Curt Doolittle

Theme: Property

  • Is Private Property More Natural Than Government? Why Or Why Not? And What Are The Policy Implications?

    AN INTERESTING QUESTION – THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST TO ANSWER IT.  I’ll try to give you the best answer currently available.

    “We have laws because we have property, we do not have property because we have laws” – Frederic Bastiat.

    PROPERTY AS A SPECTRUM
    We define private property as something over which one EXPECTS TO HAVE exclusive “monopoly” control, and common family property as something over which we expect to have limited control and consumption, and shareholder property something over which one expects to have LIMITED control and prohibition from consumption, and ‘the commons’ over which one expects to be PROHIBITED from consumption and or exclusive control, but where membership is dynamic.

    NATURE
    Many animals treat their nests, stores of food, mates and offspring as property. Humans have more complex memories, and can put objects to a multiplicity of uses.  And humans can learn to specialize in the use of certain resources to produce certain increasingly complex goods and services.

    The first value of memory is to observe resources and avoid dangers. But once we have complex memory, and the abilty to locate and store resources, we can create property, and therefore conserve energy by creating stores for  future consumption, and stores for future production.  The human mind is a is a difference engine, but the primary difference it calculates is property: what can I expect to make use of or not make use of, as a member of a family, band, tribe, or society? 

    We can speak. That we can speak and negotiate demonstrates that property is natural. Without property cooperation would be unnecessary. To debate by definition is to acknowledge the existence of property.  And we were able to speak before we were able to form governments.  We were able to trade before we were able to form governments.

    However, just because property is natural to man, and humans can peaceably cooperate by conducting voluntary exchange of property, that does not mean that humans will do the hard work of trying to satisfy the wants of others. Instead, rather than exchange, humans try to harm, steal, commit fraud, commit fraud by omission.  Rather than adhere to agreements as shareholders, humans free-ride, rent-seek, privatize assets and socialize losses.

    So, despite our natural ability to create and use property, and to negotiate exchanges and contracts, we also require the use of third parties to administer conflicts.   We have used tribal headmen, elders, priests, judges for private matters, and politicians, lawyers, advocates, and lawmaking to regulate the process of dispute resolution itself.

    However, rather than justly administer agreements people engage in all possible manner of direct and systemic corruption.  But, rather than enter political agreements honestly, they lie, cheat, defraud, deceive, use incrementalism, use coercion and bribery.

    So, despite our creation of these administrative institutions, we have created the constitutions, rule of law, and a high court so that we may limit the ability of politicians, kings, bureaucrats to conduct thefts of many kinds.  And hold them accountable.  We have enacted democratic processes to remove them from office if they commit these crimes.

    However, rather than adhere to constitutions and rule of law, people undermine the rule of law, buy voters compliance with redistribution and privileges. Threaten to replace judges if they don’t rule in the politician’s favor. 

    So, despite our creation of limits on politicians and law makers, and the bureaucracy, and judges, we must retain our ability to use violence and revolution in order to defend ourselves from those who would seek to live off our efforts rather than administer our efforts.

    Property is the result of memory. Property is necessary to make use of the vicissitudes of time, to store and produce goods. Property is necessaty to uniquely and efficiently calculate uses of resources. Property is necessary to reduce conflict over possible usees even within families and tribes. Property is necessary for the construction a division of knowledge and labor. Without which we cannot specialize, save time, and produce high value goods that make us independent of nature’s bounty.

    Property is prior to government. Government exists to resolve disputes over property.

    As our division of labor increases, it becomes useful to develop additional common property. In a marketplace, competition provides us with incentives to produce better products and services at lower coasts. Competition is the privatization of other people’s assumptions about the opportunities in the market.  However, common property, unlike private property, is hard to protect from privatization, and necessary to protect from competition, which for any commons, is just a theft from those who organize and pay for the commons by those who fail to organize and pay for the commons. In the market competition and privatization are desirable, but in the production of commons competition is an unnecessary cost.  Therefore, the second purpose of government is to allow the formation of commons at a discount by prohibiting privatization of any commons, and preventing free-riding on any commons  by the use of mandatory taxation.

