limits they themselves do not need to observe (congress is not subject to the laws it creates) or when some group is granted special favor/privilege (no matter if it is forward or reverse discrimination) merely by political machinations.

[MediumTex]

I always feel more free when someone who wants me to do something tries to persuade me to do it through reason rather than through threats and coercion.

If I don't like a car dealer's attitude, prices or selection, I can just go down the street and take a look at what his competitors have to offer.

After I buy the car, though, I do not have similar options when it comes time to register my vehicle and obtain a license to operate my new vehicle.  When it comes to these services, I do not have any choice; I must deal with the entity that has a monopoly on the provision of these services in my market, and thus I have no leverage whatsoever as a customer, and I always feel a bit less free as a result.

I went to the Post Office the other day to ship something I usually send by UPS.  By the time I was done with the transaction, I was SO thankful that UPS existed and was able to provide the kind of service that a competitive market delivers.  The difference between dealing with the government-provided service and the private sector provided service is usually stark.  That's been my experience, anyway.

I have found that most "quasi-governmental" entities like the Postal Service are basically just like governmental entities, and in some ways they are worse.

[moda0306]

Tech,

You said the following:

"If it is a previously unowned piece of property, the first person to appropriate it from nature (enclose a pasture, etc.), is the owner."

This is quite arbitrary and not rooted in liberty, but coercion. If I hunt on land, I haven't "appropriated it from nature," but if you come and turn it into a farm, you've essentially forced me off of land that I was using first, and in a way that is actually much more sustainable to boot. But because your arbitrary measurement of when you can alter land and force others off of it.

This is the arbitrary form of force that makes almost all libertarianism fall on its face. If we were entities floating through space, perfect freedom would be valid.  If there was a near-unlimited amount of resources to use, it might have more merit than it does. But neither of those are the case.

I'm not saying the post office, judges, the military, and genocide are all equal and therefore no debate can be had around the role of government, but we can't just use this idea that coercion is illegitimate.  It's necessary evil, and will exist whether we have government or not.

[Pointedstick]

This is the arbitrary form of force that makes almost all libertarianism fall on its face. If we were entities floating through space, perfect freedom would be valid.  If there was a near-unlimited amount of resources to use, it might have more merit than it does. But neither of those are the case.

I'm not saying the post office, judges, the military, and genocide are all equal and therefore no debate can be had around the role of government, but we can't just use this idea that coercion is illegitimate.  It's necessary evil, and will exist whether we have government or not.

No offense moda, but did you, uh, read my post? Specifically this part:

If perfect freedom requires the total absence of scarcity--up to and including the abolition of scarcity of physical space--then I'm afraid the only place you'll ever achieve it is in a video game or other type of purely virtual world. It doesn't exist on this earth.

Arguing that libertarianism isn't actually about freedom because of the absence of a perfect, scarcity-free world where there are no constraints or consequences reveals the messy, subjective, intensely personal definition of "freedom" and misses the entire point of what libertarianism is actually about: dealing with the reality of scarcity inherent in the world we all inhabit in a way that's fair.

To use your example of hunting land being taken by person who fences it off and builds a farm on it, there's nothing stopping the hunter from himself first putting up markers saying, "This land is my property and anyone who wishes to hunt on it must contact Umba Chumba of the Craggy Peak clan."

What you're essentially saying is that the principle of property doesn't work for people who don't get the concept of it or would prefer not to own any, but, well, duh. And at that point, you're talking about things that happened thousands of years ago. Before modern notions of private property had been invented or libertarianism was even a glimmer of an idea, agricultural civilizations fenced off pastures, infringed on hunting land, and began to crowd out the hunter-gatherer tribes.

This isn't something first done by nasty, expansionistic, monocled republicans or libertarians who cackled and rubbed their gold coins together as the impoverished, elderly, and crippled were shoveled into the boilers of industry; we're talking about the Natufians, Sumerians, Hittites, and ancient Egyptians. Like it or not, that's who we are as a species. All of us today are the genetic and cultural legacy of agricultural civilizations that got their start delineating pieces of land as off-limits and whacking anyone who trespassed. You can't turn back the hands of time. Like it or not, property-delineating cultures are stronger than property-eschewing nomadic or tribal cultures, and they dominated and destroyed most of them. it may not be fair, but it's the world we have to deal with.

