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> I appreciate your willingness to elaborate on your points in detail. And that you focus on asking questions rather than proselytizing. Likewise =) > There a

> I appreciate your willingness to elaborate on your points in detail. And that you focus on asking questions rather than proselytizing. Likewise =) > There are a few distinctions that I don't think your analogy captures. It would be an apt analogy if 1) slaves got a chance to vote out their master at reasonable intervals and 2) you have the ability to go to different plantations. I don't think it would matter to a slave being whipped on a plantation that the person doing the whipping was elected by a narrow majority of his fellow slaves. Nor would it matter that he could leave to another plantation with a different master whose whip stings just the same. Slaves who elect their masters are still slaves, are they not? Only people without masters are free. If you would allow me to proselytize a little, how would you know you are free? Is there a test? I think there is. It's the same test you'd use to tell if you are being raped or having sex. Does your consent matter? Will revoking your consent be respected by other parties involved? If you're having sex with someone whom you yourself chose, and you suddenly and vocally revoke your consent (ie. say "stop"), will they stop? or will they use violence to force you to continue? If they choose the latter option, in that moment they have, in a very literal sense, become your master and you their slave. I think the same test can be applied to any human relationship, interaction or form of cooperation, would you agree? If not, which relationships does this test not apply to? Why not? > You could go to another society if they are willing to have you. But then you'll be governed by their rules. Yes indeed, you could move to a society which practices child cannibalism if you are willing to be governed by their rules. I'm asking whether you think there should be limits on the kinds of rules that people can enforce on each other with an involuntary agreement. If there aren't, then is all that's stopping us from reinstating slavery or organizing a holocaust a democratic majority? I also think telling someone whose rights your violating "well, you can always move somewhere else" doesn't hold any water. People have rights where they are. > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. These are the axioms I'm starting from. If we're all created equal, and we are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (in that order), does everything else not follow? You'll also note that "a baseline quality of life" is not present in this list. > Assume you're on your condo balcony on the 20th floor but trip and fall ... There's really only two possibilities if you believe in the sanctity of personal property rights: 1) you ignore your neighbors commands and walk yourself back to safety, meaning you are immoral or 2) You let go and plunge to your moral death. I agree wholeheartedly. I also think each individual has a right to make this choice for themselves. Many people would prefer to starve than beg. Many others have chosen to commit suicide rather than burden their families with their care. Whichever moral code you live by, and whichever ways you are willing to bend or break it in dire circumstances; these are deeply personal choices. In regards to the legal aspects of your example, there are several layers of due process that are in place exactly to prevent punitive action for reasonable violations of the law as-written. Namely policing discretion, prosecutorial discretion and trial by jury. These are clearly imperfect, but I don't see them convicting the trespasser in your example. > At a certain point, we no longer have the bandwidth to make all the decisions necessary for a completely individual decisions to truly be cooperative. I'm not sure that's true - some of the most complex things we do and build are overwhelmingly voluntary and cooperative in nature. The tens of thousands of people collaborating at Airbus to build an A380 are cooperating splendidly without being forced to, as are the employees of every major company which has contributed so much to the advancements in our quality of life. > I also don't think I'd agree on your assumption that safety and flourishing are zero sum; I think you misread what I wrote: > And a confederacy of individuals does not equate to freedom, safety and flourishing being zero-sum. However I might say that flourishing, based on the hierarchical nature of our social psychology, might be zero-sum. Only so many people can be at the top of the social pyramid, regardless of wealth. Most of everyone else seems to be wired to derive misery from the fact they do not occupy such a place. It does seem possible to overcome these instincts with practice however. > I think the libertarian principles are romantic notions that fits well under the Jeffersonian ideal of a yeoman farmer, but largely incompatible with the complexity of modernity. To that extent, I'm not 100% convinced that going to the extreme would increase flourishing writ large. I agree! The Jeffersonian homestead is the perfect example of functional liberty. I was going to cite it in my last post. Don't you think it could have been maintained with the political will and/or stronger constitutional protection? The US may not have become the global superpower it is today, but I don't see that as all together terrible, given all the awful things we have done to people in order to achieve and maintain this status.