    THE TWO NECESSARY PROPERTIES OF GOVERNMENT
    These are the only two necessary properties of government.  In order to perform these functions any body of people must have a portfolio of property definitions that describe each kind of property on the spectrum from private to commons. Most difficulties arise from the failure for societies to do so. One of the reasons the west was (and partly remains) superior in economic per capita perormance is that more of the property in the civilization is privatized, and therefore available for frictionless use, and therefore as an incentive for individuals to act to better their status.

    CLOSING
    I won’t carry this further for now, and it is a book length topic, but it is probably the most, if not only, accurate description of property and government that you will be able to find, despite extraordinary efforts to research the subject. That is because I’ve tried to articulate the necessary properties of government not the multitude of abuses we can put it to.

    Cheers
    Curt Doolittle
    The Propertarian Institute, Kiev.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-private-property-more-natural-than-government-Why-or-why-not-And-what-are-the-policy-implications

  • Why Do Some “private Property” Signs Have The Word “posted” In Huge Letters?

    Because, according to our laws, if you don’t want someone to traverse your land or hunt on it you have to say so.  Posted means that they’ve informed you that you can’t go there. Laws vary but it means no trespassing and that you cannot claim ignorance as a defense, because you have been informed.

    https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-private-property-signs-have-the-word-POSTED-in-huge-letters

  • I”M NOT SURE THE LOGIC FOLLOWS. INSTEAD I HAVE A BETTER ANSWER FOR UKRAINE. If i

    http://usembassykyiv.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/why-should-ukrainians-care-about-intellectual-property-rights/IP? I”M NOT SURE THE LOGIC FOLLOWS. INSTEAD I HAVE A BETTER ANSWER FOR UKRAINE.

    If intellectual property rights helped countries prosper, then China would demonstrate the worst performance. But it’s just the opposite.

    Ukraine’s problems are (a) a lack of property rights in courts (b) a lack of insured identity provided by the government, (c) a lack of credit because of (a) and (b). There is a lot of sound and fury here that the government is corrupt, but the truth is, all government’s are corrupt – the USA”s included, if not spectacularly so. Systemic corruption (involuntary transfer, free riding, rent seeking, privatization of public goods, and socializing private losses) is no different from interpersonal corruption (bribery, graft) and oligarchical rent seeking and privatization – and we can argue pretty effectively that interpersonal corruption( bribery, graft) is far less harmful than systemic corruption.

    The problem in Ukraine is that the judiciary would need to be replaced, or a parallel judiciary for consumer contracts created using lawmakers from western (common law) countries. If this judiciary were married with an insurance company that people paid to prove their identity so that they could have access to credit, because credit would then be insured, then this would RAPIDLY, within three to six years, revitalize the Ukrainian state.

    WHY? Because the problem for any country is generating consumption, and consumption of complex goods requires credit. Consumption must come BEFORE production. This is a common problem, in economic understanding pervasive in all nations except perhaps for China.

    In the United States, the state acts as insurer of last resort, and will adequately find and punish people for credit crimes. (Other than identity theft which for some reason the USA is legally incompetent to solve.) In the Ukraine, the courts are too corrupt to insure consumer credit, and no government organization capable of providing insurance is sufficiently free of corruption to act as an insurer. It is quite possible that european countries could provide these services, but they have no means of extracting violators or their assets from ukraine. Therefore the only possible solution is either reform of the court against the existing Ukrainian Constitution, or creation of a parallel court, and insurance provider, so that credit from the willing west can be used to fund consumption in Ukraine. And consequently, local production can arise to meet that consumption.

