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I disagree. Rights to locations are a practical necessity to classical liberalism itself, and are not at all at odds with its logic. The basic foundation of l

I disagree. Rights to locations are a practical necessity to classical liberalism itself, and are not at all at odds with its logic. The basic foundation of liberty is the ability to own private property. I think most (if not all) classic liberal thinkers would object to the assertion that my ownership of private property requires restitution to be given to anyone.

AstralStorm 11y ago
If the right if restricted to very rich or other highly exclusive group, then you could say people are functionally deprived of basic liberty. This is exactly what happens in current form of capitalism due to high cost of entry into most markets. Including property markets.
- djschnei 11y ago
  I'm going to assume (and I do apologize if I am incorrect) that you're in the Bernie camp? I agree with the lions share of what you just said. But the collusion between big government and big business is entirely culpable for the "rigged system". Always find it amusing/perplexing that so many people's solution to this rigged system is to give even more power to the coercive half of the equation... Our current form of capitalism (crony) is in direct opposition to free-market capitalism. The prior can not be used as a functional con of the latter. Suggesting so is entirely illogical.
RodericDay 11y ago
If a limited good, such as land, is diced and divided between people based on merit, and later these people have offspring, how do you handle the ensuing dispute over ownership of those goods? Within a "classical liberal" framework, I mean.
danharaj 11y ago
> The basic foundation of liberty is the ability to own private property. I think you're perfectly allowed to define liberty that way, but there are plenty of people who wouldn't call that liberty.
- knieveltech 11y ago
  Indeed. Freedom to seek rents or horde resources isn't what I'd define as liberty. More like the foundation of exploitation.
  - vixen99 11y ago
    So don't let's have any enterprise which depends on 'hoarded' resources! Life is, exploitation - eventually bugs and other life forms will make use of everyone's personal resources. This is not to say that exploitation can't be nuanced. People who throw the word 'exploitation' around often mean they and their comrades want to do the forcible exploiting based on their personal moral preferences.
    - danharaj 11y ago
      Exploitation has a narrower sense when people are talking about capitalism. It describes the relationship between those who do wage labor and those who extract profit from the product of wage labor. Your sense of the word 'exploitation' is much too broad to be useful, imo.
- djschnei 11y ago
  Well... plenty of people are wrong. Have you seen the current election cycle? :)
bcheung 11y ago
What do you consider rights to locations? The scenario being described requires people who want to use the land to purchase rights to the land. They can use the land but they don't own the land -- it's more like renting. Any improvements upon the land are theirs 100% though. Not sure if you read Paine's arguments but here are the important points. 1) Mankind inherited the earth and in the beginning wandered the earth as hunter and gathers. Nobody owned the land -- everyone had equal claim to it and could use it for their sustenance. 2) Governments formed and claimed monopolies on the land. They took "ownership" of the land without compensation to the original owners (everyone). This constitutes the use of force and violates the principle of non-aggression. 3) In order to make it fair, compensation must be given to the original owner. This makes it a fair transaction and is what Thomas Paine is proposing.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Sounds like property taxes: pay annual "fair value" for the lot you've claimed, and if you stop paying you get evicted.
  - djschnei 11y ago
    soooo the steps: 1) nobody owned the land 2) governments formed and took the land 3) now we need to rent our purchased land from the government?
    - bcheung 11y ago
      And also 4) the rent proceeds go back to the people. The people are the real owners. The government is just the administrative agent acting on their behalf.
      - djschnei 11y ago
        I mean this in the nicest way possible... It's cute that you think that. By that logic, assuming you are a tax payer, you are $159k+ in debt thanks to the government acting on your behalf. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/
clavalle 11y ago
> The basic foundation of liberty is the ability to own private property. The foundation of liberty is the freedom to make your own decisions and exercise your own will. If the ability to own private property was the base what happens when you are a person that does not own any property? What if, in the extreme case, a single person or entity owns all of the property and you must either serve them or starve? Is that liberty?
- djschnei 11y ago
  "The basic foundation" might be the wrong way to word it. That would suggest it is the ONLY tenet, which is misleading. However, private property rights are absolutely a tenet of [classic] liberal thinking. > The foundation of liberty is the freedom to make your own decisions and exercise your own will. I think that is a common misconception. Liberty =/= Freedom. Absolute freedom, in fact, can be an obstruction to liberty (which I think is what your extreme example eludes to). However, let's work through your example; how did they acquire all the property? If they did it without violating other people's property rights (i.e. voluntary exchange) than I think that would answer your question. It's kind of a non question (and I don't mean that rudely) - It just wouldn't happen. Every other person would have to give him/her all the "property" for free.
  - my5thaccount 11y ago
    The land was given away to people, in the US, up to about 100 years ago, just for staking a claim on the land. Up to 40 acres per person. Many made illegal claims to more than one. Many of the wealthy quickly bought them up. You can learn more about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
    - djschnei 11y ago
      You're kind of preaching to the choir here...
  - clavalle 11y ago
    It is a bit of a non-question but it illustrates a point. So let's say that person acquires all of the property through voluntary exchange. Ok. Now, what about the next generation who now live under that person's (or their descendant's) control of that property? They can demand anything they like (in this case their time and service) in exchange for the non-property owner's survival. Are those voluntary transactions? While more than one person owns different parts of everything, this is essentially the situation a lot of people find themselves in...they must trade their time and service in exchange for their survival. That seems less than voluntary to me and a violation of liberty. Granted, as you pointed out, absolute freedom cannot exist...there is a trade-off when freedoms of different entities collide. This is as true in the realm of private property as anywhere else, perhaps more so since certain people start off with so much more control, therefore choices and freedom, when it comes to property, from birth. All men are certainly not created equal when it comes to those rights. So, the question is what has to give in the realm of private property rights in order to achieve maximum liberty (or at least approach that ideal)? Treating private property rights as sacrosanct leads to an obstruction of liberty as surely as treating any other exercise of control (IOW, freedom) would.