bumby 5y ago
I actually think we agree on an awful lot as the discussion elaborates. But I think there are some key distinctions in how we frame the same issues. >elected by a narrow majority of his fellow slaves. In the US at least, we already have checks and balances that avoid the tyranny of the majority. Nor would it matter that he could leave to another plantation with a different master whose whip stings just the same. In this case, it only holds if the assumption is that any social arrangement devolves into a master/slave relationship. Why hold onto this assumption if we've already said the "slave" is free to go as well as determine who runs the plantation? To me, that's sounds more like an egalitarian arrangement than a master/slave one. Maybe this is where the slave/master analogy has its limits. >Does your consent matter? Will revoking your consent be respected by other parties involved? Yes, consent matters. But I think this may be one of the fundamental areas where we disagree. I think the complexity of society requires numerous implied consents, I get the impression you only favor explicit consent. My larger point is that explicit consent is impossible in a complex society. When I get onto a public road, I do not get explicit consent from the 300+ million citizens who helped pay for that road. Likewise with most of the other social arrangements. The Founding Fathers understood this as well; Washington was a notorious disciplinarian who did not look for consent from individual soldiers regarding their willingness to continue serving because there is a pragmatic limit to instances of individual consent. Soldiers in today's army literally sign a contract and they don't get to revoke that consent merely because they've changed their mind about their willingness to uphold that agreement when things get hard. This is very similar to the idea of the social contract except one is explicit because it's relatively narrow in scope while one is implicit because of the complexity of the context in which it operates. >These are the axioms I'm starting from. If we're all created equal, and we are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (in that order), does everything else not follow? You'll also note that "a baseline quality of life" is not present in this list. I mean, Jefferson wrote beautifully in the Declaration of Independence but the actual social contact is the Constitution. And within that, the federal government has specific enumerated powers, including using those specific powers for the "general welfare" of the citizens (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1). This general welfare is exactly the quality of life I'm talking about. Also note that a right to property is not in your axioms. Now I'm assuming, from your perspective, this is implied by the right to liberty. My other main point is that rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. If we have implied rights protected by society, we also have implied responsibilities to said society. >there are several layers of due process that are in place exactly to prevent punitive action for reasonable violations of the law This is actually speaking to my point that they are general principles and not hard-lined ideologies. You've indicated you have a hierarchy of rights, starting with the right to life and that lesser rights are subjugate to that primacy (like the right to property, like the flag pole). I agree. So it sounds like we agree that liberty isn't absolute in a society where interactions between rights have to be balanced and that some rights are subjugate to others. >collaborating at Airbus to build an A380 are cooperating splendidly without being forced to I agree. But the complexity of the operation means they aren't knowledgeable regarding every operation. The complexity actually makes certain conventions necessary. A software engineer may have little or no clue what a structural engineer is doing. They coordinate by creation of social orders and delegation of duties. It's the same thing we do in order to make a complex society work; we sacrifice explicit consent by delegating authority to people like political representatives. The SWE doesn't get to explicitly approve the decision of Airbus to sell military equipment. We build a system of implied consent to manage the complexity of interactions. Sorry, I did misinterpret what you had previously wrote. Thank you for correcting me. >Most of everyone else seems to be wired to derive misery from the fact they do not occupy such a place. Roosevelt said "Comparison is the thief of joy" and I tend to agree with both of you. I do think this is where those balances to counteract the tyranny of the majority come in. >The Jeffersonian homestead is the perfect example of functional liberty. I think we agree here. But one of my main points is that this isn't practical in today's society. As romantic of a notion that it is, I think it's really just a hypothetical indulgence rather than a pragmatic approach to policy. I doubt many people in US would like to return to an agrarian economy because, even though it might have more principled liberty, it would lower their quality of life. That ship sailed over a hundred years ago when America decided to become an global superpower and integrated into a worldwide economy. You can get awfully close to a libertarian ideal by joining a hunter-gatherer society, so why don't people do so? My premise is that nation-states evolved as a social response to the risks of a increasingly complex society. I think the libertarian thought experiments are fun but not particularly useful.

