Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was Supporting WAPF or ...

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/23/05 7:19:37 PM Eastern Standard Time, hl@...

writes:

> Let's not forget water and waste. How do nature's fluids and solids

> figure in this libertarian idealism at all without a protective

> spherical bubble to keep property in or out? And how big a radius is

> necessary? Your poop and urine need to stay on YOUR property. The O2

> and agua will only hold out so long though without influx and outflow of

> these fluids. Thus the whole idea kills because it is not homeostatic,

> as it artificially attempts to close off otherwise open systems. Not

> possible in reality.

_____

These are contradictions to some of the conclusions that libertarians have

reached from their premises, but not contradictions of the fundamental premise

from which they're derived, that the initiation of force is immoral, and from

this that voluntary interactions are not to be interfered with, barring fraud.

Your point is that such-and-such is an involuntary transaction, rather than a

non-transaction. (Any kind of pollution of someone else's property is an

involuntary transaction and therefore a forceful one.) This does not in any way

refute or damage the libertarian philosophical framework. It merely disputes

a particular point within that framework.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/23/05 7:39:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> In context to air-pollution, I would say that you own the

> molecules of air that are on your property.

_____

That's pretty silly, since their presence is only transitory-- fleeting,

even. You could be considered to own the abstraction of space through which

they

move, but not the molecules themselves.

____

> Do you not own any

> other natural resource that moves onto your land (water, soil,

> earthworms, sunlight)? Pollution is the damaging of those

> resources (the ones that move onto your property) by another.

____

You can't own those things in the sense that you own most things. I own my

body and therefore should be able to ruin it as I please. The same freedom

that *should* allow me to, say, take heroin, clearly should NOT allow me to dump

toxic waste in water that fleetingly moves through my property and quickly

enters someone elses. For if I damage that water that I owned for a blink of an

eye, I've damaged another's property upon doing so.

Sunlight is different, because as it enters your body and property it does

not continually pass into others property unchanged, and harnessing it any way

as yet conceivable to us does not in any way inhibit another from doing the

same with the sunlight that enters her or his property.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/23/05 7:53:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> You appear to be criticizing Libertarian-property-rights concepts

> by claiming that sending your manure onto my property is

> unavoidable. I hope you are not my neighbor - maybe you should

> get your septic system checked out. Good septic tanks are very

> possible in reality.

____

Mark,

I know very little about septic systems, but I was under the impression that

the fluid was designed for outflow, while the solids remained and were

periodically extracted by someone with a poop collection.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/23/05 8:20:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> Do we slice out sectors of earth from the core to the

> stratosphere that we own as our own? No, we live in a dynamic

> world.

>

> Yes, more or less (although I'm not sure the heights have yet

> been established). If you bought property, that's what you did.

> Property rights are the cornerstone of freedom.

____

Mark,

Most defendants of property rights, I think, justify it on the homesteading

principle: that if you use land in some way and have modified it, it become

part of your work and life and therefore can be property. It makes little sense

on this principle to assume *any* magnitude of vertical dimension based simply

on the other two dimensions occupied. If the horizontal dimensions are

determined, initially, by the use of the land, shouldn't the vertical dimensions

be

determined likewise? If you buy property from someone, you are only buying

what they owned, which is anything they bought from the previous owner plus

anything they have homesteaded themselves. Anything that has never been

homesteaded, therefore, would be unowned.

So, say I strike oil on my property and it turns out the oil is continuous

with oil *beneath* your property at a level you do not use and no one owning

that surface property has used before you. Have I not homesteaded that oil with

this act?

It wouldn't make any more sense to assume unlimited vertical extent of a

piece of property because one has homestead a tiny portion of that dimension

anymore than it would make sense for the owner of property on the edge of an

unexplored frontier to own the enter surface extension of that land to the

nearest

sea by virtue of having homesteaded but a small fraction of it.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/24/05 8:30:42 PM Eastern Standard Time,

implode7@... writes:

> Curious. do you really own your body in the sense that you own most things?

> This sounds completely false to me. Not in the sense that you can't do with

> it as you please....the set of things to which you can do as you please,

and

> the set of things that you own are not necessarily the same. But it sounds

> very odd to claim that you own your body in the same sense that you would

own

> a car.

>

> This is more of a semantic objection, and not disagreement with the rest

of

> this post.

____

Perhaps I could better respond if you would point out the differences you see

in the two.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

In a message dated 2/24/05 7:05:28 PM Eastern Standard Time, ChrisMasterjohn

writes:

> > Do we slice out sectors of earth from the core to the

> > stratosphere that we own as our own? No, we live in a dynamic

> > world.

> >

> > Yes, more or less (although I'm not sure the heights have yet

> > been established). If you bought property, that's what you did.

> > Property rights are the cornerstone of freedom.

____

Coupling with the example I gave of an oil resevoir underground, consider

also the air. If I own the air above my property in unlimited extent, it would

be trespassing for an airplane to fly above. This would eliminate the

possibility of air travel, which couldn't be done without trespassing. Does

that make

any sense?

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of them

make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense compassion,

which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to bear the sight of

the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature. Thus they pray

ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the truth, and for

those

who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

February 24, 2005

> You can't own those things in the sense that you own most things. I own my

> body and therefore should be able to ruin it as I please.

