Political Philosophy

[Winchester]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283429034' post='2166873']
That's what the State do. It redistributes wealth by forcing me to pay protection cost for others. Not only that, in our State Capitalist system, the State forces me to give money to bailout big banks and to provide welfare for big Corporations. And because most investment bankers underwrites government bonds, it forces me to redeem government debt. I'm being forced to suffer from inflationary prices created through violence, while only a few group of privileged individuals benefits. It forces me to pay for transportation subsidies and building roads, which mostly benefits long range big business. It forces me to be liable for environmental damage cause by Corporations, even though I have never signed a contract agreeing to be liable. It forces me to give money to subsidize powerful quasi-govermental globa financial institutions such as the WTO, IMF, and the World Bank - which provide debts to dictators around the world. It forces me to pay the infrastructures for multinational Corporations in third world countries, including nation building through unjust wars. Not including agriculture subsidies for rich nations to export to poor countries, to ensure farmers in third world countries to not being able to compete. It is wealth redistribution of a certain kind, wealth redistribution for the welfare of the rich. It is Socialism for the rich. [/quote]
I reject the socialist aspects of our government. Equating roads to socialism is poor logic. Equating police protection to socialism is also poor logic. A general provision that benefits one group more than another isn't necessarily socialism. Transportation is not a social problem. Attempting to solve poverty via government programs is socialism and wealth redistribution.

[quote]It also forces me to use fiat money in order to utilize one of the most crucial thing for human beings, unowned land (Government owns most of the land without homesteading, just pure violence to back up its claim), into productive activity.[/quote]
Better than having to satisfy a mob that your land is being used. What's more that it's being used to their satisfaction. The caprice in government is due to a caprice in man.



[quote]That's [i]your[/i] claim, and it has no historical basis to support it.[/quote]
There's a history of theosophy.


[quote]Taxation is a coercive act by a group of individuals claiming an authority to initiate violence to take your money for redistribution of wealth. That is the function. You are a closet "Socialist", using your own understanding of the term. You are forcing me to pay for your welfare - your protection - by a service provided by a monopolistic entity that you choose.[/quote]
All government programs are not socialist. People want security so they accept a little socialism. Then a little more. And so on.

[quote]
Not guns, but labour. You are misinformed. Do you really have any basis of what the nature of legitimate ownership is, or do you rely only solely on your imagination?[/quote]
As opposed to the imagination of others?

" " <----Those are the quotation marks that should have been around "legitimate" in my other post.

[un.privileged]

[quote]
I reject the socialist aspects of our government. Equating roads to socialism is poor logic. Equating police protection to socialism is also poor logic. [/quote]
Based on your poor definition you provide to me, which is only about "wealth redistribution" and "coercion", then it is logical for me to equate that. Taking my money to give to somebody else, is redistribution of wealth. Whatever it is for social programs or not, which you do not mention before in your definition.


[quote]A general provision that benefits one group more than another isn't necessarily socialism. Transportation is not a social problem. Attempting to solve poverty via government programs is socialism and wealth redistribution.[/quote]
Okay, so now that's [i]your [/i]definition. Okay, let's [i]use[/i] your definition then. Let's just call this [i]Winchesterian Socialism[/i].

Regarding transportation, let's remove transportation in civilization, let's see if we don't have a social problem.

And if attempting to solve poverty via goverment programs is [i]Winchester'ian Socialism[/i] , and [i]Winchesterian Socialism [/i]is condemned by the Church, that means attempting to enrich the rich via government "programs" (subsidies [i]are[/i] government programs whatever you want to call it), in the expense of the poor, is worst than [i]Winchesterian Socialism[/i]. But you seem to have no problem living in a world worst than [i]Winchesterian Socialism[/i].

[quote]Better than having to satisfy a mob that your land is being used. What's more that it's being used to their satisfaction. The caprice in government is due to a caprice in man.[/quote]
The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use. That's what the Church has confirmed. Unlike you, I don't like to make up stuff base solely on my imagination.