bumby 5y ago

I actually think we agree on an awful lot as the discussion elaborates. But I think there are some key distinctions in how we frame the same issues. >elected by a narrow majority of his fellow slaves. In the US at least, we already have checks and balances that avoid the tyranny of the majority. Nor would it matter that he could leave to another plantation with a different master whose whip stings just the same. In this case, it only holds if the assumption is that any social arrangement devolves into a master/slave relationship. Why hold onto this assumption if we've already said the "slave" is free to go as well as determine who runs the plantation? To me, that's sounds more like an egalitarian arrangement than a master/slave one. Maybe this is where the slave/master analogy has its limits. >Does your consent matter? Will revoking your consent be respected by other parties involved? Yes, consent matters. But I think this may be one of the fundamental areas where we disagree. I think the complexity of society requires numerous implied consents, I get the impression you only favor explicit consent. My larger point is that explicit consent is impossible in a complex society. When I get onto a public road, I do not get explicit consent from the 300+ million citizens who helped pay for that road. Likewise with most of the other social arrangements. The Founding Fathers understood this as well; Washington was a notorious disciplinarian who did not look for consent from individual soldiers regarding their willingness to continue serving because there is a pragmatic limit to instances of individual consent. Soldiers in today's army literally sign a contract and they don't get to revoke that consent merely because they've changed their mind about their willingness to uphold that agreement when things get hard. This is very similar to the idea of the social contract except one is explicit because it's relatively narrow in scope while one is implicit because of the complexity of the context in which it operates. >These are the axioms I'm starting from. If we're all created equal, and we are all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (in that order), does everything else not follow? You'll also note that "a baseline quality of life" is not present in this list. I mean, Jefferson wrote beautifully in the Declaration of Independence but the actual social contact is the Constitution. And within that, the federal government has specific enumerated powers, including using those specific powers for the "general welfare" of the citizens (Article I, Section 8, Clause 1). This general welfare is exactly the quality of life I'm talking about. Also note that a right to property is not in your axioms. Now I'm assuming, from your perspective, this is implied by the right to liberty. My other main point is that rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin. If we have implied rights protected by society, we also have implied responsibilities to said society. >there are several layers of due process that are in place exactly to prevent punitive action for reasonable violations of the law This is actually speaking to my point that they are general principles and not hard-lined ideologies. You've indicated you have a hierarchy of rights, starting with the right to life and that lesser rights are subjugate to that primacy (like the right to property, like the flag pole). I agree. So it sounds like we agree that liberty isn't absolute in a society where interactions between rights have to be balanced and that some rights are subjugate to others. >collaborating at Airbus to build an A380 are cooperating splendidly without being forced to I agree. But the complexity of the operation means they aren't knowledgeable regarding every operation. The complexity actually makes certain conventions necessary. A software engineer may have little or no clue what a structural engineer is doing. They coordinate by creation of social orders and delegation of duties. It's the same thing we do in order to make a complex society work; we sacrifice explicit consent by delegating authority to people like political representatives. The SWE doesn't get to explicitly approve the decision of Airbus to sell military equipment. We build a system of implied consent to manage the complexity of interactions. Sorry, I did misinterpret what you had previously wrote. Thank you for correcting me. >Most of everyone else seems to be wired to derive misery from the fact they do not occupy such a place. Roosevelt said "Comparison is the thief of joy" and I tend to agree with both of you. I do think this is where those balances to counteract the tyranny of the majority come in. >The Jeffersonian homestead is the perfect example of functional liberty. I think we agree here. But one of my main points is that this isn't practical in today's society. As romantic of a notion that it is, I think it's really just a hypothetical indulgence rather than a pragmatic approach to policy. I doubt many people in US would like to return to an agrarian economy because, even though it might have more principled liberty, it would lower their quality of life. That ship sailed over a hundred years ago when America decided to become an global superpower and integrated into a worldwide economy. You can get awfully close to a libertarian ideal by joining a hunter-gatherer society, so why don't people do so? My premise is that nation-states evolved as a social response to the risks of a increasingly complex society. I think the libertarian thought experiments are fun but not particularly useful.