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What's Nussbaum's take on people who say "no" to have their property taken for other's use?

justonceokay 2y ago
Where is that happening? Unless you are talking about taxes, which are only yours if you believe that you made that (government-supplied!) money by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights…
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Just look at corporations. Nearly everyone who has gotten insanely wealthy in the US in the last 100 years or so has done so through a corporation, or some other liability-protection business structure. These business formations are nothing more than government-provided, and government-enforced, fictions.
  - justonceokay 2y ago
    True. Without the understanding of the judicial system that a corporation is more than the sum of its parts it would be much easier to directly litigate against company execs.
- richardanaya 2y ago
  You didn't answer my question.
- LudwigNagasena 2y ago
  > government-supplied Government-imposed. > government Also known as a mere bunch of people who enforce their decisions using monopoly on violence. > by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights… Surely a government cannot do it by itself either? Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else? Oh, right, it was decided using the infrastructure and processes imposed by the government. The only realistic alternative to “it’s not truly yours” is not global horizontal fair decision-making, it is a bunch of bureaucrats making decisions on behalf of (ie instead of) other people. That’s a road to serfdom paved by well intentioned naïve people.
  - justonceokay 2y ago
    A lot of what you say is true, but in my opinion you are romanticizing right-libertarianism. I’m pretty happy to not have to continually and physically defend my possessions from my will-to-power neighbors. To me the life you describe sounds like The Road by Cormack McCarthy (spoiler: it isn’t fun)
  - sprucevoid 2y ago
    > Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else? The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate. Property rights is a legal construct, created by the state. A technology if you will. Part of the rules of that construct is that property can be taxed for public provision purposes.
    - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
      > The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate. “The process of democracy” is hand waving. There is a complex web of institutions and traditions that reinforce themselves. What country would be more “democratic”: the one where people can vote for one of several handpicked candidates or the one where they can impose their will through community organizing and strikes? The one where billionaires own media and put forward their agenda or the one where the media landscape is dominated by self-sustained media co-ops? > Property rights is a legal construct That’s the main issue I have with your view. Property rights are a construct as much as the legal system is a construct, democracy is a construct, the state is a construct and “the rules” you appeal to are a construct. There is no any primacy of the state and the government.
amanaplanacanal 2y ago
Property didn't just appear in your hands out of thin air. Unless maybe you appeared naked on a deserted island and made everything yourself from scratch. It's only "your" property because of the social structures that make it so. If you want to know what Nussbaum has to say about it, you should probably read them yourself.
- richardanaya 2y ago
  You sound like an authoritarian eager to take someone's property.
  - Nevermark 2y ago
    You sound like someone who appreciates the costly systems that protect their property, but finds those “collective” efforts inconvenient to acknowledge. “Property” is most definitely a social aspect of reality. It does not water down its usefulness, or moral rationale, to recognize that any view of property beyond “things you can physically defend without help from others” involves social agreements and efforts. I don’t think dismissing others good points out of hand is the best way to communicate your own ideas. Human beings benefit so much from social agreements it is profound. This is not news to game theorists, but some people seem to find it to be a bitter instead of sweet pill. The question for the animal which creates exponentially more value for itself via many and varied social constructs, than any other animal, is to optimize positive sum social structures (in form and depth), and avoid and mitigate negative sums. Not deny their obvious existence or that our own existence (and freedom) as individuals and a species would be significantly curbed without them.
    - richardanaya 2y ago
      I do appreciate property and property rights (which I fund to be defended by my taxes). They are my only material means (aside from my bare hands) for achieving my values for myself and people I love. If you have "collective efforts" you want funded or built, you're free to ask people voluntarily to put their lives, children, families etc. on hold for whatever cause you think is important that I don't see that you have insight into. There's nothing stopping you.
sprucevoid 2y ago
I'd reply that a properly regulated and bounded bundle of property rights is compatible with taxation for public provisioning of e.g. police, judiciary, health care, infrastructure, education and many more things. If you disagree with that then the discussion would move back to more fundamental normative background questions. Like how can a valid claim to property come about in the first place. For example if you think a necessary condition for a valid property claim is that the holding can be traced back through a chain of voluntary transaction then most current holdings of land in the US are unjustified, since they trace back to genocidal oppression by european settlers. In addition there are dire problems for other libertarian talking points about property. https://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/01/capitalism-is-coercive-and-creates-patterns-of-deprivation-as-explained-by-libertarian-blockquotes/ https://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/01/capitalism-is-coercive-an... https://mattbruenig.com/2014/05/07/property-and-conflict/ https://mattbruenig.com/2014/05/07/property-and-conflict/