I'll just quote the encyclical in a fuller context,

[indent][b]Work and Ownership[/b]

14. The historical process briefly presented here has certainly gone beyond its initial phase, but it is still taking place and indeed is spreading in the relationships between nations and continents. It needs to be specified further from another point of view. It is obvious that when we speak of opposition between labor and capital, we are not dealing only with abstract concepts or "impersonal forces" operating in economic production. Behind both concepts there are people, living, actual people: [b]On the one side are those who do the work [i]without[/i] being the owners of the means of production, and on the other side those who act as entrepreneurs and who own these means or represent the owner.[/b] Thus the issue of ownership or property enters from the beginning into the whole of this difficult historical process. The encyclical Rerum novarum, which has the social question as its theme, stresses this issue also, [size="5"]recalling and [u]confirming[/u] the church's teaching on ownership[/size], on the right to private property even when it is a question of the means of production. The encyclical Mater et Magistra did the same.
[b]
The above principle, as it was then stated and as it is still taught by the church, diverges radically from the program of collectivism as proclaimed by [i]Marxism[/i] and put into practice in various countries in the decades following the time of Leo XIII's encyclical. At the same time it differs from the program of [i]capitalism[/i] practiced by liberalism and by the political systems inspired by it. [/b]In the latter case, [size="5"][b]the difference consists in the way the right to ownership or property is understood[/b][/size]. Christian tradition has never upheld this right as absolute and untouchable. On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: [b][size="5"]The right to private property is [i]subordinated[/i] to the right to common use[/size][/b], to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

Furthermore, in the church's teaching, ownership has never been understood in a way that could constitute grounds for social conflict in labor. [size="5"]As mentioned above, property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve work[/size]. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production.[size="4"] Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the form of "capital" in opposition to "labor"[/size]--and even to practice exploitation of labor--[size="5"]is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession[/size]. They cannot be possessed against labor, they cannot even be possessed for possession's sake, because[size="5"] the only [u]legitimate[/u] title to their possession--whether in the form of private ownership or in the form of public or collective ownership--is that they should serve labor[/size] and thus by serving labor that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order, namely the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them. From this point of view, therefore, in consideration of human labor and of common access to the goods meant for man, one cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable conditions, of certain means of production. In the course of the decades since the publication of the encyclical Rerum novarum, the church's teaching has always recalled all these principles, going back to the arguments formulated in a much older tradition, for example, the well-known arguments of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas.[22]
[/indent]

And when I mean government, I mean the [i]State.[/i] In which I define, "an individual or a group of individuals who have a territorial monopoly over violence, law, and order over others".


[quote]
There's a history of theosophy.
[/quote]
What I meant is historically "libertarian socialism" is [i]synonymous[/i] with "anarchism", and anarchism is way a more significant movement than theosophy.

[quote]All government programs are not socialist. People want security so they accept a little socialism. Then a little more. And so on. [/quote]
Yes like you. You want security over your life and your illegitimate property, and your transportation and decent roads so that you could go to the mall easily. Then a little more. And so on.

Gosh I knew it, you [i]are a[/i] [i]Winchesterian Socialist[/i]!

[Winchester]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283435976' post='2166930']
...you ...are...right ... you... are Winchester...!
[/quote]
I would have bolded the second part and put it in all caps, but this is pretty good.