    My admittedly short analysis of the progress of Ukrainian law is that lawmakers are taking adequate measures, but that the endemic corruption in the post-soviet bureaucracy, and certain cultural norms, make it impossible to ensure that citizens have property rights, that their contract rights are upheld, and that credit can be created as a tolerable risk for anyone.

    Once this system was in place, and member judges had the incentives that come with such status, it could be used to defend against the arbitrary seizure of property, and the graft and bribery that is pervasive in the country.

    But back to the original topic – it is very hard to make a functionally moral argument in favor of any Intellectual Property Right other than trademarks. Patents and Copyrights are hunting licenses to extract higher prices from a population than could be achieve by the process of meritocratic competition alone. Trademarks are weights and measures that prevent fraud. If you want to make a country wealthy, intellectual property rights are just another burdensome tax on a challenged economy. And that is both the logical outcome of any analysis, and the empirical evidence that will result from any analysis.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 10:04:00 UTC

  • RIGHT TO A JOB? VS RIGHT TO WORK? Is having a job a right? Are jobs something th

    RIGHT TO A JOB? VS RIGHT TO WORK?

    Is having a job a right? Are jobs something that a society is obliged to provide to each individual?

    SOME OK ANSWERS BY OTHERS, BUT I WILL GIVE A BETTER ONE

    A right is something provided by a contract. We can in theory create a contract that states that every person has a right be as attractive as a victoria’s secret model. The problem is, that the provision isn’t enforceable because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequence of even trying would probably be really bad (somehow… although I can’t think of any at the moment.)

    NEGATIVE RIGHTS, are things do by avoiding doing something: killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud, are all things we can avoid doing. And since it means avoiding something, we can, every single one of us, avoid killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud and all such damage to life and property.

    Jobs are called POSITIVE RIGHTS. They require resources, and resources that no one has to provide.

    One can have a right to a job in the sense that no one can be prohibited from working, who is willing, by a government. That is a negative right. It is a right to engage in work. It says no one may restrain another from engaging in the voluntary trade of his effort in exchange for something that he wants (money.) But one cannot have the right to have a job provided, because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequences of even trying would be really bad.

    The international declaration of human rights contains a number of provisions (22-26) are positive rights, which were included in order to satisfy the then-powerful communist governments, the same way the north was required to allow for slavery in the constitution inorder to gain the compliance of the south.

    The question is whether positive rights are possible to provide. Or whether it is only possible to provide insurance against destitution (which appears possible). This important question isn’t yet answered because we haven’t been doing it long enough to be sure. It certainly appears that both Europe and the USA are having significant economic, cultural and demographic problems because of these policies – which can only be satisfied with the use of ponzi schemes.

    (And yes, I am happy to argue with anyone on this point including our favorite left wing Nobel Prize winner.)

    Cheers

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 05:49:00 UTC

  • PHYSICS IS THE SCIENCE OF THE MATERIAL WORLD. PROPERTY IS THE SCIENCE OF THE COO

    PHYSICS IS THE SCIENCE OF THE MATERIAL WORLD.

    PROPERTY IS THE SCIENCE OF THE COOPERATIVE WORLD.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-04-07 02:49:00 UTC

  • Is Having A Job A Right?

    SOME OK ANSWERS BY OTHERS, BUT I WILL GIVE A BETTER ONE

    A right is something provided by a contract. We can in theory create a contract that states that every person has  a right be as attractive as a victoria’s secret model.  The problem is, that the provision isn’t enforceable  because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequence of even trying would probably be really bad (somehow… although I can’t think of any at the moment.)

    NEGATIVE RIGHTS, are things do by avoiding doing something: killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud, are all things we can avoid doing.  And since it means avoiding something, we can, every single one of us, avoid killing, torturing, harming, stealing, fraud and all such damage to life and property.

    Jobs are called POSITIVE RIGHTS. They require resources, and resources that no one has to provide.