[MediumTex]

I hope that we aren't talking about whether it is proper to claim ownership of property.

People are ALWAYS going to claim ownership of all available property.  The question is whether those owners will be the government acting through bureaucrats (which is typically not very good at putting productive property to its best use/most efficient use), or through private sector entrepreneurs who believe that they can put the property to a profitable use.

Simply leaving property unclaimed so that the wanderers of the world will have a place to wander will never happen.  The only question is who the owners of the property will be--will it be the government or private sector interests?

[Libertarian666]

I hope that we aren't talking about whether it is proper to claim ownership of property.

People are ALWAYS going to claim ownership of all available property.  The question is whether those owners will be the government acting through bureaucrats (which is typically not very good at putting productive property to its best use/most efficient use), or through private sector entrepreneurs who believe that they can put the property to a profitable use.

Simply leaving property unclaimed so that the wanderers of the world will have a place to wander will never happen.  The only question is who the owners of the property will be--will it be the government or private sector interests?

Yes, those are the two options I described.
Was I not clear about something, or are you agreeing with me? 

[AgAuMoney]

After I buy the car, though, I do not have similar options when it comes time to register my vehicle and obtain a license to operate my new vehicle.  When it comes to these services, I do not have any choice; I must deal with the entity that has a monopoly on the provision of these services in my market, and thus I have no leverage whatsoever as a customer, and I always feel a bit less free as a result.

Interesting example, and I've found it true in microcosm as well.  But as you note, since gov't "services" do have a mandatory monopoly, market forces have limited if any effect.

Over 10 years ago in my county, the county DMV decided that having one central office for driver's licensing and vehicle registration was not good customer service, with too long of lines, too much travel, it was in one of the highest traffic areas of the county and there were a lot of accidents, etc.  So they opened satellite offices in many of the smaller communities around the county.  People soon discovered that one of the offices in one of the smaller (but fast growing) communities was staffed by particularly "real people" (people who were friendly, efficient, and helpful).  That small office was quickly swamped and moved several times in the same building during the first two years and over the next two years they expanded and changed buildings 3 times.

The last time I renewed my license it reminded me of an airport gate waiting area, take a number and wait (it took over an hour), the woman behind the counter was surly and grunted monosyllabic orders, and I didn't see any sign of either of the people I had come to know in the small office.  I swore to myself to try another one of the smaller community offices next time.  But in less than six months the DMV decided to close all the satellite offices and consolidate to the central office location "to reduce duplication and save money."  It's now back to planning for an all-day job if you have to visit the DMV.

[moda0306]

Or we could have nobody own land. That is an option. Not a particularly pleasant one for most, but it's been done.

[doodle]

I think it is sometimes hard to realize when we look at the present living situation today how short an amount of time it has occupied in the evolutionary sweep of human history. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years more or less and it is only within maybe the last 10,000 since the agricultural revolution that property has really existed and in the Americas at least the concept never really existed until after the European settlement. I'm not necessarily saying property is bad, but it is important to acknowledge that humans have survived for 99% of their time on this planet without it.

The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delawares was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans.

The Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived. . . .1

[moda0306]

But doodle, the didn't build a fence around it and turn it into a shopping mall or a corn field they were leaving it up for grabs to someone who was willing to do just that...

Or so says some manual somewhere on how free interaction should work when we're all stuck on an island together.

[moda0306]

MT and PS,

We are pontificating the abolishment of government... Is it so much of a stretch to imagine the abolishment of property as we know it today in such a silly hypothetical world?

Private property is a form of lighter coercion that probably tends I help avoid far worse coercion.  But that's the nature of government in the first place... Giving up some freedoms to have others protected.  I'm in favor of private property, but not because I think it's a requisite of a perfectly free society... I think it's a phenomenal social organizational tool to avoid far worse force and coercion, as well as it improving productivity and security.

But in the end, the "property owners" are the ones who will shoot me for trespassing in a "free society."  The burden is then on them, not me, to show how on God's green earth they have the authority to coerce me off of a parcel of land.