[Socrates]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283332016' post='2166201']
If they agree to it, that means they have a serious consideration to go to war with other private defense agencies. In a free market, conflicting forms of protection service by PDAs would be very unlikely.
As Murray Rothbard, in "Defense Services on the Free Market" [url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp"]http://mises.org/rot.../mes/chap13.asp[/url] , said :

[indent]

One common objection to the feasibility of marketable protection (its [i]desirability[/i] is not the problem here) runs as follows: Suppose that Jones subscribes to Defense Agency X and Smith subscribes to Defense Agency Y. (We will assume for convenience that the defense agency includes a police force and a court or courts, although in practice these two functions might well be performed by separate firms.) Smith alleges that he has been assaulted, or robbed, by Jones; Jones denies the charge. How, then, is justice to be dispensed?Clearly, Smith will file charges against Jones and institute suit or trial proceedings in the Y court system. Jones is invited to defend himself against the charges, although there can be no subpoena power, since any sort of force used against a man not yet convicted of a crime is itself an invasive and criminal act that could not be consonant with the free society we have been postulating. If Jones is declared innocent, or if he is declared guilty and consents to the finding, then there if no problem on this level, and the Y courts then institute suitable measures of punishment.[url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp#_ftn3"][3][/url] [b]But what if Jones challenges the finding? In that case, he can either take the case to his X court system, or take it directly to a privately competitive Appeals Court of a type that will undoubtedly spring up in abundance on the market to fill the great need for such tribunals. Probably there will be just a few Appeals Court systems, far fewer than the number of primary courts, and each of the lower courts will boast to its customers about being members of those Appeals Court systems noted for their efficiency and probity.[/b] The Appeals Court decision can then be taken by the society as binding. Indeed, in the basic legal code of the free society, there probably would be enshrined some such clause as that the decision of any two courts will be considered binding, i.e., will be the point at which the court will be able to take action against the party adjudged guilty.[url="http://mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap13.asp#_ftn4"][4][/url]

[/indent][/quote]
In reality, with no central authority (or "state"), competing "private defense agencies" would be an inevitability. You'd essentially have gang warfare, as most people wouldn't simply roll over to the decisions of a "PDA" to redistribute their property against their will. That's human nature, like it or not.

Likewise, if you truly had an anarchy, your court system would have no actual power or authority. Without some central authority (a "state" by any other name) to enforce the court's rulings, the court rulings would have no power, and thus be meaningless and disregarded.

The reality is, that if your system were somehow implemented, you'd have either endless (and likely bloody) fighting over who has a right to what land, or some central "private defense agency" would come to dominate and become in essence a state (whatever else you might choose to call it) with the power to redistribute private property as it sees fit.
Most likely it would be the former, followed by the latter.

When courts have the power to redistribute privately-owned land as they see fit, you get socialist tyranny.
And making the claim that everything in your proposed society will be by mutual consent and that nobody will be forced to act against his will is a cop-out, and blatantly ignores the reality of human nature. If court decisions cannot be enforced, the courts have no teeth, and their decisions will be meaningless. If they [i]can[/i] be enforced, you have a socialist state with the power to redistribute land as they see fit (regardless of how much you may deny this).

In a free society, landowners are free to sell or donate their land as they see fit. No court can force them to do otherwise. If some other body makes them do so, it's no longer a free market, but socialism.


[quote]You seem to have no understanding of why you [i]originally[/i] have the right own something. Buying [i]is not[/i] a sufficient requirement, as that always depends who you bought it from. If you bought it from a robber (e.g. the State) , does that makes it yours? No, you have to at least mix your labour with it in order it to be yours. [i]Labour[/i], in any logical morally way, is always the [i]original [/i]legitimate claim of ownership, not physical force (how do you protect something without physical force?). If you found a piece of land, which you do not settle in, and and you prohibit others to use it using physical violence, you have become the State. The most respected thinker of the Austrian school, Murray Rothbard, even confirms this. The Church confirms this. You can confirm your claim with your own baseless assumption.[/quote]
Who's to determine whether "labour" is being sufficiently "mixed" for someone to own a piece of land? Someone can legitimately use the resources he himself as earned to hire someone else to work on it, or he can keep the land for any number of non-labor purposes.
Whether privately-owned land is being "properly utilized" and whether the owner can keep it is not the place of the state, nor of a "private defense agency" to decide.


