Category: Natural Law and Reciprocity

It’s hard to reply because private property is not a definition of a cause. Predation, parasitism, retaliation, and disincentive for cooperation and risk are a cause.

So, what is the operational definition (causal chain) of private property? Define private property. They can’t. Because then they have to explain how it’s possible. “Private property” like ‘principle’ is ‘god mode speech’. A declaration. An axiomatic command. But what brings private property into existence and why did we need to invent it?

Non aggression against what? Against private property? Well that tells us nothing if you can’t define private property, demonstrate how it comes into existence, and how it SURVIVES competition from those who don’t want private property. If you cant create a model but just claim a good, you’re just a simpleton, right? SO you can describe or command or imply an ideal but like heaven, if you can’t find a way to bring it into existence and have it survive competition, it can’t exist, right?

What I advocate can be described as ‘market fascism’. That is, markets in everything, and natural law that both forces markets in everything, and prohibits parasitism upon anything.

So now we can choose from preferential (positive) commons, good(positive) commons and necessary(negative) commons like defense.

So while you certainly cannot be compelled to pay for preferential commons (luxuries), you might have to pay for commons which you indirectly benefit from, and you must pay for commons that are necessary for your private property to exist.

There are no borderlands. There is no crusoe’s island. There are no ‘ghettos’ that are not paid for by even MORE expensive commons. So how will you obtain and hold territory of sufficient productive value that others will not take it from you either because you are weak, or because, given your weakness, you house parasites and pirates an those who live off markets with expensive commons but do not pay for them?

Principles are for children. Create a model so that you can’t use weasel words, ideals, and half truths that can’t survive competition.

Jesse Caron

Where did “cause” come into play, and why?

You went to all that length under the assumption, apparently, that private property and its “creation” has never been explained. I’m a bit surprised, not just at that, but that you have also spoken so confidently about debunking ancap/libertarianism.

Jesse Caron

argue against principle as though it weren’t, implicitly from a (n albeit mistaken) principled position.

That is what is known as performative contradiction.

Curt Doolittle

That’s not an argument right?

I want to know your origins of private property because otherwise i don’t know your definition of private property, because most libertarians generally use ‘principles’ in order to obscure causes. It’s a technique of circular definition and mandatory ignorance.

So, either you can define property by it’s causality our I have no idea what you’re talking about. (And I suspect neither do you.)

I don’t argue from principle. I argue from existential possibility. But I suspect you don’t know the difference between logic(internal consistency), empiricism (external correspondence), and operationalism (existential possibility).

Curt Doolittle

What is the origin of private property, and why is it either desirable or necessary?

Jesse Caron

The cause of private property is calculation, simply, implying desire by impulsion, need by immediate and extended physical consumption(s), and psychic parsing of estimated personal/individual capital cost and utility/

value, in turn comprising a resultant data/-set to be reinjected, as it were, into further calculative/industrial models.

Let me guess though: that doesn’t satisfy your definition of “origin”.

Curt Doolittle

So you are retroactively applying the necessity of money and prices in calculation and planning argument to property?

Hmmm….

Engels wrote the seminal work on the origin of property in man.

Butler Sheaffer wrote the seminal work on its universality.

Haidt’s bibliography contains dozens of explanations of its evolutionary origin.

Evolutionary Biology (Axelrod) explained its necessity (cooperation).

And….

As for calculation, Weber stated that this was the future of all disciplines:calculation.

Simmel in his ‘philosophy of money’ provides the necessity of money.

Mises restates Simmel as an argument against socialism in his failed attempt at operationalism in economics (praxeology).

As far as I know the origin of possession is pre-human.

The need to defend self.The need to possess territory and defend nests or offspring.

The origin of the habit of property is necessary for any independent but cooperative organism to prevent disincentive to cooperate.

The origin of the norm of private property is to keep assets within families during inheritance.

The origin of the law of private property is to prevent retaliation cycles.

The origin of contract is to allow cooperation and planning across time.

The origin of money and prices is to allow calculation and commensurability.

The origin of property RIGHTS is the common law by which disputes were settled

The criteria of dispute settlement arose in parallel to the granularity of property (tribe > family > generation > Individual)..

The criteria of dispute resolution at the individual level is investment.

The test of transfer of property is reciprocity, not only preserving investments but requiring gains.

So as far as I know the origin of property is the preservation of investment and the prevention of parasitism that leads to conflict in cooperating organisms. And that monetary calculation would be possible whether private, generational, familial, or tribal (common) property existed.

And as far as I know you are attempting to create a circular argument by stating that calculation that was made possible by property is the cause rather than property was a consequence of the scope of cooperation given the probability of retaliation, that is necessary to preserve that cooperation, such that individuals preserve the incentive to invest and save.

In other words, the origin of property is the commons at each incremental scale.

It takes a bit of work to debunk libertarian nonsense but it’s still all nonsense.

Jesse Caron

You said “money”, not me. You conflate it to your advantage, and doubtless ubiquity of simplistic assent and continued attention.

Someone gave you a like, there, I see.

Both property, AND calculation, has and will exist without money. Neither require it for their practice and establishment. It s simply an implement and interesting analog therefor.

You go to such lengths, only after failing to see your initial error of premise. Human condition, I guess. I’ve done it myself.

Jesse Caron

I said calculation from need, desire, through psychic parsing between them and resources available. Practice inevitably follows.