Curious. do you really own your body in the sense that you own most things? This

sounds completely false to me. Not in the sense that you can't do with it as you

please....the set of things to which you can do as you please, and the set of

things that you own are not necessarily the same. But it sounds very odd to

claim that you own your body in the same sense that you would own a car.

This is more of a semantic objection, and not disagreement with the rest of this

post.

February 24, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 6:53 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/23/05 7:39:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> In context to air-pollution, I would say that you own the

> molecules of air that are on your property.

_____

1) That's pretty silly, since their presence is only transitory--

fleeting,

even. You could be considered to own the abstraction of space

through which they

move, but not the molecules themselves.

____

> Do you not own any

> other natural resource that moves onto your land (water, soil,

> earthworms, sunlight)? Pollution is the damaging of those

> resources (the ones that move onto your property) by another.

____

2) You can't own those things in the sense that you own most

things. I own my

body and therefore should be able to ruin it as I please. The

same freedom

that *should* allow me to, say, take heroin, clearly should NOT

allow me to dump

toxic waste in water that fleetingly moves through my property

and quickly

enters someone elses. For if I damage that water that I owned

for a blink of an

eye, I've damaged another's property upon doing so.

Sunlight is different, because as it enters your body and

property it does

not continually pass into others property unchanged, and

harnessing it any way

as yet conceivable to us does not in any way inhibit another from

doing the

same with the sunlight that enters her or his property.

Chris

____

1) Silly? No. You have not given any good reason why I should not

own the molecules above my property. Everything is eventually

transitory. Where are you drawing the line? If you do not own the

air you pipe into your house, how could you call someone that had

dirtied it upwind a polluter?

2) That is a great point. It comes back to force and consent. You

most certainly should be allowed to do what you want with your

body (as long as that does not include non-consensually violating

another's). That's because your body will always remain yours.

But if your could force your poisoned body upon another without

their consent, it would certainly qualify as a pollution

violation. I should be allowed to take resources that exist on my

property and do with them what I like (so long as it does not

negatively impact my neighbor). Should I not be allowed to my

pump air into a tank and keep it as my own so long as I like? (Or

sell it to anyone who would buy it?) But property rights go both

ways AND I should also be able to prevent something from entering

my property that would not naturally do so.

The problem of pollution is much better solved through

private-property rights than by government legislation.

-Mark

February 24, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 6:56 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/23/05 7:53:14 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> You appear to be criticizing Libertarian-property-rights

concepts

> by claiming that sending your manure onto my property is

> unavoidable. I hope you are not my neighbor - maybe you should

> get your septic system checked out. Good septic tanks are very

> possible in reality.

____

Mark,

I know very little about septic systems, but I was under the

impression that

the fluid was designed for outflow, while the solids remained and

were

periodically extracted by someone with a poop collection.

Chris

____

That was my point. The person I was addressing seemed to be

saying that poop naturally flowed from one property to another. I

was disagreeing and suggested she check her septic system for

defects.

-Mark

February 25, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 7:05 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/23/05 8:20:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

> Do we slice out sectors of earth from the core to the

> stratosphere that we own as our own? No, we live in a dynamic

> world.

>

> Yes, more or less (although I'm not sure the heights have yet

> been established). If you bought property, that's what you

did.

> Property rights are the cornerstone of freedom.

____

Mark,

Most defendants of property rights, I think, justify it on the

homesteading

principle: that if you use land in some way and have modified it,

it become

part of your work and life and therefore can be property. It

makes little sense

on this principle to assume *any* magnitude of vertical dimension

based simply

on the other two dimensions occupied. If the horizontal

dimensions are

determined, initially, by the use of the land, shouldn't the

vertical dimensions be

determined likewise? If you buy property from someone, you are

only buying

what they owned, which is anything they bought from the previous

owner plus

anything they have homesteaded themselves. Anything that has

never been

homesteaded, therefore, would be unowned.

So, say I strike oil on my property and it turns out the oil is

continuous

with oil *beneath* your property at a level you do not use and no

one owning

that surface property has used before you. Have I not

homesteaded that oil with

this act?

It wouldn't make any more sense to assume unlimited vertical

extent of a

piece of property because one has homestead a tiny portion of

that dimension

anymore than it would make sense for the owner of property on the

edge of an

unexplored frontier to own the enter surface extension of that

land to the nearest

sea by virtue of having homesteaded but a small fraction of it.

Chris

____

The homesteading aspect (which may be related to the law of

adverse possession) is interesting, but I don't believe it

detracts from the notion that pollution is better prevented

through private-property rights. We could probably debate the

finer details of " property " for a good while. But even in context

of your homesteading points, pollution is easier fought via

private-property rights. Or are you claiming that homesteading

details make that impossible?

-mark

February 25, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 8:37 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/24/05 7:05:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,

ChrisMasterjohn

writes:

> > Do we slice out sectors of earth from the core to the

> > stratosphere that we own as our own? No, we live in a

dynamic

> > world.

> >

> > Yes, more or less (although I'm not sure the heights have

yet

> > been established). If you bought property, that's what you

did.

> > Property rights are the cornerstone of freedom.

____

Coupling with the example I gave of an oil resevoir underground,

consider

also the air. If I own the air above my property in unlimited

extent, it would

be trespassing for an airplane to fly above. This would

eliminate the

possibility of air travel, which couldn't be done without

trespassing. Does that make

any sense?