[quote]There wouldn't be any leaders that will ensure land-owners, there will only be a voluntary agreement. That means you will ensure yourself by either making a voluntary agreement with a PDA you freely choose. You can even protect yourself if you want, but the moment you use violence towards the non-violent, you have become the State.[/quote]
If there's only voluntary agreement, no outside courts or "PDA"s are necessary to make the landowner's decisions about what to do with his land for him.

Would a PDA be allowed to use force against a landowner who uses force to remove unwanted squatters? If so, then the PDA has become the state.


[quote]Aren't you living in one?

Seriously, you keep labeling me "Socialist". From your argument, you don't even appear to provide a definition with any academic source to even back it up.
In your definition of "Socialism", our current system would be Socialist, as a third party (the State) actively intervenes using phyisical coercion within "freely-made transactions between a willing buyer and a willing seller at a mutually agreed-upon price" (taxation). You do love living in a tyrannical State Socialist world do you as you seem to defend the free market and the existence of the State. That is very much contradictory. You either have a free market or the State. Under your definition, you are the Socialist, because you legitimize State too much to force others to give their legitimate property no matter how small it is. Are you a self-hating Socialist?[/quote]
You labeled yourself a "libertarian socialist" (or some similar contradiction). Are you a socialist or not? Make up your mind.

Giving courts and "personal defense agencies" (or other "non-state" authoritative bodies) the power to redistribute privately-owned land is indeed socialism.


[quote]You are living in the utopia, where you think an entity with a monopoly of physical force will bring order to the society, which historicaly has been the worst mass murders in entire human civilization.

Have fun with that.[/quote]
"Utopia" means "nowhere." I'm living in the real world, with all its sins, flaws, and injustices. I never claimed the present situation is ideal. I just don't think a system in which courts (even if you declare them "private" and "non-state") can redistribute land from its owner on arbitrary decisions about whether the land "serves labor" will fix anything.

The worst mass murders in human history were socialist states, who, of course, justified their violence in the name of protecting the "workers" from the evil capitalist land-owners.

Your system flatly ignores the human tendency to violence and other evils, which has been around since Cain and Abel, and can't just be wished away. Nor will it be done away with simply by doing away with "the state" or "capitalism" or "unjust land ownership" or fill-in-the-blank. Every movement which has tried to do this has created a tyranny worse than the one it sought to overthrow.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1283348237' post='2166225']
And we deprive robbers of their property by what?

Violence.

I win.
[/quote]
No.

As every good socialist knows, the root of all crime is unjust inequality of wealth. Obviously, the robber had been deprived of the goods, which were obviously not being properly utilized to serve labor by their prior "owner," and thus we should let the robber keep them.

Private ownership is theft.
The only real robber is capitalism, man.

[Laudate_Dominum]

now go back to your degrading burger king wage slavery and shut up.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' timestamp='1283447627' post='2167025']
now go back to your degrading burger king wage slavery and shut up.
[/quote]
Stop repressing me, man!

[Laudate_Dominum]

I cannot resist making this profound contribution.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhXnZUCAu8c[/media]

[Winchester]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1283447806' post='2167029']
Don't repress me, bro!
[/quote]
better

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1283447473' post='2167023']
No.

As every good socialist knows, the root of all crime is unjust inequality of wealth. Obviously, the robber had been deprived of the goods, which were obviously not being properly utilized to serve labor by their prior "owner," and thus we should let the robber keep them.

Private ownership is theft.
The only real robber is capitalism, man.


[/quote]

this sounds like the popes actually:

[quote]QUOTE
Now if the earth truly was created to provide man with the necessities of life and the tools for his own progress, it follows that [b]every man has the right to glean what he needs from the earth[/b]. The recent Council reiterated this truth. [b]All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle[/b]. They should in no way hinder it; in fact, they should actively facilitate its implementation. Redirecting these rights back to their original purpose must be regarded as an important and urgent social duty.

