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>since all modern property ownership is rooted in the use of force and/or fraud, and thus is of course morally invalid. You're engaging in mass-defamation agai

>since all modern property ownership is rooted in the use of force and/or fraud, and thus is of course morally invalid. You're engaging in mass-defamation against anyone who owns anything. You're hiding behind the political process to illegitimately seize people's wealth. In a just society, you would be taken to court for libeling hundreds of millions of people with private wealth with your baseless demonization of them.

ubernostrum 9y ago
You're engaging in mass-defamation against anyone who owns anything. Find me a plot of land whose present ownership isn't based on a chain leading to the last person who took it by force or fraud without someone else doing the same to them. I'll wait.
- Jabanga 9y ago
  You have to prove the chain goes back to force/fraud. People are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Moreover, most types of property are not naturally occurring, and simply claimed, like land is. They are man-made and much more likely than land to have a chain of voluntary transfers linking their creation to their present possessor. You're making sweeping generalisations about those with wealth and making weak arguments to justify it.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Moreover, most types of property are not naturally occurring, and simply claimed, like land is. All tangible (real or personal) property is (or rather, is relation created in law to something which is) either naturally occurring like land, or the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item. Intangible personal property is a pure creation of law at the expense of everyone else's freedom that doesn't apply to a tangible item.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      The value provided by the naturally occurring inputs is minimal. It's almost always the case that the effort made to convert the natural inputs into the finished product provided the vast majority of the value. A cabin's value is immeasurably greater than the two trees felled for its natural material. Our own bodies are "the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item". We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence. This idea that any one who has wealth should be presumed guilty of possessing stolen goods based only on a sweeping assumption that all naturally occurring property was acquired through fraud or force is completely unjust, and would never be accepted by a court of law.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > The value provided by the naturally occurring inputs is minimal. It's almost always the case that the effort made to convert the natural inputs into the finished product provided the vast majority of the value Nonsense; neither has any value without the other. They each provide all of the value, which isn't additive. > We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence. As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy, it's clear that most such systems do not involve absolute rights of the kind you describe.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        Jabanga 9y ago
        >Nonsense; neither has any value without the other. They each provide all of the value, which isn't additive. That's incorrect. A component being necessary doesn't mean it provides all of the value, and the other components have value whether or not a finished good is produced. Labour costs money whether or not the project is completed. >As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy, You're skirting around the key basis of almost all systems of justice: you do have a right to autonomy as long as you don't violate other's equal right to the same. This is basically the Non Aggression Principle, and it has the effect of maximising personal autonomy.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    You have to prove the chain goes back to force/fraud. OK. I live in California. Once upon a time it was inhabited by people who probably descended from others who crossed the Bering land bridge. I can't trace a clear chain of ownership over their history, but I know that: * The land was taken from them, forcibly, by Spanish settlers * Then that land was taken from Spain, forcibly, by Mexico during its war of independence * Then that land was taken from Mexico, forcibly, by the United States during the Mexican-American war. Thus every current private deed to land in California is backed not by a chain of voluntary transactions, but by a chain of transactions dating back to an exercise of violent force by the United States, since that is how the United States gained legal authority to recognize such deeds.
    - Jabanga 9y ago
      >Once upon a time it was inhabited by people who probably descended from others who crossed the Bering land bridge. If you're alleging that every square inch of land in California was claimed by someone else at the time Spain claimed it, you have to prove that, for every square inch. It is not a foregone conclusion that the presence of native bands meant every inch of land was claimed. Pre-colonization, population densities were low and many bands were mobile. Moreover, there are numerous legal principles, like the statute of limitations, that a court would consider, that could easily result in your case being thrown out. In short, your sweeping judgements go against every accepted principle of justice developed over the last two thousands years. It troubles me that this doesn't cause you pause. You are also focusing on only a single category of property: land, and ignoring the categories of property which you would have even more difficulty making a case of being derived from theft, while not abandoning your original claim that all wealth is derived from force/fraud, which indicates to me that you're not making an honest argument for your position.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        I'm alleging that every square inch of land in California was claimed by Spain when Mexico took it, and claimed by Mexico when the US took it. Both of them did so by force. And who said anything about taking it to a court? We're talking about morality here -- morally wrong actions don't magically become moral just because they happened years ago, even if a court would say the statute of limitations has expired for legal action. Every inch of land in California was immorally obtained by the United States, and thus there is no moral basis for the current patterns of ownership of that land. Any system which assumes that there is a moral basis must, to be consistent, also openly permit the use of violent force to involuntarily seize property from others, and in fact must consider such use of force to be praiseworthy. So if you really do believe what you've been advocating, that's what you're committing to.

ubernostrum 9y ago

You're engaging in mass-defamation against anyone who owns anything. Find me a plot of land whose present ownership isn't based on a chain leading to the last person who took it by force or fraud without someone else doing the same to them. I'll wait.

