Political Philosophy

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1283055039' post='2164812']
All right, well this mostly works for me.

I'd add a caveat though, that many encyclicals and other statements made by the Church in regards to economics and social justice appear to be predicated on a somewhat flawed understanding of economics. The morals are all rock solid, as we know they must be, but since The Church is not infallible in economic matters, it is possible (and IMO the reality) that there are certain misunderstandings present.
[/quote]

I kinda agree with you in term of economic matters, but I do agree in the Church in terms of the morality of economics. I think there are more things that we can agree instead of disagree.

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1283054587' post='2164807']
In a truly free society, you'd own crops if you had the money to own crops, or if your family owned them before. Why does a truly free society require that all people own land?
[/quote]
I never said that. A truly free society also does not require few stockholders to own land.
Murray Rothbard himself, "the man" of Austrian School economics even said that homesteading is a legitimate type of ownership. Buying is not the only way.

[url="http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard143.html"]How and How Not to Desocialize[/url]
It would be far better to enshrine the venerable [u]homesteading[/u] principle at the base of the new desocialized property system. Or, to revive the old Marxist slogan: "all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers!" This would establish the basic Lockean principle that [i]ownership of owned property is to be acquired by "mixing one's labor with the soil" or with other unowned resources[/i]. Desocialization is a process of depriving the government of its existing "ownership" or control, and devolving it upon private individuals. In a sense, abolishing government ownership of assets puts them immediately and implicitly into an [u]unowned[/u] status, out of which previous [i]homesteading[/i] can quickly convert them into private ownership

[Nihil Obstat]

Would you agree though, that in a truly free society, it's not a necessity that every person own land?

I figured that's what you were implying when you said "in a truly free society, I would have my own crops to harvest."

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1283057594' post='2164840']
Would you agree though, that in a truly free society, it's not a necessity that every person own land?[/quote]
Yes, it is not necessary.
It is desirable that most own their own land, and I believe it is more likely. Homesteading is the basic legitimate original ownership, not buying. If you only bought it from the State without homesteading, then your ownership is illegitimate. The State has no right to sell a land.

[quote]I figured that's what you were implying when you said "in a truly free society, I would have my own crops to harvest."
[/quote]
Well, you did mention "my crops", why can't I have my own? Even Rothbard agrees that I do have a right to own it if I mixed my labor with the land.

[Nihil Obstat]

Sure, you can have your own. Just not mine. Unless I want to sell them. Distributism seems to me to want to force me to give them up, as would state enforced socialism, albeit for somewhat different reasons.

[un.privileged]

I guess that is kind a incorrect understanding of what Distributism is. Nobody will be forced to give up their [i]legitimate [/i]ownership (as a result of mixing with labour). I assume you do agree that State has no legitimate claim to any ownership including land ownership? If the State do not have any legitimate claim that how is it legitimate to sell it? But your house is definitely yours, because obviously you have lived in it, and no other people, or any gang of thugs have a right to take it from you.

Edited August 29, 2010 by un.privileged

[un.privileged]

Rothbard was in favour of Participatory Democracy, and the Anarcho-Syndicalist takeover of Government-owned enterprise. He was quite lefty in this sense. That is why I identify myself more with the left-libertarians, including Konkin, which said "more Rothbardian than Rothbard himself".

[un.privileged]

Regarding the term "Capitalism". Prominent hardcore Austro-Libertarians such as Roderick Long even admits

[indent]"By "capitalism" most people mean neither the free market [i]simpliciter[/i] nor the prevailing neomercantilist system [i]simpliciter[/i]. Rather, what most people mean by "capitalism" is [i]this free-market system that currently prevails in the western world[/i]. In short, the term "capitalism" as generally used conceals an assumption that the prevailing system is a free market. And since the prevailing system is in fact one of government favoritism toward business, the ordinary use of the term carries with it the assumption that [i]the free market is government favoritism toward business[/i]."[/indent]

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283058693' post='2164851']
I guess that is kind a incorrect understanding of what Distributism is. Nobody will be forced to give up their [i]legitimate [/i]ownership (as a result of mixing with labour). I assume you do agree that State has no legitimate claim to any ownership including land ownership? If the State do not have any legitimate claim that how is it legitimate to sell it? But your house is definitely yours, because obviously you have lived in it, and no other people, or any gang of thugs have a right to take it from you.
[/quote]
Well now what is this "legitimate" ownership? I recall speaking with a distributist some time ago who argued that a man who works in a blacksmith shop as an apprentice blacksmith legitimately owns the anvil he is working with. I think this is ridiculous. If the master blacksmith bought or made the anvil, it belongs to him regardless of who uses it. It only belongs to the apprentice blacksmith if the master blacksmith cedes his right to it, either through some kind of monetary transaction, or some kind of work-to-own arrangement.
What I'm getting at is that to say "legitimate ownership", and nothing more, is a quandary because a communist and a distributist and a capitalist are going to have radically different views of what legitimate ownership really is.

[un.privileged]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' timestamp='1283061342' post='2164864']
Well now what is this "legitimate" ownership? I recall speaking with a distributist some time ago who argued that a man who works in a blacksmith shop as an apprentice blacksmith legitimately owns the anvil he is working with. I think this is ridiculous. If the master blacksmith bought or made the anvil, it belongs to him regardless of who uses it. It only belongs to the apprentice blacksmith if the master blacksmith cedes his right to it, either through some kind of monetary transaction, or some kind of work-to-own arrangement.
What I'm getting at is that to say "legitimate ownership", and nothing more, is a quandary because a communist and a distributist and a capitalist are going to have radically different views of what legitimate ownership really is.
[/quote]

I submit to John Paul's understanding in [i]Laborem Exercens[/i]
[indent]They cannot be [i]possessed against labour, [/i]they cannot even be [i]possessed for possession's sake,[b] [/b][/i][b]because the only legitimate title to their possession- whether in the form of private ownership or in the form of public or collective ownership-is [/b][i][b]that they should serve labour,[/b] [/i]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 [i]socialization, [/i]in suitable conditions, of certain means of production. In the course of the decades since the publication of the Encyclical [i]Rerum Novarum, [/i]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 [i]Summa Theologiae [/i]of Saint Thomas Aquinas[font="Verdana"][size="2"][sup]22[/sup][/size][/font].