QUOTE
Government officials, it is your concern to mobilize your peoples to form a more effective world solidarity, and above all to make them accept the necessary taxes on their luxuries and their wasteful expenditures, in order to bring about development and to save the peace

QUOTE
"Individual initiative alone and the interplay of competition will not ensure satisfactory development. We cannot proceed to increase the wealth and power of the rich while we entrench the needy in their poverty and add to the woes of the oppressed. Organized programs are necessary for "directing, stimulating, coordinating, supplying and integrating" (35) the work of individuals and intermediary organizations. It is for the public authorities to establish and lay down the desired goals, the plans to be followed, and the methods to be used in fulfilling them; and it is also their task to stimulate the efforts of those involved in this common activity. "

QUOTE
…it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation:the right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.

QUOTE
Let the working man and the employer make free agreements, and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accept harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice.

QUOTE
What was true of the just wage for the individual is also true of international contracts: an economy of exchange can no longer be based solely on the law of free competition, a law which, in its turn, too often creates an economic dictatorship. Freedom of trade is fair only if it is subject to the demands of social justice.

QUOTE
To labor is to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and chief of all for self preservation. Hence, a man's labor necessarily bears two notes or characters. First, it is personal, inasmuch as the force which acts is bound up with the personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts, and, further, was given to him for his advantage. Secondly, man's labor is necessary; for without the result of labor a man cannot live, and self-preservation is a law of nature, which it is wrong to disobey. Now, were we to consider labor merely in so far as it is personal, doubtless it would be within the workman's right to accept any rate of wages whatsoever; for in the same way as he is free to work or not, so is he free to accept a small wage or even none at all. But our conclusion must be very different if, together with the personal element in a man's work, we consider the fact that work is also necessary for him to live: these two aspects of his work are separable in thought, but not in reality.

The preservation of life is the bounden duty of one and all, and to be wanting therein is a crime. It necessarily follows that each one has a natural right to procure what is required in order to live, and the poor can procure that in no other way than by what they can earn through their work.

QUOTE
property is acquired first of all through work in order that it may serve work. This concerns in a special way ownership of the means of production. Isolating these means as a separate property in order to set it up in the form of "capital"in opposition to "labour"-and even to practise exploitation of labour-is contrary to the very nature of these means and their possession. They cannot be possessed against labour,they cannot even be possessed for possession's sake, because the only legitimate title to their possession- whether in the form of private ownerhip or in the form of public or collective ownership-is that they should serve labour,and thus, by serving labour,that they should make possible the achievement of the first principle of this order,namely,the universal destination of goods and the right to common use of them.

From this point of view,therefore,in consideration of human labour and of common access to the goods meant for man,one cannot exclude the socialization,in suitable conditions,of certain means of production.

QUOTE
Legislation is necessary, but it is not sufficient for setting up true relationships of justice and equality...If, beyond legal rules, there is really no deeper feeling of respect for and service to others, then even equality before the law can serve as an alibi for flagrant discrimination, continued exploitation and actual contempt. Without a renewed education in solidarity, an over-emphasis on equality can give rise to an individualism in which each one claims his own rights without wishing to be answerable for the common good.

QUOTE
In other words, the rule of free trade, taken by itself, is no longer able to govern international relations. Its advantages are certainly evident when the parties involved are not affected by any excessive inequalities of economic power: it is an incentive to progress and a reward for effort. That is why industrially developed countries see in it a law of justice. But the situation is no longer the same when economic conditions differ too widely from country to country: prices which are " freely n set in the market can produce unfair results.

QUOTE
Given these conditions, it is obvious that individual countries cannot rightly seek their own interests and develop themselves in isolation from the rest, for the prosperity and development of one country follows partly in the train of the prosperity and progress of all the rest and partly produces that prosperity and progress.