    One can have a right to a job in the sense that no one can be prohibited from working, who is willing, by a government. That is a negative right. It says no one may restrain another from engaging in the voluntary trade of his effort in exchange for something that he wants (money.)  But one cannot have the right to have a job provided, because (a) we don’t know how to do that (b) it probably isn’t possible (c) the consequences of even trying would be really bad.

    THe international declaration of human rights contains a number of provisions (22-26) are positive rights, which were included in order to satisfy the then-powerful communist governments, the same way the north was required to allow for slavery in the constitution inorder to gain the compliance of the south.

    The question is whether positive rights are possible to provide. Or whether it is only possible to provide insurance against destitution (which appears possible).  This important question isn’t yet answered because we haven’t been doing it long enough to be sure. It certainly appears that both Europe and the USA are having significant economic, cultural and demographic problems because of these policies – which can only be satisfied with the use of ponzi schemes.

    (And yes, I am happy to argue with anyone on this point including our favorite left wing Nobel Prize winner.)

    Cheers
    Curt

    https://www.quora.com/Is-having-a-job-a-right

  • Has The Canadian Government Ever Acknowledged The Country Formation Was A Crime?

    A crime is a violation of a contract, where laws are properties of a contract for norms within a society fo people with similar goals, manners, ethics, morals, language and reproductive strategies. Even if the contract is nautural law, and even if natural law only applies to people within a government, not across governments.  Human rights are a post-war extension of natural rights.  We have attempted to legitimize conquest only in those cases where those extended rights are violated. While it is arguable that natural rights existed at the time, it is also arguable that human rights did not exist at the time.

    But since none of these contracts apply, conquest is not a crime. There was no contract. The reason for conquest, whether by violence, or immigration, or import of religion, or revolution, is to replace one set of rights and obligations with another set of rights and obligations.

    You may dislike conquest. You may argue in retrospect that we should not conquer primitive peoples. You may argue that we should not conquer primitive peoples even if we are more beneficial conquerors than any of our competing conquerors, and therefore commit the lesser of evils.

    Conquest is not a crime unless immigration, new religion, new political parties, are a crime. Immigration, religion and political parties are implemented under the threat of violence, and therefore the only difference is the rate and means by which one conducts conquest, and the rapidity at which rights, obligations and the allocation of property is rearranged. 

    It is not clear that the french revolution, and its bloody excesses, nor the philosophy that it created, which led to marxism, and 100M murderous deaths because of marxism was not a conquest. It was. And nothing good came of it.

    Conversely, it is quite clear that the conquest spread by anglo-empirical-science, acounting, property rights and capitalism were a conquest, that in turn, raised billions out of mysticism, ignorance and poverty.

    https://www.quora.com/Has-the-Canadian-government-ever-acknowledged-the-country-formation-was-a-crime