[Pointedstick]

Okay, so it seems like we may agree on some things:

1. Humans inherently tend toward some type of recognition of property ownership, be it of one's own body, objects, structures, land, whatever.
2. Humans inherently tend to create governments when complicated agricultural-technological societies emerge.

If we can agree on these two things, then perhaps we can also agree that it is unlikely--without some radical difference in what it means to be human--that either property or government will ever be either abolished.

If we can agree on that, then the logical next step is to conclude that some balance between the two is needed in order to model a realistic society that can feasibly be created and maintained. Putting aside anarchy, it is this balance that libertarianism is concerned with.

In order to do determine what a sensible balance might be, I would advocate a close look at the historical record to see what we can expect from government and property as institutions.

Historically, here are some of the most common results from having a government:
- power centralized among the few
- invention of war; constant refinement of military technology and escalation of the scale of violence
- systematic destruction and plunder of weaker societies
- requirement to follow a certain favored religion, or no religion at all
- monopoly of the food supply; accidental or purposeful starvation of the governed people
- monopoly of land; mismanagement results in either overuse and pollution, or wasteful underuse
- issue of money; demanding some of it back on pain of violence
- subsidy to certain politically-favored industries; willful destruction of others

Here are some of the most common results from the institution of property:
- power distributed throughout society with the means to gain more power within reach of nearly everyone
- rapid economic growth; rising incomes across the board
- invention of many new technologies and goods
- sustainable, managed use of resources
- issue of money; none demanded back on pain of violence
- least efficient, most corrupt industries and institutions systematically fade and are replaced with more efficient and more fair ones

* * *

Regardless of what government could do, I think it's pretty clear that historically, governments the world over have caused untold amounts of misery and death in the form of war, starvation, and genocide, and the stronger they got the worse and more destructive the effects.

By contrast, the institution of private property has lifted humanity ever farther and farther from the states of fear and want, increased standards of living by an untold amount, and given everyone more practical freedom than ever before, including such things as the freedom to travel long distances so desired by the nomadic dreamers among us. 

While it's true that on occasion governments have done positive things (moon landing, Panama canal, etc), and on occasion private property leads to problems (volatile levels of wealth inequality, psychologically unsatisfying consumerism etc), by and large these are exceptions. In general, governments destroy stuff and oppress and kill people, while more physical things being ownable results in amazing products and opportunities and diminishes conflict.


Thus, I would advocate that a practical answer is to have a society with as strong an institution of property rights as we can stand in order to create and increase prosperity, trade, tolerance, and compassion, and as small a government as we can realistically get away with, admitting that the existence of some type of government is deeply wired in our consciousness. That way we can minimize impoverishment, violence, oppression, war, and starvation.

Not coincidentally, this is basically the "mainstream" small-government libertarian position that's been so pooh-pooh'd as full of contradictions. 

[MediumTex]

I hope that we aren't talking about whether it is proper to claim ownership of property.

People are ALWAYS going to claim ownership of all available property.  The question is whether those owners will be the government acting through bureaucrats (which is typically not very good at putting productive property to its best use/most efficient use), or through private sector entrepreneurs who believe that they can put the property to a profitable use.

Simply leaving property unclaimed so that the wanderers of the world will have a place to wander will never happen.  The only question is who the owners of the property will be--will it be the government or private sector interests?

Yes, those are the two options I described.
Was I not clear about something, or are you agreeing with me? 

Agreeing with you, but saying it in a slightly different way.

[MediumTex]

Or we could have nobody own land. That is an option. Not a particularly pleasant one for most, but it's been done.

Not really.

Even wild animals recognize property rights in the form of hunting territories and how close you can get to this or that location without the risk of being attacked and killed by a predator who was already there.

You show me any society that purports to not recognize property rights and if I were to pull a moving truck into the middle of their village and start loading up all of their tools, weapons and sacred items, I'll bet they would say "Whoa!  What are you doing?  That's our stuff!"

[MediumTex]

I think it is sometimes hard to realize when we look at the present living situation today how short an amount of time it has occupied in the evolutionary sweep of human history. Homo Sapiens have been around for about 250,000 years more or less and it is only within maybe the last 10,000 since the agricultural revolution that property has really existed and in the Americas at least the concept never really existed until after the European settlement. I'm not necessarily saying property is bad, but it is important to acknowledge that humans have survived for 99% of their time on this planet without it.