AstralStorm 11y ago

If the right if restricted to very rich or other highly exclusive group, then you could say people are functionally deprived of basic liberty. This is exactly what happens in current form of capitalism due to high cost of entry into most markets. Including property markets.

djschnei 11y ago
I'm going to assume (and I do apologize if I am incorrect) that you're in the Bernie camp? I agree with the lions share of what you just said. But the collusion between big government and big business is entirely culpable for the "rigged system". Always find it amusing/perplexing that so many people's solution to this rigged system is to give even more power to the coercive half of the equation... Our current form of capitalism (crony) is in direct opposition to free-market capitalism. The prior can not be used as a functional con of the latter. Suggesting so is entirely illogical.

RodericDay 11y ago

If a limited good, such as land, is diced and divided between people based on merit, and later these people have offspring, how do you handle the ensuing dispute over ownership of those goods? Within a "classical liberal" framework, I mean.

danharaj 11y ago

> The basic foundation of liberty is the ability to own private property. I think you're perfectly allowed to define liberty that way, but there are plenty of people who wouldn't call that liberty.

knieveltech 11y ago
Indeed. Freedom to seek rents or horde resources isn't what I'd define as liberty. More like the foundation of exploitation.
- vixen99 11y ago
  So don't let's have any enterprise which depends on 'hoarded' resources! Life is, exploitation - eventually bugs and other life forms will make use of everyone's personal resources. This is not to say that exploitation can't be nuanced. People who throw the word 'exploitation' around often mean they and their comrades want to do the forcible exploiting based on their personal moral preferences.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    Exploitation has a narrower sense when people are talking about capitalism. It describes the relationship between those who do wage labor and those who extract profit from the product of wage labor. Your sense of the word 'exploitation' is much too broad to be useful, imo.
djschnei 11y ago
Well... plenty of people are wrong. Have you seen the current election cycle? :)

bcheung 11y ago

What do you consider rights to locations? The scenario being described requires people who want to use the land to purchase rights to the land. They can use the land but they don't own the land -- it's more like renting. Any improvements upon the land are theirs 100% though. Not sure if you read Paine's arguments but here are the important points. 1) Mankind inherited the earth and in the beginning wandered the earth as hunter and gathers. Nobody owned the land -- everyone had equal claim to it and could use it for their sustenance. 2) Governments formed and claimed monopolies on the land. They took "ownership" of the land without compensation to the original owners (everyone). This constitutes the use of force and violates the principle of non-aggression. 3) In order to make it fair, compensation must be given to the original owner. This makes it a fair transaction and is what Thomas Paine is proposing.

ctdonath 11y ago
Sounds like property taxes: pay annual "fair value" for the lot you've claimed, and if you stop paying you get evicted.
- djschnei 11y ago
  soooo the steps: 1) nobody owned the land 2) governments formed and took the land 3) now we need to rent our purchased land from the government?
  - bcheung 11y ago
    And also 4) the rent proceeds go back to the people. The people are the real owners. The government is just the administrative agent acting on their behalf.
    - djschnei 11y ago
      I mean this in the nicest way possible... It's cute that you think that. By that logic, assuming you are a tax payer, you are $159k+ in debt thanks to the government acting on your behalf. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ http://www.usdebtclock.org/

clavalle 11y ago

> The basic foundation of liberty is the ability to own private property. The foundation of liberty is the freedom to make your own decisions and exercise your own will. If the ability to own private property was the base what happens when you are a person that does not own any property? What if, in the extreme case, a single person or entity owns all of the property and you must either serve them or starve? Is that liberty?

djschnei 11y ago
"The basic foundation" might be the wrong way to word it. That would suggest it is the ONLY tenet, which is misleading. However, private property rights are absolutely a tenet of [classic] liberal thinking. > The foundation of liberty is the freedom to make your own decisions and exercise your own will. I think that is a common misconception. Liberty =/= Freedom. Absolute freedom, in fact, can be an obstruction to liberty (which I think is what your extreme example eludes to). However, let's work through your example; how did they acquire all the property? If they did it without violating other people's property rights (i.e. voluntary exchange) than I think that would answer your question. It's kind of a non question (and I don't mean that rudely) - It just wouldn't happen. Every other person would have to give him/her all the "property" for free.
- my5thaccount 11y ago
  The land was given away to people, in the US, up to about 100 years ago, just for staking a claim on the land. Up to 40 acres per person. Many made illegal claims to more than one. Many of the wealthy quickly bought them up. You can learn more about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Acts
  - djschnei 11y ago
    You're kind of preaching to the choir here...
- clavalle 11y ago
  It is a bit of a non-question but it illustrates a point. So let's say that person acquires all of the property through voluntary exchange. Ok. Now, what about the next generation who now live under that person's (or their descendant's) control of that property? They can demand anything they like (in this case their time and service) in exchange for the non-property owner's survival. Are those voluntary transactions? While more than one person owns different parts of everything, this is essentially the situation a lot of people find themselves in...they must trade their time and service in exchange for their survival. That seems less than voluntary to me and a violation of liberty. Granted, as you pointed out, absolute freedom cannot exist...there is a trade-off when freedoms of different entities collide. This is as true in the realm of private property as anywhere else, perhaps more so since certain people start off with so much more control, therefore choices and freedom, when it comes to property, from birth. All men are certainly not created equal when it comes to those rights. So, the question is what has to give in the realm of private property rights in order to achieve maximum liberty (or at least approach that ideal)? Treating private property rights as sacrosanct leads to an obstruction of liberty as surely as treating any other exercise of control (IOW, freedom) would.