  • Rights, Punishment and Human Rights

    [W]hen someone violates NATURAL RIGHTS (life, liberty, property, by fraud, theft or violence) we punish them by removing their NATURAL RIGHTS, by imprisoning them. Natural rights are NECESSARY RIGHTS to engage in cooperation via exchanges within society: life, liberty, and property. We pay for our natural rights by forgoing our opportunity for fraud, theft and violence. We also pay for access to opportunities to interact with others by paying the cost of effort to deonstrate manners, and the cost of forgone opportunities for stealing from others by respecting ethics and morals. For violations of normative laws, we are ostracized from opportunity (boycotted) rather than punished or incarcerated. But we retain our natural rights as long as we can find someone to voluntarily exchange with us who does not refuse to boycott us because of our manners, ethics and morals. However, we do not remove anyone’s HUMAN RIGHTS any longer for any reason. This is in no small part, because we are wealthy enough that deprivation from society and consumption alone are enough to coerce people into respecting both natural laws, and for normative laws. The international declaration of human rights was created in no small part to control the abuse of individuals by communist countries. It is a DESIRED list of rights. This DESIRED list of rights is a CONTRACT between GOVERNMENTS. This contract is a TREATY. This treaty demands that member countries hold governments accountable for the treatment of individuals, and to sanction those countries if they do not. Even to the point of replacing a government for their abuses of their individuals. It is important that we understad that this charter is a treaty by governments that like a treaty for the promise of mutual defense, binds other countries such that they are required to use legal, financial and economic sanctions against countries that violate the rights that the charter agrees all people in all countries, regardless of government, possess. In effect, as a worldwide treaty, it is a worldwide constitution for that limits the powers of governemnts. This is waht RULE OF LAW means: it means that governemtns, and the people in them, are limited to the actions that are allowed in their constitutions. Rule of law does not mean that there are laws. It means that the government itself is bound by law. The Charter of human rights is a very simple document. It is vaguely divided into sections. The first few are restatements of NATURAL LAW. After that there are a variety of prohibitions against the government, that require that all people in society must be treated equally before the law. That they have the right to live ordinary lives, marry, have a family, make friends, earn a living, Articles 23, 24, 25, and 26, were necessary to gain the support of the socialist and communist countries, in the same way that the north was required to allow slavery in order to gain the signatures of the south during the american civil war. This is the primary problem with the declaration of human rights: is that these are not possible, not testable, and not achievable except in rare circumstances and for short periods of time – and they create a moral hazard as well as perverse incentives. These are POSITIVE rights. And positive rights can only exist as preferences, not rights. Article 29 specifies how you PAY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, and that is by granting them to other people equally. Rights require exchange. Without exchange the term ‘rights’ is meaningless. One does not HAVE human rights as if they fall from heavens. One is granted them by others, and pays for them over one’s lifetime by granting the same rights to others. Otherwise the document is not terribly different from the American Bill of Rights. What I hope to get accross here is that these are not divine rights, nor necesary and therefore natural rights, they are human rights, and human rights are those that we choose to require, by threat of force and economic punishment, that all governments must hold to.

  • What Are Rights? The “Final Word” on Rights

    1) RIGHTS: A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation). Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’. A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something. There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with. (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.) 2) CONTRACTS: A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals. While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms. This contract for norms is we call a society. Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms. Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange. Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange. (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.) One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts. But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract. 3) NATURAL RIGHTS: Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’. Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws. If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something. In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it. 3) HUMAN RIGHTS: Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs. We call these rights ‘Human Rights’. 4) PRIVILEGES: Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others. 5) RENTS (Corruption) In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft. In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name. In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.) Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it. This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land. Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents. And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers. 6) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you. If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used. PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally. The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services. And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market. The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is, how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them. But I will have to leave that discussion for another time.

