Now I am a great believer that any company should be at liberty to hire or not hire anyone they damn well please for any reason whatsoever (contingent on the terms of a freely agreed employment contract, of course), regardless of whether or not the reasons are sensible or utterly capricious.
So when a tax funded body like the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service says…
Members of the British National Party should not apply for jobs in the fire service as there is no place for racists or bigots, a chief fire officer said in a report released today. Martin Chapman, Dorset Fire and Rescue chief fire officer, said: “Membership of the BNP is not itself unlawful, but its core values are considered to be incompatible with those of the fire authority and the role of the fire and rescue service.”
… I do not automatically think this is a bad thing. I also do not much care for bigots and racists and personally I would not hire a member of the BNP either. But then I would also not hire a communist, a socialist, an islamist or all manner of other folks, simply on the basis that I find their beliefs monstrous and therefore have no wish to enrich them.
But I would like to get some clarification on a few points from the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, seeing as they are a public sector body… would they take a similar position for regarding someone who was a communist or who advocates other forms of violence enforced collectivism, or is only trying to impose national socialism beyond the pale? What about someone who supports radical Islamist organisations that what to impose Sharia? How about members of Sinn Fein, the political wing of an outfit that has murdered thousands of people? Also, are members of the neo-fascist BNP now going to be permitted to stop paying for the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service, or is their money still welcome?
Just asking.
You only have to look at the leadership of the FireBrigades Unions to understand what is happening here.
BTW,Does that mean members of the BNP needn’t bother ringing for the Fire Brigade?
Does this mean that the Dorset Fire and Rescue Service will be delving into the political affiliations of its applicants? Isn’t this rather impertinent?
Well, whatever the facts of this particular issue, a member of a racist, etc. group like the KKK might balk at providing aid to individuals of those groups of people these despise. So, from a purely practical standpoint, the hire might problematic. In the U.S. certain types of speech or actions that might otherwise we protected when the government is acting as the sovereign are not protected when the government is acting as employer (I could get into this more if you would like – if not, peruse Connick v. Meyers and Waters v. Churchill).
Yes, Peter, it probably does. The Fire Brigade will have made a decision about who to save.
I immediately wondered whether members of the BNP were to be excused paying a proportion of their taxes for this nightmarish fire service. The bruvvers are back, eh?
I wonder whether there’s any place, in this dainty service, for those who support Islamofascism and mean to cause death and destruction in Britain. Or, as Perry says, supports enforced collectivism.
And were these offensive decisions made in response to an application from a member of the BNP or were they a gratuitous little moment of petty glory for the fire chief?
This is of course,that multicultural metropolis Dorset! Another alternative is that there is a plum job of Fire chief in some large conurbation the the man has his eye on,nothing gets a comrade on more than showing zeal for his master’s pet fancies.He is probably regretting that he cannot simply shoot Tories out of hand,if only he had gone into the police like his brother in law.
RACIST BIGOT. Don’t you know that islam is a race?
Wasn’t it Mark Steyn who said “there is no ‘tolerance’, there are only changing fashions in intolerance”?
The government cannot be trusted to always objectively define words such as “hate” and “bigotry” – thus state laws addressing such concepts must never be tolerated.
Strange oriental spam deleted
Oh my goodness, I don’t know what the previous commenter said, but I’m sure I feel faint. Or not. My Japanese is a little rusty.
“Current legal advice indicates that it is not yet possible to dismiss an employee for being a member of the BNP,” said Mr Chapman in the report.
So we can see that the govt is clearly going to be aiming to be able to dismiss people for their political views in the near future.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where this is all leading.
It seems to me more reasonable to ban from public service (or certain parts thereof) those who belong to ANY legitimate political party, rather than to believe that there is any way of fairly distinguishing between the acceptability, or not, of the various political parties.
Perhaps Chief Fire Officer Martin could itemise those “core values” of the fire service that are best judged as present or lacking lacking according to membership of any particular political party.
In what way is the fire service particulary deserving of protection against bigots, that is not applicble to other parts of the public service?
