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>We have a capitalist economic system, and it works pretty well for us, but that doesn't mean anyone has an inherent natural right to their capital. When it com

>We have a capitalist economic system, and it works pretty well for us, but that doesn't mean anyone has an inherent natural right to their capital. When it comes down it, property rights are all fictitious and exist only because society says it does. It's hardly wrong for society to decide to recoup some of what it has created. I fundamentally disagree with that point. Government exists to protect people and their property. People have a natural right to themselves and to an extent their property - rights do not come from society, rights are internal and society functions to abridge them where beneficial.

coldtea 7y ago
>I fundamentally disagree with that point. Government exists to protect people and their property. Well, your property is not others property. So protecting someone having X property, means disallowing others to use that property. But what gives you or anybody the right to your property anyway? Aside from papers, which don't mean anything in terms of justice, moral, fairness, etc -- only in terms of legality? We were all caveman, naked and property less to begin with, so where did your rights to your property began? Even if you think the current market system is fair, the starting point was not equality + market system, but whatever arrangements happened at a time of colonial plundering (off of native Americans), slavery, when even poor whites and women couldn't vote (the most part of US history), plus feudal arrangements (in most other places). Even if someone got their current property "fair and square" in 2019 selling stuff at the market, said property got its start (and ended to the people that have it) from conditions that were anything but fair and square - and not even very long ago. Before the abolition of slavery and universal vote, any kind of property arrangement (and any kind of inheritance and all the second and n-th order property arrangements since them), is unjust and moot. So, as a member of a society, I don't see why someone should be allowed to own huge amounts of real estate or money... >rights do not come from society, rights are internal and society functions to abridge them where beneficial. Internal to what? If someone has the power they can stomp on all your rights, including your "right to life" (as has happened in history time and again), and they and people would just laugh their asses off when they hear your complaint that you have "internal rights". You only have rights because society collectively secured those rights, and gave them to its members (and it took lots of fighting to secure them in the first place). Heck, if you were a black person, without Rosa Parks, you might still not have the right to many things. And it wasn't much better for the average white throughout history. And it wasn't even that it was thought of as injustice. To make such things be thought of as injustice (instead of having justice be whatever the king of lords etc say), also took a lot of fighting and ideological work. You could be killed as a slave that tries to escape, and you wouldn't even be considered just, but just a low-life critical, to the good law abiding citizens... Nothing comes from nature or "internally".
- ameister14 7y ago
  So the simplest way I think about this is similar to Locke's. You own yourself - nobody else has the right to own you. If you disagree with that, we can chat about it but I'm going to move forward with that as true. Ok, so everything else is owned by everyone equally. (It's actually important that these things are all owned in commons rather than unowned.) In a state of nature, you walk over, pick up an apple off the ground. By applying your work to pick up the apple, it is now more your apple than it is other people's. That's where property comes from. An application of personal labor. It gets more complicated from there, but that's the start of it. >You only have rights because society collectively secured those rights, and gave them to its members (and it took lots of fighting to secure them in the first place). Heck, if you were a black person, without Rosa Parks, you might still not have the right to many things. And it wasn't much better for the average white throughout history. And it wasn't even that it was thought of as injustice. More accurately, if you don't have the rights and only have those society gives you, it WASN'T an injustice. That's one of the reasons it is important that you have the rights innately. If you only have what society gives you, then it denying you things is totally within its rights and just. In a practical sense, you only can exercise those rights society protects (if you want to remain a part of society). That doesn't mean you don't have them, which is why it can be unjust to deny you their use. The conception of internal rights is one of the big reasons we don't have slavery or serfs anymore. You can laugh at it or say it's unrealistic, but it's surprisingly important that rights come innately rather than from external sources.

coldtea 7y ago

>I fundamentally disagree with that point. Government exists to protect people and their property. Well, your property is not others property. So protecting someone having X property, means disallowing others to use that property. But what gives you or anybody the right to your property anyway? Aside from papers, which don't mean anything in terms of justice, moral, fairness, etc -- only in terms of legality? We were all caveman, naked and property less to begin with, so where did your rights to your property began? Even if you think the current market system is fair, the starting point was not equality + market system, but whatever arrangements happened at a time of colonial plundering (off of native Americans), slavery, when even poor whites and women couldn't vote (the most part of US history), plus feudal arrangements (in most other places). Even if someone got their current property "fair and square" in 2019 selling stuff at the market, said property got its start (and ended to the people that have it) from conditions that were anything but fair and square - and not even very long ago. Before the abolition of slavery and universal vote, any kind of property arrangement (and any kind of inheritance and all the second and n-th order property arrangements since them), is unjust and moot. So, as a member of a society, I don't see why someone should be allowed to own huge amounts of real estate or money... >rights do not come from society, rights are internal and society functions to abridge them where beneficial. Internal to what? If someone has the power they can stomp on all your rights, including your "right to life" (as has happened in history time and again), and they and people would just laugh their asses off when they hear your complaint that you have "internal rights". You only have rights because society collectively secured those rights, and gave them to its members (and it took lots of fighting to secure them in the first place). Heck, if you were a black person, without Rosa Parks, you might still not have the right to many things. And it wasn't much better for the average white throughout history. And it wasn't even that it was thought of as injustice. To make such things be thought of as injustice (instead of having justice be whatever the king of lords etc say), also took a lot of fighting and ideological work. You could be killed as a slave that tries to escape, and you wouldn't even be considered just, but just a low-life critical, to the good law abiding citizens... Nothing comes from nature or "internally".

ameister14 7y ago
So the simplest way I think about this is similar to Locke's. You own yourself - nobody else has the right to own you. If you disagree with that, we can chat about it but I'm going to move forward with that as true. Ok, so everything else is owned by everyone equally. (It's actually important that these things are all owned in commons rather than unowned.) In a state of nature, you walk over, pick up an apple off the ground. By applying your work to pick up the apple, it is now more your apple than it is other people's. That's where property comes from. An application of personal labor. It gets more complicated from there, but that's the start of it. >You only have rights because society collectively secured those rights, and gave them to its members (and it took lots of fighting to secure them in the first place). Heck, if you were a black person, without Rosa Parks, you might still not have the right to many things. And it wasn't much better for the average white throughout history. And it wasn't even that it was thought of as injustice. More accurately, if you don't have the rights and only have those society gives you, it WASN'T an injustice. That's one of the reasons it is important that you have the rights innately. If you only have what society gives you, then it denying you things is totally within its rights and just. In a practical sense, you only can exercise those rights society protects (if you want to remain a part of society). That doesn't mean you don't have them, which is why it can be unjust to deny you their use. The conception of internal rights is one of the big reasons we don't have slavery or serfs anymore. You can laugh at it or say it's unrealistic, but it's surprisingly important that rights come innately rather than from external sources.