Jabanga 9y ago
You have to prove the chain goes back to force/fraud. People are presumed innocent unless proven guilty. Moreover, most types of property are not naturally occurring, and simply claimed, like land is. They are man-made and much more likely than land to have a chain of voluntary transfers linking their creation to their present possessor. You're making sweeping generalisations about those with wealth and making weak arguments to justify it.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Moreover, most types of property are not naturally occurring, and simply claimed, like land is. All tangible (real or personal) property is (or rather, is relation created in law to something which is) either naturally occurring like land, or the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item. Intangible personal property is a pure creation of law at the expense of everyone else's freedom that doesn't apply to a tangible item.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    The value provided by the naturally occurring inputs is minimal. It's almost always the case that the effort made to convert the natural inputs into the finished product provided the vast majority of the value. A cabin's value is immeasurably greater than the two trees felled for its natural material. Our own bodies are "the result of action applied to such a naturally occurring item". We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence. This idea that any one who has wealth should be presumed guilty of possessing stolen goods based only on a sweeping assumption that all naturally occurring property was acquired through fraud or force is completely unjust, and would never be accepted by a court of law.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > The value provided by the naturally occurring inputs is minimal. It's almost always the case that the effort made to convert the natural inputs into the finished product provided the vast majority of the value Nonsense; neither has any value without the other. They each provide all of the value, which isn't additive. > We have an absolute right to our bodies according to any modern conception of individual rights in existence. As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy, it's clear that most such systems do not involve absolute rights of the kind you describe.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - Jabanga 9y ago
        >Nonsense; neither has any value without the other. They each provide all of the value, which isn't additive. That's incorrect. A component being necessary doesn't mean it provides all of the value, and the other components have value whether or not a finished good is produced. Labour costs money whether or not the project is completed. >As most modern systems of values allow restrictions onnbodily autonomy, many including situations in which others have a right to take your life which is the ultimate violation of such autonomy, You're skirting around the key basis of almost all systems of justice: you do have a right to autonomy as long as you don't violate other's equal right to the same. This is basically the Non Aggression Principle, and it has the effect of maximising personal autonomy.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  You have to prove the chain goes back to force/fraud. OK. I live in California. Once upon a time it was inhabited by people who probably descended from others who crossed the Bering land bridge. I can't trace a clear chain of ownership over their history, but I know that: * The land was taken from them, forcibly, by Spanish settlers * Then that land was taken from Spain, forcibly, by Mexico during its war of independence * Then that land was taken from Mexico, forcibly, by the United States during the Mexican-American war. Thus every current private deed to land in California is backed not by a chain of voluntary transactions, but by a chain of transactions dating back to an exercise of violent force by the United States, since that is how the United States gained legal authority to recognize such deeds.
  - Jabanga 9y ago
    >Once upon a time it was inhabited by people who probably descended from others who crossed the Bering land bridge. If you're alleging that every square inch of land in California was claimed by someone else at the time Spain claimed it, you have to prove that, for every square inch. It is not a foregone conclusion that the presence of native bands meant every inch of land was claimed. Pre-colonization, population densities were low and many bands were mobile. Moreover, there are numerous legal principles, like the statute of limitations, that a court would consider, that could easily result in your case being thrown out. In short, your sweeping judgements go against every accepted principle of justice developed over the last two thousands years. It troubles me that this doesn't cause you pause. You are also focusing on only a single category of property: land, and ignoring the categories of property which you would have even more difficulty making a case of being derived from theft, while not abandoning your original claim that all wealth is derived from force/fraud, which indicates to me that you're not making an honest argument for your position.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      I'm alleging that every square inch of land in California was claimed by Spain when Mexico took it, and claimed by Mexico when the US took it. Both of them did so by force. And who said anything about taking it to a court? We're talking about morality here -- morally wrong actions don't magically become moral just because they happened years ago, even if a court would say the statute of limitations has expired for legal action. Every inch of land in California was immorally obtained by the United States, and thus there is no moral basis for the current patterns of ownership of that land. Any system which assumes that there is a moral basis must, to be consistent, also openly permit the use of violent force to involuntarily seize property from others, and in fact must consider such use of force to be praiseworthy. So if you really do believe what you've been advocating, that's what you're committing to.