Chris

____

As I said, I don't know that the altitude has been established,

but I believe mineral rights go as deep as they go. Besides, no

one has ever tried to keep planes from flying over their property

- if you don't maintain your borders, you never had them. But

that's really beside the point of pollution.

-Mark

February 25, 2005

Can humans own property or have most in reality just given themselves the

means to ownership by monetary right or dominating might, for access of use,

abuse of it and/or care for it within lifetimes? For example, this state MA

and all U.S. states pre property rights had occupants, Native Americans and

territorial boundaries that determined use area. Here in the western part of

the state now there are maybe 100 town boundaries. Of those 100 towns about

6 actually have a document where a Native American signed property rights

over. The rest there is no deed, no permission to use ever given and any

deeds signed are believed to be not fully understood.

We're property owners by commonly believed present definition. Adding in the

history of this land no previous user of this land was given permission from

the Nipmuck people and we're certainly not paying the Nipmuck people for

use.

There are inherent human rights which " should " be respected in every belief

system and set of laws. Violators " should " be responsible and accountable to

those rights are within the same. If it's no so for some and so for the

rest, it's hypocrisy, one standard for some and another for the rest.

Wanita

--

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Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.

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February 25, 2005

_____

From: Wanita Sears [mailto:wanitawa@...]

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 9:10 AM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

Can humans own property or have most in reality just given

themselves the

means to ownership by monetary right or dominating might, for

access of use,

abuse of it and/or care for it within lifetimes? For example,

this state MA

and all U.S. states pre property rights had occupants, Native

Americans and

territorial boundaries that determined use area. Here in the

western part of

the state now there are maybe 100 town boundaries. Of those 100

towns about

6 actually have a document where a Native American signed

property rights

over. The rest there is no deed, no permission to use ever given

and any

deeds signed are believed to be not fully understood.

We're property owners by commonly believed present definition.

Adding in the

history of this land no previous user of this land was given

permission from

the Nipmuck people and we're certainly not paying the Nipmuck

people for

use.

There are inherent human rights which " should " be respected in

every belief

system and set of laws. Violators " should " be responsible and

accountable to

those rights are within the same. If it's no so for some and so

for the

rest, it's hypocrisy, one standard for some and another for the

rest.

Wanita

-----------------

Wanita,

Before I respond, I would like for you to briefly state your

position. Are you proposing that one should not be able to buy or

sell parcels of land?

-Mark

February 25, 2005

In a message dated 2/25/2005 2:31:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

1) Silly? No. You have not given any good reason why I should not

own the molecules above my property.

_____

Sure I have: because ownership is meaningless without the sole and ultimate

right to dispose of something as you wish, which is essentially the definition

of ownership. Saying that you " own " air molecules that might exist on your

property from minutes to microseconds is like saying you own a library book

when you check one out. You don't.

____

Everything is eventually

transitory.

_____

True, but my life is mine for the duration of its existence, whether or not

it wanders off my property. My car is mine, even when I drive it on the

road, until I sell the ownership rights to it. When a friend comes over the

house, his car does not become mine by virtue of its being in my drive way. If

I

had a dog, she or he would be mine, even if she wandered off my property. I

do not surrender my property rights to anything except by contractual

arrangement. The fact that they will all some day rot and decompose is

irrelevant

and does not change the simple maxim in the previous sentence.

On the other hand, air molecules are not mine when they leave my property.

I can breath in any air molecule that wanders into my presence, whether on my

property or not, without any contractual arrangment with their due owners.

If the breeze blows my air molecules onto my neighbor's yard, I cannot sue

him, nor could he be punished for theft. Even if my neighbor willfully stood

at the border of my property facing it, so that as he breathed in, a current

brought my air molecules towards his mouth to cross the property, I could

neither sue him nor press criminal charges for his theft. Yet, he makes no

contractual arrangment with me to justify this transfer of " property. "

In all cases property for the duration of its existence remains owned by its

owner until some contractual arrangment changes the hands of ownership.

This is not the case with air. The treatment of air in no way resembles

property at all.

_____

Where are you drawing the line? If you do not own the

air you pipe into your house, how could you call someone that had

dirtied it upwind a polluter?

_____

That's easy: because that air transfers that pollution to my person and my

property.

_____

2) That is a great point. It comes back to force and consent. You

most certainly should be allowed to do what you want with your

body (as long as that does not include non-consensually violating

another's). That's because your body will always remain yours.

But if your could force your poisoned body upon another without

their consent, it would certainly qualify as a pollution

violation. I should be allowed to take resources that exist on my

property and do with them what I like (so long as it does not

negatively impact my neighbor). Should I not be allowed to my

pump air into a tank and keep it as my own so long as I like? (Or

sell it to anyone who would buy it?)

_____

Well sure. But that is consistent with a commons, and for the reasons I

stated above, air cannot be consistent with normal rules of property. You can

hunt on public property or unowned property and own the deer you killed. The

idea of a commons lets people use the commons to the extent that it doesn't

interfere with others' use of it. You could pick evergreen branches of a

public or unowned forest and fashion wreaths and sell them. In a way you are

essentially " homesteading " the portion of a renewable or unlimited commons that

you are able to modify and isolate The difference between air and the other

examples is that hunting grounds and forests don't NEED to be a commons--

they can be privately owned.

