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> I still maintain that there is never a reason to steal from your fellow man. * Stealing something back * Stealing Hitler's secret plans * Stealing a po

• arethuza 10y ago
  These kinds of discussions always make me think of this story: "A Scottish miner was walking home one night with a bunch of pheasants he had poached from a local landowner's estate when the landowner appeared and demanded that the miner hand over the pheasants. "Why should I hand them over to you?", asked the miner. "Because this is my land and those are my pheasants", the landowner replied. "OK", said the miner, "where did you get the land from?" "From my father", said the landowner. "So where did your father get it?", the miner asked. The landowner replied: "From his father, who got it from his father, and so on. This land has belonged to my family for 500 years!" "Well", the miner continued, "how did your family get it 500 years ago?" "Oh, they fought for it", answered the landowner. "OK then", the miner said, "take off your jacket and I'll fight you for it!" NB I first read this in The Poor had No Lawyers - described as "how this country was stolen from its people": http://www.andywightman.com/poor-had-no-lawyers http://www.andywightman.com/poor-had-no-lawyers
  • jeffdavis 10y ago
    Land is special because it has always existed and (practically) you can't make more of it. There are reasons to make it private, but it's quite different from, say, a sculpture. Clay is nearly worthless, so if an artist turns it into a valuable sculpture, that value was created. Obviously, there's a spectrum here. Even land typically requires an investment to make it useful for anything. Food is largely created; especially something like sausages or cheese. So the tale of the miner above doesn't really apply. It may not even apply well in that case, if the pheasants were feeding on crops cultivated by the landowner.
    • arethuza 10y ago
      [NB I voted you up - not clear why you are being voted down] I was really replying to the excellent comment by steego about property rights being a "sacrosanct moral imperative" - I sort of think that if you do believe that then you surely have to agree with those who argue that "taxes are theft" - not that I think this but at least they have a degree of logical consistency on their side.
    • mcv 10y ago
      The real difference is in inheritance. Unlimited inheritance over many generations creates a concentration of wealth and an aristocratic class that never earned the wealth they own. Ownership of something you worked to create is different from ownership of something due to luck of being born in the right crib.
      • jeffdavis 10y ago
        Is that kind of "old money" an increasing or decreasing phenomenon? I don't have the numbers, but it seems like a lot of the rich people that come to mind made most of their money during their lifetime. Also, wealth naturally dissipates pretty quickly over generations. One reason is simple fan out. Another reason is that the children are likely to be less frugal, and there's s high chance that some descendants are downright reckless financially.
• alecbaldwinlol 10y ago
  Food is the private property of someone else. Pay for it or ask for it for free.
• wissler 10y ago
  Has it occurred to you that getting your own property back (i.e. justice) should not be regarded as "stealing"?
• jeffdavis 10y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Property rights have a moral component independent of their economic value, similar to privacy rights. Say someone says "let me search your car, what have you got to hide?" What argument can you use against it? The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim. In reality, you should be able to just say "it's private" and not feel compelled to provide further explanation. It's not so different from being punched in the stomach. You aren't going to die, so what's the problem? You heal and everything is fine. So why won't you let me punch you in the stomach? Theft is, similarly, a moral issue. If I make something, and someone takes it, I will feel bad. Much worse than if I had to sell it to pay taxes (even if I disagree with the tax policy).
  • steego 10y ago
    I respectfully agree. Property rights do have a moral component as well as a pragmatic component. > The problem is that we've been manipulated to believe privacy has no real moral claim. I agree. We've also been manipulated to behave as if we believed property rights automatically trump other morals. My point isn't that we should ignore the morality of these issues. My point is the morality of these issues can't be talked about in isolation because moral values aren't orthogonal to each other. Morality also shouldn't be discussed without taking pragmatic realities into account. You have to balance the two. Not everything is cut and dry.
  • coryfklein 10y ago
    > Say someone says "let me search your car, what have you got to hide?" What argument can you use against it? How about, "A 2 year old was kidnapped 10 minutes ago from the apartment complex you are leaving from. We need to be sure the child is not in your trunk." Good luck getting society to give you a free pass in that situation.