The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delawares was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans.

The Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived. . . .1

some how i doubt this... native Americans fought each other over hunting grounds and territory long before and after white-men showed up. the notions of property may have been tribal instead of personal as far as land was concerned, but they still had and used the concept, i suspect they also had notions of personal property for horses and other possessions as well..

i would be willing to read an alternative history that gives a different cause for all tribal warfare... but i doubt there is one....

I disagree.  If you walked into the most primitive society's village and started picking stuff up and walking out of the village, they would stop you and ask why you were taking their stuff.  In a primitive society especially, tools and weapons are the difference between life and death.  If you don't recognize a hunter's right to his weapons and a farmer right to his tools, everyone would be dead pretty quickly.

Property rights are really just a fancy way of describing the reason that my dog might bite you if you try to take away his food before he finishes eating.  It's a basic dimension of survival.  It's as old as the hills.

The Indians had no concept of "private property," as applied to the land. Only among the Delawares was it customary for families, during certain times of the year, to be assigned specific hunting territories. Apparently this was an unusual practice, not found among other Indians. Certainly, the idea of an individual having exclusive use of a particular piece of land was completely strange to Native Americans.

The Indians practiced communal land ownership. That is, the entire community owned the land upon which it lived. . . .1

Really?  Then why did the settlers who wanted to move there have so much trouble getting shot with arrows?

If there was no concept of property rights, what possible objection could a person have with someone moving in and building a homestead?  Answer: They did have a strong concept of property rights, and when you violated it, they shot arrows at you.

[Pointedstick]

Part of the problem may stem from the term "property rights" evoking images of land deeds written in cursive script with quill pens, presided over by lawyers and monocled industrialists, and resulting in crying women and children being forced off their ancestral hunting grounds.

If instead, you learn to see an expression of the concept of property rights every time the word or thought "mine!" is encountered, it becomes easier to see the fundamental universality of claiming ownership of things, and how this concept exists throughout nature.

Children understand it when one takes another's crayons. Bears understand it when children approach their cubs. Bees understand it when bears dig around in their nests for honey. And so on and so on. I daresay that the actual thing not found in nature is an organism willing to give up all of its resources to any other organism that wants them. Sounds like quite the evolutionary disadvantage, no? All it would take is one selfish organism and that's the end of the organisms with no concept of property.

[MediumTex]

MT and PS,

We are pontificating the abolishment of government... Is it so much of a stretch to imagine the abolishment of property as we know it today in such a silly hypothetical world?

Yes, it is a stretch.

Beyond a set of basic functions, most governments are just parasites that have attached themselves to other human institutions that are strong enough to support a few parasitic drains.  Imagining a world without such parasites attached to productive human effort is a totally different concept than imagining a world in which we would expect productivity and innovation to continue, even though we would be taking away all of the incentives for that productivity and innovation by denying people the rewards for their productivity and innovation that property rights confer.  Remember, too, that property-less "worker's paradise" type arrangements have a way of turning into "bureaucrat's paradise" type arrangements (see the USSR for a recent example).

Private property is a form of lighter coercion that probably tends I help avoid far worse coercion.  But that's the nature of government in the first place... Giving up some freedoms to have others protected.  I'm in favor of private property, but not because I think it's a requisite of a perfectly free society... I think it's a phenomenal social organizational tool to avoid far worse force and coercion, as well as it improving productivity and security.

You don't think that property rights are a prerequisite for a free society?  What is a free society, other than a society in which you have a property right in your own body and the fruit of your own productive efforts?  If someone tells me that I am free, but I don't get to keep anything I make, what kind of freedom is that?

But in the end, the "property owners" are the ones who will shoot me for trespassing in a "free society."  The burden is then on them, not me, to show how on God's green earth they have the authority to coerce me off of a parcel of land.

Think about it like this: You and I live in a primitive society and I am a farmer of remarkable perception and intelligence and I have a set of innovative farming techniques that easily double the yields from the same parcel of land compared to other known farming methods. 