[/indent][font="Arial"][size="2"]or in [i]Centesimus Annus[/i][/size][/font][i] [/i]
[indent]Ownership of the means of production, whether in industry or agriculture, is just and legitimate if it serves useful work. It becomes illegitimate, however, [b]when it is not utilized or when it serves to impede the work of others[/b], in an effort to gain a profit which is not the result of the overall expansion of work and the wealth of society, but rather is the result of curbing them or of illicit exploitation, speculation or the breaking of solidarity among working people.87 [b]Ownership of this kind has no justification, and represents an abuse in the sight of God and man.

[/b][/indent]So I would argue, that the apprentice does not yet own it, but he could become a potential legitimate owner, if the original owner most of the time does not utilize it himself, or when the original owner does not serve labour. In fact John Paul II agrees that shareholding by labour is legitimate.

[i]Laborem Exercens[/i],
[indent]We can speak of socializing only when the subject character of society is ensured, that is to say, [b]when on the basis of his work each person is fully entitled to consider himself a [i]part-owner[/i] of the great workbench at which he is working with every one else[/b]. A way towards that goal could be found by[b] [i]associating labour with the ownership of capital[/i], as far as possible, and by producing a wide range of intermediate bodies with economic, social and cultural purposes;[/b] they would be bodies enjoying real autonomy with regard to the public powers, pursuing their specific aims in honest collaboration with each other and in subordination to the demands of the common good, and they would be living communities both in form and in substance, in the sense that the members of each body would be looked upon and treated as persons and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body[font="Verdana"][size="2"][sup]24[/sup][/size][/font].
[/indent]

Edited August 29, 2010 by un.privileged

[Nihil Obstat]

Will reply later today.

[Paddington]

Hassan would make an awesome dictator.

[Socrates]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283049699' post='2164745']
In America it is. Noam Chomsky explains it very clearly. The word libertarian was taken over by this apologist of Capitalism. Libertarian Socialism historically was and is a synonym for Anarchism.
][/quote]
I didn't find it clear at all what he was advocating (nor what you're advocating, in practical terms). Too many semantics and labels, not enough practical explanation of what any of it means, or how "libertarian socialism" is supposed to be implemented in practical terms.

[quote]
I believe in maintaining private property, but as I said, not in the Capitalistic sense (absolutizing the role of private property).[/quote]
I have no clue what you mean by "absolutizing" the role of private property.

I hardly think our problems today are caused by a surplus of private property rights.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Socrates

[Socrates]

[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1283023611' post='2164613']
I'm a follower of Free-Market Catholic Maoism.


It's certainly not possible that one could read "socialism" and actually apply its meaning. Yeah, that would be dumb. I don't care how much fluff you surround a stupidly assembled political term with, it's ultimately meaningless. What every "stateless" political philosophy has in common is that it establishes a different sort of state.
[/quote]


[quote name='Winchester' timestamp='1283035130' post='2164670']
There is no such thing as a libertarian authoritarianism. Sorry. The group that administers property and output and all the other croutons we're going to fantasize is better handled by committee is a state. You can avoid the terms, but not the reality and if all this is administered by this non-state state and not myself, then it's authoritarian. I'm not going to read a book for you. This isn't the "Suggest a book and everyone reads it and agrees with you" Table. Your job is to now show me some revolutionary way in which authoritarian government models merge with libertarian ideals in such a manner that the term is appropriate.


So pretending that powerful entities are somehow not "states" is asinine. It's not going to solve or slow the cycle of birth, growth, decay and destruction that history has taught is man's way.
[/quote]
I think the basic idea with the various "anarchist" ideologies is that in their little utopian world, [i]everybody[/i] will agree to their set of rules, and abide by them with scrupulosity and zeal, and thus no state will be necessary to enforce them.

Of course, that is absolutely contrary to human reality throughout history. There will always be people who won't follow the rules (whatever they may be), and thus some form of government is necessary to force others to comply. And thus you're back to square one.

It's hard enough to find two guys on Phatmass who are in agreement on these things, much less get everyone in the whole world to agree to some social-economic ideology.

After all, didn't the original Communists claim that their state was merely a temporary measure to restore control to "the workers" from the capitalists, and that under Communism, the state would wither away? We all know how that worked out . . .

(And no, I'm not comparing the "anarchists" to Communists. Communists created a bloody tyranny in their battle to overthrow "capitalism." Anarchism is merely useless.)

One might as well devote his efforts to the goal of rule by wise and benevolent magic flying unicorns. It has as much relation to reality.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Socrates

[Socrates]

[quote name='un.privileged' timestamp='1283058693' post='2164851']
I guess that is kind a incorrect understanding of what Distributism is. Nobody will be forced to give up their [i]legitimate [/i]ownership (as a result of mixing with labour). I assume you do agree that State has no legitimate claim to any ownership including land ownership? If the State do not have any legitimate claim that how is it legitimate to sell it? But your house is definitely yours, because obviously you have lived in it, and no other people, or any gang of thugs have a right to take it from you.
[/quote]
So who exactly will decide what ownership is and isn't "legitimate"?

And who will enforce the confiscation of property deemed to be "illegitimately" owned, and how?

Edited August 29, 2010 by Socrates