QUOTE
Interdependence must be transformed into solidarity, grounded on the principle that the goods of creation are meant for all. Avoiding every type of imperialism, the stronger nations must feel responsible for the other nations, based on the equality of all peoples and with respect for the differences.[/quote]

some more bolding
http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=105565&st=0&p=2118939&hl=glean&fromsearch=1&#entry2118939

cue the typical eerie silence from the hard core soncservatives here... in dealing with things like the popes saying 'private property is subordinate to everyone having something'. much like the silence in asking them to explain their views for why homelessness exists, and such. cue the hippie jokes to try and pretend it's all okay ( or at least cue stating that stuff while not addressing the issues)
i know generally the sentiment is 'popes vary in their tone, perhaps sometimes disagreeing on social issues' or 'a good catholic can disagree on social issues'. but i never see the hardcores specifically respond to thinkgs like 'private property is subordinate to everyone having something'.

Edited September 4, 2010 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

Quote

Pope Paul VI's 20th-century encyclical "Populorum Progressio" (on the Development of Peoples), however, is a manifesto against capitalism. "Individual initiative alone and the interplay of competition," he says, "will not ensure satisfactory development." .... Quoting St. Ambrose, Paul writes, "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his."

[Johnny]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1106263596' post='497787']
Just a fun poll to compliment some of these current debates. It was kind of hard to decide exactly what categories to use as choices. Feel free to explain or clarify your choices.
[/quote]
I tend to lean towards conservatism. Though, I do not support the War in Iraq, and believe it's time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. I used to be left leaning on the economy/taxes, until I took time one day to sit down and look how much money is being robbed from me from the government and being squandered.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Johnny' timestamp='1283778866' post='2168738']
I tend to lean towards conservatism. Though, I do not support the War in Iraq, and believe it's time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan. I used to be left leaning on the economy/taxes, until I took time one day to sit down and look how much money is being robbed from me from the government and being squandered.
[/quote]

It's not robbery if you vote. It's consensual.

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Socrates' timestamp='1283447097' post='2167017']
The reality is, that if your system were somehow implemented, you'd have either endless (and likely bloody) fighting over who has a right to what land, or some central "private defense agency" would come to dominate and become in essence a state (whatever else you might choose to call it) with the power to redistribute private property as it sees fit.
[/quote]

In other words, we would have what we see in the whole world: constant wars, because there is no State above all States, (though I'm sure they're working on it) and 200,000,000 deaths in one century, but many fewer deaths, and much more local. Sounds good to me.

[quote]
Whether privately-owned land is being "properly utilized" and whether the owner can keep it is not the place of the state, nor of a "private defense agency" to decide.[/quote]
The people of the State and of the Supreme State Court seem to think otherwise. It seems the City of New London thought Ms. Kelo's property would only be properly utilized if it was developed into a mall. So they stole it from her. And that's OK, because the State said so.

[quote]
Would a PDA be allowed to use force against a landowner who uses force to remove unwanted squatters? If so, then the PDA has become the state.[/quote]

A PDA would not be allowed to use force against a landowner who uses force against invaders. If a PDA keeps making stupid calls like that, it goes out of business, while the State's employees keep stealing from "customers" to stay in business.


[quote]Your system flatly ignores the human tendency to violence and other evils, which has been around since Cain and Abel, and can't just be wished away. Nor will it be done away with simply by doing away with "the state" or "capitalism" or "unjust land ownership" or fill-in-the-blank. Every movement which has tried to do this has created a tyranny worse than the one it sought to overthrow.
[/quote]

On the contrary, I believe voluntaryism completely recognizes the human tendency to violence, and the [i]utter stupidity[/i] of concentrating the power of a whole society in the hands of a few individuals.

~Sternhauser

[Johnny]

[quote name='Sternhauser' timestamp='1283780275' post='2168743']
It's not robbery if you vote. It's consensual.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
What if I don't vote? Or what if I vote for the guy trying to lower my taxes?