Since I am the best farmer in our society, eventually everyone who previously had their own farm turns it over to me based upon an arrangement in which I take 25% of the farm's output and the previous owner (now tenant) takes 75% of the doubled output.  The farmers love this arrangement because it allows them to make more than they ever made when they owned their own farms, and in fact many people in our society are now able to stop farming altogether and do even more productive work now that they don't fear starvation any longer.

So you see this arrangement and note that I am getting very wealthy from my arrangement with all of the farmers and you begin telling the farmers that there is no reason for me to have been able to gain ownership of basically all of the community's farmland.  You ask them how on God's green earth I ever gained control over so much of the community's land and on what basis I had "coerced" them into signing over ownership of their land to me.  You tell them that the land belongs to the whole community, and that what I have done is just unnatural.  Eventually, you get them stirred up enough that they come to me and tell me that they are unilaterally terminating their contracts with me and taking back their farmland.  Some of them take to wandering around at night with torches and pitchforks.

At first, everyone goes okay.  I've been ruined financially, of course, but the farmers see a small bump in their income by not having to pay me, but after the first growing season it turns out that the farmers didn't understand my farming techniques as well as they thought they did, and in fact by failing to grasp many of the nuances of my techniques, the yield on the community's farms plummets to a level far below where it was when I discovered my new farming techniques, and at the end of the second season after the uprising, a full-blown famine is underway and people are dying of starvation left and right. 

People look for an explanation for why this abomination has occurred, and of course they come to me and ask why I am no longer helping the community's farmers since I seem to know more about farming than anyone else.  I try to explain to them that I would like to help, but that I am now deeply in debt because when the community confiscated all of my farming property, it failed to also confiscate all of my debt, and thus I am too busy working a series of jobs that DO pay in order to service my debt, and simply don't have any time to provide farming consulting on a no-fee basis. 

In response to this explanation, people call me "selfish" and bemoan the evils of property rights, and some even point out that before I came along with my improved farming skills, none of these bad things were happening, and thus conclude that property rights are evil and should never be recognized again because of all the pain and suffering they brought on the community when they WERE recognized.

Do you see how a society like that might struggle to ever rise too far above a subsistence level?  Do you see the role that failing to protect property rights might play in that outcome?

[CA PP]

Zimbabwe.

[doodle]

Maori concept of land ownership...just more perspective on how other societies have arranged things:

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/land-ownership/page-1

[doodle]

Primitive isolated cultures like the Maori provide a good point of analysis because they provide a rather clean slate from which to analyze human behavior without having to worry about a lot of outside influencing factors. For more detailed look at Maori property concepts related to personal belongings etc. scroll down to part II. Maori Legal System....

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/ ... Maori.html

[doodle]

Also, when conducting this discussion we should be careful not to fall into the "appeal to nature" fallacy:

An appeal to nature is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'".

General form of this type of argument:

N is natural.Therefore, N is good or right.U is unnatural.Therefore, U is bad or wrong.

Julian Baggini explains that "Even if we can agree that some things are natural and some are not, what follows from this? The answer is: nothing. There is no factual reason to suppose that what is natural is good (or at least better) and what is unnatural is bad (or at least worse)

[Pointedstick]

Maori concept of land ownership...just more perspective on how other societies have arranged things:

http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/land-ownership/page-1

And it made their society weak in the face of another society that had stronger protections for property rights and which decided it wanted to conquer them. Now the Maori exist at the pleasure of their conquerors mostly out of pity.

That article actually does a great job of showing what a hypothetical society like the one you and moda are imagining might be like: materially poor and unable to defend itself against other societies.

I'll grant you this: it would probably have a small and weak government as well, since as MT has repeatedly and accurately said, governments are basically parasites on productivity and without much economic output, there isn't a lot to confiscate and redistribute.

The real trick is, again, to have a society with strong protections for property rights while restraining the growth of government, keeping it as small as possible to reduce the mischief it can cause--acknowledging that historically, stronger governments have indeed caused more mischief. This is what libertarianism is all about.

[Pointedstick]

Another thing, doodle... it would be great if you would respond to some of the arguments that MT and I are making. Introducing more information about the Maori looks like a dodge to try to get out of addressing the very detailed arguments we've made. If I were a neutral observer sitting on the sidelines, I would be interested to know what you had to say regarding those arguments.