  • What Are Rights? The “Final Word” on Rights

    1) RIGHTS: A “right” is a claim against other members of a contract, wherein each party grants the other party something (a right) in exchange for somthing else (an obligation). Each person then has ‘rights’ as agreed upon in the contract, as well as obligations. This is the meaning of the term ‘right’. A right is something that you obtain from others in exchange for granting them something. There is no other logical meaning of the term, unless you invent a god or demon, or some equivalent that you are supposedly in contract with. (Although the term ‘right’ is abused by way of analogy and metaphor, which I will explain below.) 2) CONTRACTS: A contract can be discreetly created, such as a handshake, a promise, or an agreement. Or a contract can be written as a note, a written contract, or a constitution. A contract can be created by habituation as a “norm”, such as manners, ethics and morals. While very few people understand this, ethical and moral statements are those that compensate for asymmetry of information between members of a contract for norms. This contract for norms is we call a society. Manners are promises that you will respect ethical and moral norms. Ethics are rules that we follow to make sure that there are no involuntary transfers of prooperty due to asymmetry of information in an exchange. Morals are general rules that we will follow to make sure there are no involuntary transfers from others who are outside (external to) any action or exchange. (Having a chid that you cannot pay for, and expecting others to support it, is an involuntary transfer from others. That is why it’s generally been considered immoral.) One can voluntarily enter discreet contracts. But normative contracts are a necessity because people cannot peacefully and productively cooperate without them. One can generally move between groups with different normative contracts (societies, and communities) but it is all but impossible to avoid them entirely, and it is entirely impossible to exist in a community without adhering to that contract – usually people are excluded from opportunity, punished, imprisoned, ostracized, or deported, for violations of the normative contract. 3) NATURAL RIGHTS: Some contract rights are both necessary for humans to engage in contracts, and possible to grant in contracts. Such as surrendering our opportunity for violence theft and fraud, from those with whom we are in contract. If we surrender our opportunity to use violence theft and fraud, we define this set of forgone opportunities “property rights’. Because these rights are necessary for peaceful cooperation, and necessary for contracts to function, we call these necessary rights ‘Natural Rights’ – in an effort to limit the ability of governments to violate the contract rights that are necessary for human cooperation when they make laws. If we define our minds and bodies as our property. And we define those objects, that we freely obtained through exchange as our property, then there is only one natural right and that is property. It is the only right necessary, and the only right universally possible to grant to one another – because we must refrain from something, rather than do something. In this sense, there is only one possible human right, and all other rights derive from it. 3) HUMAN RIGHTS: Some contract rights are not necessary but beneficial. These rights generally can be categorized as forms of ‘insurance’. They cannot be direclty exchanged without an intermediary institution acting as the insurer. People cannot equally contribute to their costs. We call these rights ‘Human Rights’. 4) PRIVILEGES: Sometimes we attempt to seek privileges not rights – a privilege is something that unlike insurance, is something we are likely to obtain, and which comes at a cost to others, without our providing something else in exchange. These are not rights, but privileges at the expense of others. 5) RENTS (Corruption) In contemporary politics, unscrupulous people attempt to label privileges as rights, so that they can obtain something from others at no cost to themselves This is not seeking rights but seeking privileges. It is a form of corruption, which is just an indirect form of theft. In economics, seeking privileges from government is a form of corruption called ‘rent-seeking’. (Which admittedly, is an old and confusing name. In previous centuries, people would seek to obtain an interest in land so that they could collect rents on it.) Today, people seek an interest in tax revenue so that they can collect income from it. This is Rent-Seeking. The government, in practice, if not in theory, owns all land, and we rent it from the government by taxes. If you cannot pay your taxes, you cannot keep your land. Taxes today, are no different from taxes under feudalism. We have just replaced private landowners with a political bureaucracy. In both cases we are renting our land, and in many cases the homes we build, from the government. Taxes are our rents. And people who seek to own part of taxes are rent-seekers. 6) DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) if you obey norms (manners, ethics and morals) and obey natural rights (property), you do so at a cost to you. If you think of society as a business (it is, because it must be), and the business is to grow the local market (it is, at least to maintain it), because everyone in the local market will profit from it. (they do). Then these businesses (societies) grow through phases, just as businesses do (or really, business go through phases like society does, just a lot faster because they’re smaller), and in certain early phases(startups) they require a lot of investments from their shareholders (citizens), and in other phases they produce tremendous surpluses (mature, commoditized businesses), then we can see that most of the problem we deal with in politics, is who makes what contributions, and who collects what dividends, and how those dividends are used. PROBLEMS WITH DETERMINING DIVIDENDS (REDISTRIBUTION) It is very hard to argue against dividends (redistribution) if people respect (adhere to) manners, ethics, morals, and natural rights (property rights), as well as whatever arbitrary laws are created that affect all people equally. The general argument, which is true, is that by adhering to maners, ethics, morals, natural rights and arbitrary laws, you earn the right to participate in the market for goods and services. And that dividends are a due only to those people who provide goods and services in the market. The problem with dividends (redistribution) is not the logical requirement for dividends (redistribution), but the problem with how to determine what a dividend is, how to collect them, who has earned them, and how to allocate them, and how to distribute them. But I will have to leave that discussion for another time.