Air can't, for the reasons I described above.

And consider this: If you created an oxygen-absorbing machine that attracted

oxygen from the air, and it was enormously efficient and speedy, it would

begin to draw away oxygen from the air of others. Imagine that this machine

was so powerful that the oxygen content of the air of neighbors literally began

to substantially decrease. And you then sold the oxygen to your neighbors.

Would this be fine, since you are ONLY treating the air above YOUR property

which is therefore YOUR property itself?

Of course not. The air between you and your neighbors is continuous. It is

not divided. The molecules are constantly changing places. You can't do

anything to your air that doesn't affect your neighbors air. The only way to

treat it is as a commons: you can do anything to it that doesn't interfere

with others' right to use it. Common ownership is the only way to consider it.

But property rights go both

ways AND I should also be able to prevent something from entering

my property that would not naturally do so.

____

Yes, although note that air by NATURE *does* constantly change places and

come onto others' property and leave it as it pleases, unlike all other forms of

property.

_____

The problem of pollution is much better solved through

private-property rights than by government legislation.

____

That's possible, but I think there are consider obstacles to this. I listed

some of them earlier in this thread.

Chris

February 25, 2005

In a message dated 2/25/2005 2:53:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

I know very little about septic systems, but I was under the

impression that

the fluid was designed for outflow, while the solids remained and

were

periodically extracted by someone with a poop collection.

Chris

____

That was my point. The person I was addressing seemed to be

saying that poop naturally flowed from one property to another. I

was disagreeing and suggested she check her septic system for

defects.

____

Where does the fluid outflow lead to though?

Chris

February 25, 2005

In a message dated 2/25/2005 3:06:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

The homesteading aspect (which may be related to the law of

adverse possession) is interesting, but I don't believe it

detracts from the notion that pollution is better prevented

through private-property rights. We could probably debate the

finer details of " property " for a good while. But even in context

of your homesteading points, pollution is easier fought via

private-property rights. Or are you claiming that homesteading

details make that impossible?

_____

No I was responding to the question of whether typical land property

included space above and below it from core to upper stratosphere as an isolated

point.

I had a small exchange with in which I noted the major problems I

saw with solving pollution disputes through adjudication alone, and we didn't

get very far. Perhaps you could respond to them?

Chris

February 25, 2005

> Can humans own property or have most in reality just given

> themselves the

> means to ownership by monetary right or dominating might, for

> access of use,

> abuse of it and/or care for it within lifetimes? For example,

> this state MA

> and all U.S. states pre property rights had occupants, Native

> Americans and

> territorial boundaries that determined use area. Here in the

> western part of

> the state now there are maybe 100 town boundaries. Of those 100

> towns about

> 6 actually have a document where a Native American signed

> property rights

> over. The rest there is no deed, no permission to use ever given

> and any

> deeds signed are believed to be not fully understood.

>

> We're property owners by commonly believed present definition.

> Adding in the

> history of this land no previous user of this land was given

> permission from

> the Nipmuck people and we're certainly not paying the Nipmuck

> people for

> use.

>

> There are inherent human rights which " should " be respected in

> every belief

> system and set of laws. Violators " should " be responsible and

> accountable to

> those rights are within the same. If it's no so for some and so

> for the

> rest, it's hypocrisy, one standard for some and another for the

> rest.

>

> Wanita

>

> -----------------

>

> Wanita,

>

> Before I respond, I would like for you to briefly state your

> position. Are you proposing that one should not be able to buy or

> sell parcels of land?

>

> -Mark

I'm proposing the land wasn't bought with the same meme standard of buy-sell

that granted ownership now or then. A signature without full understanding,

an agreement to move somewhere else, a few utilitarian items or forced

eviction violates in the buying process the meme it's meant to represent.

The questions to me are more " should " there be land to buy or sell? Did any

individual/s or entity ever own any land? Were humans before ownership just

where they were at any given time? If land wasn't acquired in the same way

we have been taught to believe and are required to follow then how is

ownership true at all.

Wanita

--

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February 25, 2005

In a message dated 2/25/2005 11:08:09 PM Eastern Standard Time,

hl@... writes:

Well, that's the theory isn't it. Only way to know for sure is to test

it. And what about those faulty septic systems you seem to feel are

just fine and dandy (except for the tongue in cheek remark above)?

Septic waste is nasty and it does pollute. What then when a septic

system is broken? Who can I call and demand remedy so that my property

is LITERALLY not a sewage pit caused by my uphill neighbor? The

authorities of the state that's who, cuz ol' home owner so and so don't

give a rats ass so long as his toilets flush. Do you have property of

your own? That's how it works in reality.

____

Isn't that perfectly consistent with the system of adjudicating disputes

based on property rights that Mark was advocating?

Chris

February 25, 2005

Chris-

>but not contradictions of the fundamental premise

>from which they're derived, that the initiation of force is immoral, and from

>this that voluntary interactions are not to be interfered with, barring

>fraud.

Anything can be abstracted far enough back towards its root principles that

it's incontrovertible (and also indefensible) on logical or factual

grounds. At some point, all practical systems are based on root values

which are held, in a sense, just because. It's the difference between a

theorem and an axiom.