Ditto racism.
Best regards
Well, whatever the facts of this particular issue, a member of a racist, etc. group like the KKK might balk at providing aid to individuals of those groups of people these despise.
Self-declared racists are often surprisingly OK dealing with individuals of groups whom they affect to despise. Woods they hate; this or that tree is different, not a typical tree.
There’s also no a priori reason to suppose they can’t put aside their views to do their job more then anyone else. I have a suspicion authoritarian types are actually better at following rules than I am in such cases. As long as you have a rule, they are fine. (Which is a broader problem for libertarians: how do the significant proportion of people who cope very badly with ambiguity, rational decision-making and negotiable questions, fit into a freer society?)
On the whole, though, state organs are the only ones I’d like to see barred from using unfair employment practices and arbitrary social criteria, because they won’t be punished in the marketplace for doing so, because they run on your money regardless of whether you want to buy their services. At the moment it seems they are the principle ones using exemptions or ways out from such rules (discrimination on grounds of “underrepresentation” being the main one).
They don’t, which is why a libertarian society on any but the smallest scale would probably fail and revert to a larger state. This probably also goes some way to explaining why libertarianism attracts such a risibly low level of interest among the people, even in America where it is arguably more popular than anywhere else.
Another broad problem for libertarians: if the people when give the liberty to choose a libertarian way ahead simply refuse to do so and consistently plump for a more statist alternative, should not their choice be respected? Which is to say, can people not freely choose to be unfree, or should freedom be imposed upon them whether they want it or not?
EG
That fire chief is PREJUDICED against BNP members! He is RACIST!
guy herbert – I was interested in your response and I agree, although I’d never thought about it before. Self-declared racists, or adherents of any other exclusionary thinking, as in “I hate Catholics” or “I can’t stand the Welsh” seldom seem to take it down to the personal level. As you say, they hate the forest but are fine with the trees.
I also agree with this: “On the whole, though, state organs are the only ones I’d like to see barred from using unfair employment practices and arbitrary social criteria”. Employment practices in the private sector should be left entirely to the employer (it seems too obvious to have to state it), no matter how unfair. It’s his money and it’s his business. But not that taxpayer supported employer, the state. They, as in everything else, need tight control.
Another broad problem for libertarians: if the people when give the liberty to choose a libertarian way ahead simply refuse to do so and consistently plump for a more statist alternative, should not their choice be respected?
Indeed it should, which leads to an even bigger problem, which is not just one for libertarians. A statist alternative necessarily involves a degree of imposition. on those who don’t choose it. How do we find ways for those who do not wish to be coerced into conformity to coexist with those who can’t abide non-conformity?
Illiberal majorities are bad enough, but authoritarians are often able to impose their will even when they are in a minority, simply because they have the will to do so and all push in the same direction. Competing states and state-models might help, but are prone to cartelisation–see Scott’s post for an egregious example.
Why does anyone waste their time responding to Euan when he declaims about libertarianism or what some a society run on more libertarian lines might look like? He has demonstrated time and again than not only does he know very little about libertarianism, when his errors are pointed out he just ‘resets’ in the next thread and just ploughs on regardless, indicated he wants to continue to know very little about libertarianism, presumably because that might interfere with too many of his cherished notions.
Tricky. I suppose it’s basically a compromise between imposing liberty on those who don’t want it and imposing coercion on those who don’t want that. Is that not akin, though, to imposing a Conservative government on those who voted Labour, or vice versa?
Since it is not possible to have any type of society which completely pleases everyone, people simply need to compromise. This is a reasoanbly adult thing to do, of course, and in most democratic societies most of the time it pretty much works. The ideologue is not happy, of course, but then he never is.
Fairly obviously, if you don’t like the current compromise, you can try to persuade others to change it through the established means, i.e. the electoral process. But because it must be a compromise, if enough people fail to agree with your view, it will not come to pass. It’s not mature to expect that you will have all of your demands met when others have contrary demands. It’s especially not mature to demand change when you refuse to even take part in the process for changing things.