    • jeffdavis 10y ago
      See steego's reply. Just because something is a moral issue doesn't mean that it can't ever be overridden by some other concern.
    • 10y ago
• KirinDave 10y ago
  The casual misogyny of this thread is impressively internalized.
  • steego 10y ago
    I deserved that. I have a great capacity to become an asshole when I'm being glib. I would like to add that there's nothing impressive with how well casual prejudice becomes internalized because that is literally the easiest and laziest thing a brain can do.
    • KirinDave 10y ago
      I am sorry to be blunt. Someone called it "snarky." I am happy we can reflect publicly and agree that this relatively common phrase is somewhat problematic. Thank you. It made my day incrementally better.
      • steego 10y ago
        I'm glad I could make your day incrementally better. Every once in a while I need a reminder that my loose tongue can make people feel marginalized. What you do is thankless and I know people resent you because they feel like you're trying to censor everybody. I know you're just trying to protect people who don't have a thick skin. Not everyone can have a thick skin, so somebody should look out for them. I almost responded differently but I'm really glad I didn't. The world doesn't need more distance between people.
  • wagglycocks 10y ago
    ?
  • lwhalen 10y ago
    Misogyny? Where's the specific hatred of women? If anything, it's (well-placed) misanthropy.
    • KirinDave 10y ago
• tptacek 10y ago
  There is no such thing as "property rights" to someone's heart. I get what you were doing rhetorically with the list, but it interacted badly with your explanatory paragraph.
  • steego 10y ago
    Let's not fool ourselves. It wasn't long ago that matters of love were treated as matters of property. While it may not happen in our respective countries today, there are many countries that assemetrically protect a husband's interests over his wife's interest as if her heart belongs to him.
• objectivistbrit 10y ago
  This is why I'm an Objectivist - it's the only philosophy which gives a moral argument for property rights. (Most libertarian and free-market thinkers argue on pragmatic grounds, which means they are willing to compromise in the manner you describe). Virtue of Selfishness puts the case succinctly: "The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave. Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action, like all the others: it is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values." "The right to life means that a man has the right to support his life by his own work (on any economic level, as high as his ability will carry him); it does not mean that others must provide him with the necessities of life. The right to property means that a man has the right to take the economic actions necessary to earn property, to use it and to dispose of it; it does not mean that others must provide him with property. There is no such thing as “a right to a job”—there is only the right of free trade, that is: a man’s right to take a job if another man chooses to hire him. There is no “right to a home,” only the right of free trade: the right to build a home or to buy it. There are no “rights to a ‘fair’ wage or a ‘fair’ price” if no one chooses to pay it, to hire a man or to buy his product. There are no “rights of consumers” to milk, shoes, movies or champagne if no producers choose to manufacture such items (there is only the right to manufacture them oneself). There are no “rights” of special groups, there are no “rights of farmers, of workers, of businessmen, of employees, of employers, of the old, of the young, of the unborn.” There are only the Rights of Man—rights possessed by every individual man and by all men as individuals." > If a situation forced you to choose between compassion and property rights (Maybe you're asked to steal a life saving medicine for someone else in dire need), which do you choose? The Objectivist answer is that sickness (like hunger) is not a sudden emergency but a predictable element of human life. Because of this, people invest in researching and manufacturing medicines, or studying to become doctors. They own the products of their labour, and are entitled to trade them (or donate them) as they see fit. Many people would say they agree with this, but that there are some situations where rights should be compromised. The thing to understand is that rights are principles. In Objectivism, principles essentially encapsulate long-term pragmatism: principles are concepts you should always follow if you want good long-term results. (Rights, for example, encapsulate the principles to follow in the social realm). There will always be bad effects to violating principles, even if there appears to be a short-term gain. If you say that one group of people (e.g., drug companies) should have their rights violated based on the needs of another group of people (e.g., sick and poor people), you establish the principle that anyone's rights can be violated for the needs of anyone else. You end up with different pressure groups and lobbyists pushing for government handouts and favourable legislation (i.e., the current situation). Linking back to the field of medicine, one practical outcome of the push to prevent "greedy drug companies hoarding medicine" has been that medical innovation has increasingly focused on things like viagra and plastic surgery, since if they develop life-saving innovations their intellectual property rights may well be violated.