Admittedly, most people don't really figure out their axioms, and this

contributes to their frequent espousal of contradictory theorems, but that

doesn't mean the axioms aren't there -- even when they're as simple as " I

want it so it should be mine " .

Now, consider libertarians. One libertarian axiom often seems to be that

property rights should be inviolable -- property uber alles, one might

say. Admittedly, you could argue that property uber alles is actually a

theorem derived from the axiom that all force is immoral, and the

appropriation of any property, whether actively contested or not, requires

force. I'll get to the implications of that distinction soon, but first

consider the principle itself.

Property uber alles (whether axiomatic or theorematic) can obviously have

some unfortunate outcomes. Consider a hypothetical situation in which a

rich man owns an enormous stock of medicine, and someone is dying, but the

medicine owner refuses to give the dying person any medicine. (In this

hypothetical, obviously, the medicine is safe and effective. <g> Also,

his motives don't matter -- he could have a grudge against the dying man,

he could be holding out for a better price, he could be a libertarian

offended by the dying man's family's politics... it's immaterial.) The

pure libertarian argument would be that there's no justification for

appropriating any of the rich man's medicine to save the dying man and so,

absent other actors in the drama, the dying man would go on to perish in a

pure libertarian world.

Admittedly, it's true that the mere existence of the potential for some

undesirable outcomes doesn't automatically render a system

unacceptable. Many people (myself included) believe that when someone is

improperly convicted of a crime (based on fabricated evidence, for example,

or on evidence discovered through a search made without a warrant) the

conviction should be overturned -- or better yet, that the conviction

should be impossible in the first place. This can have the undesirable

outcome of some actual criminals going free, but this allowance for certain

types of undesirable outcomes is in service of a greater good: helping to

ensure the safety of all citizens against unjust arrest, conviction and

imprisonment.

More generally, it seems to me like a sound principle that any allowance

for undesirable outcomes should be in service of a greater good which

outweighs the bad of the undesirable outcomes. This principle may seem

like an axiom itself, but in reality it's more like a mathematical outcome

of any system of axioms, and the particulars of its implications depend

entirely on the selection and weighting of the system's axioms.

So let's return to the question of property uber alles. If your axiom is

that property rights are the most important consideration in any system,

then the axiom is, in essence, its own defence: it's either obvious and

unchallengeable or incorrect depending on the degree to which you adhere to

that axiomatic belief.

But if your goal is to maximize some other good through the use of property

rights, then you have to defend the principle of property uber alles on at

least partly pragmatic grounds: what good is it supporting, and why is that

good more important than the other good of avoiding some undesirable

outcomes, like the death in my hypothetical situation? If, for example,

you hold that property should be inviolate because any abridgement of

property rights requires force and force is universally bad, then you have

to explain why force is a priori harmful and what damage it causes.

Now consider a subspecies of my hypothetical situation: what if the rich

man owns more doses of medicine than he can ever use -- in fact, he has so

many he can't even keep track of them all except perhaps in the

abstract? If a dose is surreptitiously stolen from him so that nobody is

hurt, where is the force in the ordinary sense of the word, and what actual

harm is done to him?

The distinction between appropriating some marginal quantity of that rich

man's medicine and the sole dose possessed by a sick man should clearly

resemble the distinctions in taxation achieved under a progressive tax system.

If your objection is that any force, even technical, theoretical kinds of

force like that used in the above example are unacceptable, then you've

established a very broad definition of force as a paramount axiomatic

wrong. Otherwise, you have to defend the absolutism of property rights on

pragmatic grounds.

I also question the justification of establishing property uber alles as an

axiom. Consider the origins of the concept of property rights. Since many

people argue that property uber alles is a natural right, which is to say

an essential consequence of human nature, they should be able to show that

it has roots stretching back as far as humanity itself -- but they

can't. Nomadic hunter-gatherer societies had much narrower definitions of

property rights. Nomadic Native American tribes, for example, were

completely mystified by the idea of owning land. Property was a tangible

good you built or bought yourself, and even then, there were limits. If

you hunted, you shared your catch. If you gathered, you shared your

gleanings. Not because it was the nice thing to do and Native Americans

were such wonderfully nice people, but because that was the system. You

had to, and if you didn't, there were consequences.

Furthermore, there's an inescapable contradiction in all practical

applications of property uber alles: advocates defend their absolute

property rights on the grounds that any appropriation is unjustifiable

theft, but the present-day distribution of property -- and indeed all

distributions of property throughout history -- have been arrived at partly

through appropriation. War, slavery, taxation, eminent domain, outright

theft, immoral business practices... you name it. If all appropriation is

theft and all theft is indefensible, then why should current property

owners be allowed to keep their ill-gotten gains? And that said, how is it

even possible to figure out what portion of whose property really belong to

whom?

There's a way around that impossible problem, though: accept that property

rights are not absolute and inviolable. Property is acquired in part

through systemic benefits. Atlanta, Georgia, for example, profited

enormously through the creation of the interstate highway system. And so

it makes sense that some portion of the property thus gained should be

returned to the people who people who enabled that gain via the system.

I could refine and extend this further, but I don't have time.