Don’t they already? If you think Britain is too coerced and conformist, what stops you leaving for America? Or vice versa? People do, after all – there are many Britons living in America and many Americans living in Britain for exactly this reason.
There is already a market of over 190 independent nations, almost all of which would gladly accept you if you have something to contribute. What’s wrong with that? Why does it not provide people with the choice?
Hmm, another tricky question.
Possibly because he asks questions which make people think? Because he offers an alternative point of view? Because he recognises that the real world and life in it are rather more complex than simplisitic ideological positions would have it?
As I have pointed out several times before, the burden is upon the libertarian to show what he believes. This never seems to be done since it seems to be impossible for libertarians to agree on what they believe, and a debate between alternative strands of what each side claims as libertarianism resembles nothing so much as an ideological bitch-fest. There are definitions of libertarianism out there. Many of them, and they all contradict each other. Makes for enjoyable reading, though. But this is a problem for libertarians to deal with, however entertaining it may be for the rest of the world.
I have asked before, as have others, that a definition of what libertarianism actually is should be posted somewhere as a reference. Until this happens, people are going to respond on an issue-by-issue basis and will inevitably seek and respond to patterns. If you think that pattern is not “true” libertarianism, then it is up to YOU to define what is, not me. If you won’t define it, then you’ll have to accept that others will define it for you based on your actions and words. If you don’t want that to happen, the course of action you need to take is obvious and simple.
You cannot object to people having a wrong idea of what libertarianism is if you won’t define libertarianism. You cannot have it both ways.
EG
Guy says “competing state and state models might help” and there I think he is right, although Britain is too small for this and there is no concept of states’ rights and the separation of powers in Britain.
The NH Free State project could not happen in Britain.
That’s not entirely true. Scotland has a distinctly different legal system than England, and some laws apply in one but not the other. Fair enough, you only get a choice of two, but there is a choice.
EG
If a publicly-funded body decides to ban racists from its ranks, I cannot really object, but as Perry said, surely the same bans should be applied to totalitarian islamists, socialists, and sundry other tribalists who want to impose their visions on the rest of us.
I agree with Perry. It is pointless trying to engage EG in any debate about libertarianism since he sets up straw men to knock down and endlessly drones on about how futile our ideas are. He’s just a bully and a bore.
No, it is not. As the world is overflowing with example of failed and/or absurdly expensive statist induced ‘solutions’ to all manner of things, I think it is just as incumbent upon statists to show why their ways should simply be accepted just because ‘that’s the way it is’.
But in any case, I have indeed pointed out on many occasions where you say “and libertarians think that…” than in fact you have many largely incorrect notion of what such folks really do think (such as the old “libertarians think everyone is reasonable” canard that you endlessly trot out regardless of being told libertarianism assumes no such thing as well as why that is the case).
My objection to you is not that you ‘challenge’ views expressed here (many folks do that), it is that you challenge views which have quite different underpinning to that which you seem to think. I don’t mind arguing with someone challenging what I think, or even the basis upon which I came to think those things, but life is too short to waste much time arguing with someone whose challenges are based on a veritable labyrinth of misconceptions regarding what underpins what I (and others) really do think. I don’t care if you don’t agree with the thought processes or conclusions that lead to the classical liberal world view but your bald contentions tend not to relate to what is either being said or (more commonly) why it is being said, making engagement singularly pointless.
I would think it worthwhile to engage with you if you were critiquing the prevailing Samizdata world view, but in reality, as you are only critiquing your very flawed understanding of what the libertarian/classical liberal world view really is, I find my time is better spent elsewhere.
As much as I enjoy seeing the BNP rightly persecuted for their repellent beliefs, this is a dangerous slippery slope. What’s the definition of ‘racist’? Hating certain groups is one thing, but what if you believe that some practices of that group (say, Islamists’ views that women are not equal to men) are repellent? Given the UK state, I assume that would make one a racist.
Perry –
EG is most of the reason I read this blog. Listening to libertarians congratulating each other’s beliefs while bemoaning the terrible state (sic) of the world is neither interesting nor informative. Listening to them trying to refute EG’s criticisms is sometimes both.
