4 ms·
There still needs to be an initial act of taking by force to set up the initial ownership, creating the possibility of trade.
by DarylZero 4y ago
There still needs to be an initial act of taking by force to set up the initial ownership, creating the possibility of trade.
- surement 4y agoNo, there doesn't. You can own and trade something you built. That's what remunerated work is.
- DarylZero 4y agoYou still have to build it out of something. An economy of pure traded labor, like trading foot massages or whatever, wouldn't actually have property.
- 9873259735609 4y agoThere are natural resources that nobody created. Using them to create something is not coercion and results in property that can be traded for other property or services. Property can be coercion (e.g. untouched land claimed by or with the support of the state), but it doesn't have to be.
- gus_massa 4y agoI want to build a table, so I chomp a tree. You want to build a chair, and you chomp another tree. I want to build another table, so I must walk a longer distance to find a tree. If everyone cut trees, it will get harder to find one. Another person want to build a music instrument. He need some special kind of tree, with some specific size and age, so he want all of us to not cut that tree. Does he make a fence to protect the tree while it's growing? Does he hire a bodyguard for the tree? Hunter-gathering is coercion-free unless someone other group want hunter-gathering in the same place. An once farmer arrive, it gets more complicated.
- 9873259735609 4y ago> I want to build a table, so I chomp a tree. You want to build a chair, and you chomp another tree. I want to build another table, so I must walk a longer distance to find a tree. If everyone cut trees, it will get harder to find one. No coercion here. There is no force or threats of violence involved in these scenarios. Imposing a negative externality on someone is not necessarily coercion. > Another person want to build a music instrument. He need some special kind of tree, with some specific size and age, so he want all of us to not cut that tree. Does he make a fence to protect the tree while it's growing? Does he hire a bodyguard for the tree? That would likely be coercion. Unless he planted the tree, or acquired it by consensual means from its previous owner, he doesn't have any more right to the tree than anyone else. Although, I don't think it would be as bad as if he had taken the tree from someone who had already cut it down because in that case he would have deprived them of the product of the labour that went into cutting the tree down as well.
- maxerickson 4y agoThe claim that the act of creation gives you exclusive rights can be coercion in a value system that doesn't care about the act of creation (or just cares less about it than things like mutual agreement about what to do with the commons).
- 9873259735609 4y agoI think it's self-evident that a person should not be deprived of what they create without their consent. I'm not sure what you mean by "mutual agreement", but I assume you don't mean that literally, as there would be no conflict and no need for any kind of ethical theory in a situation where everyone agrees.
- maxerickson 4y agoThat's what I'm trying to get at, those things aren't self evident, they are a value system.
- DarylZero 4y agoEnacting property rights over those natural resources is the initial act of coercion that makes trade possible. Merely using resources isn't coercion but it doesn't "result in property" unless you also apply coercion to exclude others from them. (Seems like a pointless word game you're trying to play here.)
- 9873259735609 4y agoI'm not advocating for property rights over natural resources. I'm advocating for property rights over artificial objects created by labour applied to natural resources.
- DarylZero 4y agoWhatever you want to call it, you need coercion to enforce the exclusivity. That's a difference between physical objects and trading pure labor itself (like the trading foot massages example).