Where is that happening? Unless you are talking about taxes, which are only yours if you believe that you made that (government-supplied!) money by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights…

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
Just look at corporations. Nearly everyone who has gotten insanely wealthy in the US in the last 100 years or so has done so through a corporation, or some other liability-protection business structure. These business formations are nothing more than government-provided, and government-enforced, fictions.
- justonceokay 2y ago
  True. Without the understanding of the judicial system that a corporation is more than the sum of its parts it would be much easier to directly litigate against company execs.
richardanaya 2y ago
You didn't answer my question.
LudwigNagasena 2y ago
> government-supplied Government-imposed. > government Also known as a mere bunch of people who enforce their decisions using monopoly on violence. > by yourself without infrastructure like plumbing, roads, schools and hospitals to educate and heal your employees, a strong legal system to enforce property rights… Surely a government cannot do it by itself either? Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else? Oh, right, it was decided using the infrastructure and processes imposed by the government. The only realistic alternative to “it’s not truly yours” is not global horizontal fair decision-making, it is a bunch of bureaucrats making decisions on behalf of (ie instead of) other people. That’s a road to serfdom paved by well intentioned naïve people.
- justonceokay 2y ago
  A lot of what you say is true, but in my opinion you are romanticizing right-libertarianism. I’m pretty happy to not have to continually and physically defend my possessions from my will-to-power neighbors. To me the life you describe sounds like The Road by Cormack McCarthy (spoiler: it isn’t fun)
- sprucevoid 2y ago
  > Who’ve decided that the decision should be deferred to them and not me or someone else? The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate. Property rights is a legal construct, created by the state. A technology if you will. Part of the rules of that construct is that property can be taxed for public provision purposes.
  - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
    > The people through the process of democracy, where you also have a say as a voter and potential candidate. “The process of democracy” is hand waving. There is a complex web of institutions and traditions that reinforce themselves. What country would be more “democratic”: the one where people can vote for one of several handpicked candidates or the one where they can impose their will through community organizing and strikes? The one where billionaires own media and put forward their agenda or the one where the media landscape is dominated by self-sustained media co-ops? > Property rights is a legal construct That’s the main issue I have with your view. Property rights are a construct as much as the legal system is a construct, democracy is a construct, the state is a construct and “the rules” you appeal to are a construct. There is no any primacy of the state and the government.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago

Property didn't just appear in your hands out of thin air. Unless maybe you appeared naked on a deserted island and made everything yourself from scratch. It's only "your" property because of the social structures that make it so. If you want to know what Nussbaum has to say about it, you should probably read them yourself.

richardanaya 2y ago
You sound like an authoritarian eager to take someone's property.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  You sound like someone who appreciates the costly systems that protect their property, but finds those “collective” efforts inconvenient to acknowledge. “Property” is most definitely a social aspect of reality. It does not water down its usefulness, or moral rationale, to recognize that any view of property beyond “things you can physically defend without help from others” involves social agreements and efforts. I don’t think dismissing others good points out of hand is the best way to communicate your own ideas. Human beings benefit so much from social agreements it is profound. This is not news to game theorists, but some people seem to find it to be a bitter instead of sweet pill. The question for the animal which creates exponentially more value for itself via many and varied social constructs, than any other animal, is to optimize positive sum social structures (in form and depth), and avoid and mitigate negative sums. Not deny their obvious existence or that our own existence (and freedom) as individuals and a species would be significantly curbed without them.
  - richardanaya 2y ago
    I do appreciate property and property rights (which I fund to be defended by my taxes). They are my only material means (aside from my bare hands) for achieving my values for myself and people I love. If you have "collective efforts" you want funded or built, you're free to ask people voluntarily to put their lives, children, families etc. on hold for whatever cause you think is important that I don't see that you have insight into. There's nothing stopping you.

sprucevoid 2y ago

I'd reply that a properly regulated and bounded bundle of property rights is compatible with taxation for public provisioning of e.g. police, judiciary, health care, infrastructure, education and many more things. If you disagree with that then the discussion would move back to more fundamental normative background questions. Like how can a valid claim to property come about in the first place. For example if you think a necessary condition for a valid property claim is that the holding can be traced back through a chain of voluntary transaction then most current holdings of land in the US are unjustified, since they trace back to genocidal oppression by european settlers. In addition there are dire problems for other libertarian talking points about property. https://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/01/capitalism-is-coercive-and-creates-patterns-of-deprivation-as-explained-by-libertarian-blockquotes/ https://mattbruenig.com/2015/10/01/capitalism-is-coercive-an... https://mattbruenig.com/2014/05/07/property-and-conflict/ https://mattbruenig.com/2014/05/07/property-and-conflict/