Criticism inevitably follows that, as you expertly exemplify.

Bit of advice. Let’s keep the comments short and sweet.

Curt Doolittle

Well, you know, short and sweet is the most common way of obscuring one’s ignorance by reliance on analogy and substitution rather than operational ‘proof’ of possibility. So analytic philosophy in operational prose is unfortunately, turgid, but it is also how we expose the deceptions of that branch of abrahamism we call marxism, and that sub-branch of marxism we call libertarianism. But lets move on with the analysis:

—“property, AND calculation, has and will exist without money. “—

Of course. now we have eliminated one possible error of interpretation or misrepresentation. Let’s move on.

So, you suggest that the origin of “property” is the demand(need, want) for planning(calculating, “psychic parsing’) some series of actions to obtain something that will satisfy said demand(need, want)? (Resource).

That seems to survive operational criticism.

And by extension you suggest that the origin of property is the use of said property to obtain additional property? (Tool to transform, or resource to transform)

That seems to survive operational criticism.

But it tells us nothing of limits. And as far as I know the difference between possession, property, and property rights, is defined by limits. So…

1) Property has nothing to do with denying others that which you have invested in obtaining?

2) And is there some limit to (a) what needs you may want to fulfill, (b) the actions you can take to fulfill them, and (c) that which you need as a direct or intermediary step to acquire domain, use, or interest in? In other words, what is the scope of that which may become property?

HYPOTHESIS

I think that the correct term is “resource”, and possibly “possession”.

I think that possession and property require us to deny others the use of it. As far as I know, we use the word property to mean some modicum of monopoly of control. Private property referring to monopoly of control. And shared, and common property to limited control.

I demonstrably act to obtain an interest.

I possess something or an interest in fact because I have physical control over it (deny it to others).

We agree on the definition of interpersonal property

We appeal to a third party for adjudication of property ‘rights’.

We evolve the definition of normative property.

We institutionalize a definition of Legal property.

Now, lets see if we can define limits.

Jesse Caron

I find ignorance much better obscured in pleonasm, not to mention disingenuity.

Short and sweet: why\how do we necessarily appeal to a third party for adjudication? If that’s true, then what is argumentation?

Curt Doolittle

So you avoid satisfying the question of limits. And I am stuck having to assume that you do so for the only reasons possible: Because articulating them would falsify the premise that the individual chooses rather than the market chooses the limits, which would then lead to the falsification of the entire rothbardian program. But that would take a while and I am fairly sure you will run away pretentiously before then.

That said, I am trying to define terms in order to insure that no one is engaging in deception. And I don’t know how to answer your question unless we satisfy definition of terms.

But let’s try. We appeal to a third person for adjudication of ‘rights’ under some hierarchy of contract. Otherwise we are not discussing ‘rights’ to be enforced by an insurer, but terms of agreement between people.

Argumentation in the sense can only exist under the presumption of punishment for falsity, and nullification of contradiction. Because independent parties do not do so – they only negotiate, which does not limit (as does a court) truth, falsehood, or contradiction. This is why international law recognizes only reciprocity. THere is no method of enforcement of the demand for truth and non-contradiction in speech, only demonstration of transfer of title.

(Although I do realize that many people have followed hoppe down this rather silly conflation of moral and legal.)

REPEATING:

I think that possession and property require us to deny others the use of it. As far as I know, we use the word property to mean some modicum of monopoly of control. Private property referring to monopoly of control. And shared, and common property to limited control.

I demonstrably ACT to create an INTEREST.

I POSSESS something or an interest in fact because I have physical CONTROL over it (deny it to others).

Parties agree on the definition of interpersonal PROPERTY

We appeal to a third party for adjudication of property ‘RIGHTS’.

We evolve the definition of normative property.

We institutionalize a definition of Legal property.

CLOSING

As far as I know the market determines the scope of property by the investment in increasingly abstract forms of interest. And this is because people RETALIATE against all increased forms of interest. And the law continuously expands to prevent retaliation against increased forms of interest, by outlawing the involuntary imposition of costs against such interests.

Now, as far as I know, no species capable of voluntary cooperation and voluntary non-cooperation, and voluntary parasitism, and voluntary predation, and voluntary genocide can evolve (survive the evolutionary market) without retaliating against involuntary imposition of costs.

As far as I know the origin of Law (rather than custom) is in the standardization of fees and punishments, in order to equilibrate differences in restitution between tribes with different customs.

As far as I know international law relies on reciprocity because it is the only means possible of decidability independent of custom.

As far as I know the market (or all evolutionary markets) determine the scope of property, and all such scopes of property are determined by investment in obtaining an interest.

As far as I know an anarchic polity cannot form unless the scope of property is thus defined. And the reason the libertarian community does not define it as such is that it would falsify the libertarian program. Hence why property is not defined, and libertarians spin about doing nothing, achieving nothing, and in particular producing no intellectual works other than introductions.

The cause of private property is the disproportionate rewards for voluntary cooperation and the necessity of retaliation against impositions upon investments in order to preserve the incentive to cooperate. Hence why humans demonstrate (costly) altruistic punishment (punishment at high cost to the self) because the value of voluntary cooperation is so high that it poses a threat too all when abridged.

The problem is not eliminating the state. It’s in eliminating demand for the state. And the only way to eliminate demand for the state, is to supply the services of the state by non-state means.