-

February 25, 2005

Quoting Idol <Idol@...>:

> Property uber alles (whether axiomatic or theorematic) can obviously have

> some unfortunate outcomes. Consider a hypothetical situation in which a

> rich man owns an enormous stock of medicine, and someone is dying, but

> the

> medicine owner refuses to give the dying person any medicine. (In this

> hypothetical, obviously, the medicine is safe and effective. <g> Also,

> his motives don't matter -- he could have a grudge against the dying man,

> he could be holding out for a better price, he could be a libertarian

> offended by the dying man's family's politics... it's immaterial.) The

> pure libertarian argument would be that there's no justification for

> appropriating any of the rich man's medicine to save the dying man and

> so,

> absent other actors in the drama, the dying man would go on to perish in

> a

> pure libertarian world.

I'm not quite sure what your intent here is. If your intent is to show that

inviolable property rights are not a fundamental, axiomatic good, then this

is a valid thought experiment, and I agree with your conclusion. Property

rights are a means to an end, and I think any honest person would agree

that in certain situations, some net good can come of violating them.

But--and I apologize if I'm misinterpreting--you seem to be overreaching and

suggesting that this is a situation which is actually likely to occur in a

world in which property rights are inviolable, which strikes me as absurd.

And as I said before, Utopia is not an option. It would be great if we

could have a government of angels who knew exactly when and when not to

bend the rules on property rights, but this just isn't possible. When a

government has the power to violate property rights, it will use that power

with imperfect wisdom at best, and probably also corruptly and/or with

breathtaking economic ignorance. Ultimately, the cost of improper uses of

that power will vastly outweigh the benefits of legitimate uses.

> Admittedly, it's true that the mere existence of the potential for some

> undesirable outcomes doesn't automatically render a system

> unacceptable. Many people (myself included) believe that when someone is

> improperly convicted of a crime (based on fabricated evidence, for

> example,

> or on evidence discovered through a search made without a warrant) the

> conviction should be overturned -- or better yet, that the conviction

> should be impossible in the first place. This can have the undesirable

> outcome of some actual criminals going free, but this allowance for

> certain

> types of undesirable outcomes is in service of a greater good: helping to

> ensure the safety of all citizens against unjust arrest, conviction and

> imprisonment.

Incidentally, I disagree with you in the case of illegal search and seizure.

Letting a criminal go free because valid evidence was obtained illegally

does little to nothing to protect citizens from unjust arrest, and imposes

on society the very real cost of having a criminal run free. If evidence is

obtained illegally but its validity is not in dispute, I'd argue that it

would be better to let the conviction stand and punish those responsible

for the illegal search. If the punishment is strong enough, this serves the

purpose of deterring illegal searches while still avoiding the unnecessary

cost of allowing criminals to go free.

> More generally, it seems to me like a sound principle that any allowance

> for undesirable outcomes should be in service of a greater good which

> outweighs the bad of the undesirable outcomes.

Agreed.

> So let's return to the question of property uber alles. If your axiom is

> that property rights are the most important consideration in any system,

> then the axiom is, in essence, its own defence: it's either obvious and

> unchallengeable or incorrect depending on the degree to which you adhere

> to that axiomatic belief.

I can't speak for but I don't consider property rights to be

axiomatic. They're foundational tenets of my political philosophy, but I

have several levels of abstraction between axioms and my political

philosophy. Oversimplified:

1. There is probably no afterlife, so...

2. I want to live a long and enjoyable life on Earth.

3. My life will be longer and more enjoyable in a prosperous,

technologically-sophisticated society.

4. Economic theory tells me that any *realistic* deviation from respect for

property rights will result in a net reduction in the rate at which a

society becomes more prosperous and technologically sophisticated.

5. Ergo, respect for property rights must be a foundational tenet of my

political philosophy.

Note that 4 is *not* a matter of faith, as you're so fond of insinuating.

It's just that the reasoning involved is far too complex to explain here.

There is an ethical factor, but it's essentially based on a sort of social

contract: I'll respect others' property if they respect mine. If the

universe were configured such that property rights were destructive to my

fundamental goal of living a long and enjoyable life, I probably wouldn't

see them as an ethical imperative.

> The distinction between appropriating some marginal quantity of that rich

> man's medicine and the sole dose possessed by a sick man should clearly

> resemble the distinctions in taxation achieved under a progressive tax

> system.

Now you're definitely overreaching. There are a number of problems with that

analogy:

-Presumably the hypothetical man is sick through no fault of his own. That

this is the case with real instances of relative poverty in semi-liberal

societies is far from incontrovertible.

-Only a tiny fraction, if any, of my tax bill goes to save people who would

actually die if less money was stolen from me. True poverty--the deadly

kind--has been eradicated in the industrialized world due to rising

productivity.

-Those who pay high taxes and are not made perceptibly worse off by it are

very few and far between.

-There is (and I realize that you won't accept this) a tremendous social

benefit from allowing people with high incomes to maintain ownership of

them, because they tend to save more and consume less. In fact, this effect

is strongest in those who are not made perceptibly worse off by high

taxation. By definition, they would not consume any more if their taxes

were lower, which means that all of their tax savings would literally end

up as savings.

You're also overreaching with the bit about the highways. You're essentially

claiming that since the Federal government managed to do at least one good

thing with a small percentage of the money it stole in the past, it's

justified in continuing the theft in perpetuity. The Mafia analogy applies

here.

The anthropomorphization of Atlanta is also iffy. Obviously some people

(those who owned land in Atlanta before the highway project) benefitted

much more from the highways than others (people who moved to Atlanta last

year), but this has no bearing on the taxes they pay individually.

--

Berg

bberg@...

February 25, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:16 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/25/2005 2:31:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

1) Silly? No. You have not given any good reason why I should

not

own the molecules above my property.

_____

Sure I have: because ownership is meaningless without the sole

and ultimate

right to dispose of something as you wish, which is essentially

the definition

of ownership. Saying that you " own " air molecules that might

exist on your

property from minutes to microseconds is like saying you own a

library book

when you check one out. You don't.

____

Everything is eventually

transitory.

_____

True, but my life is mine for the duration of its existence,

whether or not

it wanders off my property. My car is mine, even when I drive it

on the

road, until I sell the ownership rights to it. When a friend

comes over the

house, his car does not become mine by virtue of its being in my

drive way. If I

had a dog, she or he would be mine, even if she wandered off my

property. I

do not surrender my property rights to anything except by

contractual

arrangement. The fact that they will all some day rot and

decompose is irrelevant

and does not change the simple maxim in the previous sentence.

On the other hand, air molecules are not mine when they leave my

property.

I can breath in any air molecule that wanders into my presence,

whether on my

property or not, without any contractual arrangment with their

due owners.

If the breeze blows my air molecules onto my neighbor's yard, I

cannot sue

him, nor could he be punished for theft. Even if my neighbor

willfully stood

at the border of my property facing it, so that as he breathed

in, a current

brought my air molecules towards his mouth to cross the property,

I could

neither sue him nor press criminal charges for his theft. Yet,

he makes no

contractual arrangment with me to justify this transfer of

" property. "

In all cases property for the duration of its existence remains

owned by its

owner until some contractual arrangment changes the hands of

ownership.

This is not the case with air. The treatment of air in no way

resembles

property at all.

_____

Where are you drawing the line? If you do not own the

air you pipe into your house, how could you call someone that

had

dirtied it upwind a polluter?

_____

That's easy: because that air transfers that pollution to my

person and my

property.

_____

2) That is a great point. It comes back to force and consent.

You

most certainly should be allowed to do what you want with your

body (as long as that does not include non-consensually

violating

another's). That's because your body will always remain yours.

But if your could force your poisoned body upon another without

their consent, it would certainly qualify as a pollution

violation. I should be allowed to take resources that exist on

my

property and do with them what I like (so long as it does not

negatively impact my neighbor). Should I not be allowed to my

pump air into a tank and keep it as my own so long as I like?

(Or

sell it to anyone who would buy it?)

_____

Well sure. But that is consistent with a commons, and for the

reasons I

stated above, air cannot be consistent with normal rules of

property. You can

hunt on public property or unowned property and own the deer you

killed. The

idea of a commons lets people use the commons to the extent that

it doesn't

interfere with others' use of it. You could pick evergreen

branches of a

public or unowned forest and fashion wreaths and sell them. In

a way you are

essentially " homesteading " the portion of a renewable or

unlimited commons that

you are able to modify and isolate The difference between air

and the other

examples is that hunting grounds and forests don't NEED to be a

commons--

they can be privately owned.

Air can't, for the reasons I described above.

And consider this: If you created an oxygen-absorbing machine

that attracted

oxygen from the air, and it was enormously efficient and speedy,

it would

begin to draw away oxygen from the air of others. Imagine that

this machine

was so powerful that the oxygen content of the air of neighbors

literally began

to substantially decrease. And you then sold the oxygen to your

neighbors.

Would this be fine, since you are ONLY treating the air above

YOUR property

which is therefore YOUR property itself?

Of course not. The air between you and your neighbors is

continuous. It is

not divided. The molecules are constantly changing places. You

can't do

anything to your air that doesn't affect your neighbors air.

The only way to

treat it is as a commons: you can do anything to it that doesn't

interfere

with others' right to use it. Common ownership is the only way

to consider it.

But property rights go both

ways AND I should also be able to prevent something from

entering

my property that would not naturally do so.

____

Yes, although note that air by NATURE *does* constantly change

places and

come onto others' property and leave it as it pleases, unlike all

other forms of

property.

_____

The problem of pollution is much better solved through

private-property rights than by government legislation.

____

That's possible, but I think there are consider obstacles to

this. I listed

some of them earlier in this thread.

Chris

-----------------------------

If that is your criteria for ownership, then we agree that my air

above my property is very " ownable " . It is untrue that I can not

do with the air on my property as I wish. I can modify, defile,

destroy, deoxygenize, or spike it with as much garbage as I feel

like. Those activities in themselves hurt no one. As long as I

contain my garbage-laden air on my property, it is not pollution.

It's when I think I can get away with releasing the spiked air to

move across your property line that I have committed a pollution

violation. It becomes pollution ONLY when I force it upon you

without your consent.

Transience has little to do with it. It is not difficult to grab

air from my property and use it as I wish. It's the releasing

part that is at issue. It is not difficult to make the

distinction. Your library book analogy is obviously a bad one:

the library owns the library book.

As far as the other ownership issues and examples/analogies you

address, I honestly can't tell if they are here or there. But I

can honestly say that none of them prevent the pollution problem

from being more effectively solved through the straightforward

principles of property rights / ownership.

All factors and variables remain easier addressed under the

umbrella of property rights. Don't force upon me what I don't

want. If you do, I will legally take your money. Polluters are

punished much more accurately and efficiently under a system of

uncapped civil-liability based on property-rights; much less

efficient is the current system of broad-brushing gov legislation

and agencies that end up corrupt with polluters paying them off

to let them continue polluting (no money goes to the victims). I

believe the problem with treating pollution as some kind of

" commons " issue requires the latter solution, which is the

inferior one (besides being unconstitutional).

Don't you wish that property rights ruled the land, and that you

could personally file a claim for millions against your local

polluter with very minimal effort? Well, too bad; big government

rules the land - and they would love for everyone to believe that

everything is a " commons " issue.

-Mark

February 25, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:41 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/25/2005 2:53:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

I know very little about septic systems, but I was under the

impression that

the fluid was designed for outflow, while the solids remained and

were

periodically extracted by someone with a poop collection.

Chris

____

That was my point. The person I was addressing seemed to be

saying that poop naturally flowed from one property to another.

I

was disagreeing and suggested she check her septic system for

defects.

____

Where does the fluid outflow lead to though?

Chris

---------------------

Well I'm not a plumber or geologist or hydrologist but I believe

that by the time the fluid leaches out of the septic system it is

plain water again.

-Mark

February 25, 2005

_____

From: ChrisMasterjohn@... [mailto:ChrisMasterjohn@...]

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:45 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

In a message dated 2/25/2005 3:06:34 AM Eastern Standard Time,

colowe@... writes:

The homesteading aspect (which may be related to the law of

adverse possession) is interesting, but I don't believe it

detracts from the notion that pollution is better prevented

through private-property rights. We could probably debate the

finer details of " property " for a good while. But even in

context

of your homesteading points, pollution is easier fought via

private-property rights. Or are you claiming that homesteading

details make that impossible?

_____

No I was responding to the question of whether typical land

property

included space above and below it from core to upper stratosphere

as an isolated

point.

I had a small exchange with in which I noted the major

problems I

saw with solving pollution disputes through adjudication alone,

and we didn't

get very far. Perhaps you could respond to them?

Chris

---------------------

I have basically been understanding " adjudication " as uncapped

civil-suits over damage to private property. Do I misunderstand

the terms? If not, maybe you could provide a very specific

example of a pollution that would not be more vulnerable to

adjudication than the alternative.

-Mark

February 25, 2005

_____

From: Wanita Sears [mailto:wanitawa@...]

Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 5:50 PM

Subject: Re: POLITICS - Adjudicating Pollution Disputes (was

Supporting WAPF or ...

* Can humans own property or have most in reality just

given

> themselves the

> means to ownership by monetary right or dominating might, for

> access of use,

> abuse of it and/or care for it within lifetimes? For example,

> this state MA

> and all U.S. states pre property rights had occupants, Native

> Americans and

> territorial boundaries that determined use area. Here in the

> western part of

> the state now there are maybe 100 town boundaries. Of those 100

> towns about

> 6 actually have a document where a Native American signed

> property rights

> over. The rest there is no deed, no permission to use ever

given

> and any

> deeds signed are believed to be not fully understood.

>

> We're property owners by commonly believed present definition.

> Adding in the

> history of this land no previous user of this land was given

> permission from

> the Nipmuck people and we're certainly not paying the Nipmuck

> people for

> use.

>

> There are inherent human rights which " should " be respected in

> every belief

> system and set of laws. Violators " should " be responsible and

> accountable to

> those rights are within the same. If it's no so for some and so

> for the

> rest, it's hypocrisy, one standard for some and another for the

> rest.

>

> Wanita

>

> -----------------

>

> Wanita,

>

> Before I respond, I would like for you to briefly state your

> position. Are you proposing that one should not be able to buy

or

> sell parcels of land?

>

> -Mark

I'm proposing the land wasn't bought with the same meme standard

of buy-sell

that granted ownership now or then. A signature without full

understanding,

an agreement to move somewhere else, a few utilitarian items or

forced

eviction violates in the buying process the meme it's meant to

represent.

The questions to me are more " should " there be land to buy or

sell? Did any

individual/s or entity ever own any land? Were humans before

ownership just

where they were at any given time? If land wasn't acquired in the

same way

we have been taught to believe and are required to follow then

how is

ownership true at all.

Wanita

----------------

Wanita,

I will consider that a " no; no one in America should be able to

buy or sell land. " Do you own land? Do you rent? Are you

homeless? Are you native?

-Mark

February 25, 2005

>

>That was my point. The person I was addressing seemed to be

>saying that poop naturally flowed from one property to another.

>I was disagreeing and suggested she check her septic system for

>defects.

>

Hi Mark,

You know, many homeowners are forced to pipe their poop off property via

sewer pipes. Who suffers then? Poop must be sucked out of a septic

system periodically and shipped off elsewhere. I am the person you were

addressing. And I have a septic system, do you? Poop must be taken out

via poop sucker. PERIOD. It cannot remain in the system somehow and

the system be viable in the pollution-free sense.

>____

>

>Where does the fluid outflow lead to though?

>

>Chris

>

>---------------------

>

>Well I'm not a plumber or geologist or hydrologist but I believe

>that by the time the fluid leaches out of the septic system it is

>plain water again.

>

>-Mark