99% of the political blogosphere is composed of choir preaching of the worst kind – sophomoric, satisfied, bigoted, blinkered, more sixth form sophistry than the worst high school debating society. I came to Samizdata in the hope of something better. When I find it, EG is involved 70% of the time.
You can’t even define what libertarianism is, so how would you expect anyone to debate it unless they, in the total absence of anything concrete from you, say “this appears to be libertarianism?” If you think they are straw men, define a REAL man.
In the thread “Marxism of the Right?” I asked this same question about defining libertarianism. Paul Coulam responded that it was “unnecessary” and quoted Popper to justify an evasion of any definition. Julian Morrison then said it would be “detrimental,” saying in his defence that libertarianism was a multifaceted viewpoint.
If libertarianism is such a multifaceted thing that it defies definition, then it is illogical for you to denigrate as a straw man my idea of what a libertarian position on something is, because there is bound to be a ‘facet’ fo libertarianism somewhere that does hold what I suggest. All you can say is that YOU don’t believe that. On the other hand, if libertarianism can be sufficiently defined to make the accusation of straw man valid, why is nobody defining it?
As I commented above, you cannot have it both ways. Please either define what libertarianism is or stop calling someone’s assessment of it a straw man. Preferably avoiding scatalogical insult or naked evasion of the question, of course.
EG
I an curious… does anyone know of any instances whatsoever of some neo-fascist fireman or para-medic or ambulence driver actually declining to assist someone because of their race in, say, the last 50 years or so?
Sorry, Perry, but it is. It’s your philosophy, therefore one might reasonably assume you know what it is. If you expect people to discuss it, you really need to define it. If someone comes along who doesn’t share it and you think they misdescribe it, then what is wrong with you defining what it is? It would be much easier to do this by means of posting a summary of this, wouldn’t it?
It’s not good enough for you just to say “that’s not libertarianism” and leave it there. Maybe it’s not, but you don’t say what IS libertarianism.
Then why don’t you define what you do think?
EG
Euan, the problem is that libertarianism is indeed something that comes in varied sizes but pretty much all have some core common themes: self ownership, non-initiation of force against persons and their property, respect for property rights, distrust of social engineering, optimism about the ability of rationally self interested persons to create a decent community, preference for voluntarism…….That still leaves plenty of debate between anarcho-capitalists, minimal statists, limited government types and so forth. If you are looking for a single, watertight definition, then you look in vain. Sorry but that is life.
I don’t insist on a definition. I insist on EITHER a definition OR an end to the difficult-question-evading practice of labelling something you find inconvenient as a straw man. Really, one or the other is necessary.
And I’m still waiting for answers to the difficult questions from that other thread, by the way.
EG
Actually, by any reasonable standard of these things this is not the case.
The libertarian is the one urging change, and therefore it is indeed incumbent upon him – and him alone – to provide justification for his proposal. The burden is always upon anyone urging change, and this is especially the case where the change advocated is towards something relatively untried.
EG
You mean again? On many issues, people here have done exactly that again and again. Yet if you don’t get the reply you want, you refuse to accept you’ve been answered. If you then expect people KEEP responding anyway, maybe you overrate your importance in the scheme of things. Sorry, ain’t gonna play that game no more.
Point to the last time libertarianism was defined here, then. And I don’t mean just one person’s libertarian view on one specific issue.
This is part of the problem. It’s done on an issue-by-issue basis, and not without disagreement at that.
Then define these common themes in detail.
EG
“I insist on EITHER a definition OR an end to the difficult-question-evading practice of labelling something you find inconvenient as a straw man.
EG”
Newsflash: You’re on private property and in no position to insist on anything. You don’t like it here, leave.
The word is used in a rhetorical fashion, Verity. Obviously enough.
EG
This is an oxymoron. Freedom can’t be imposed, it exists, and can only be taken away. The Amish are free (to the same extent as anyone else in the U.S., that is), but they voluntarily live under quite strict rules. (I’m not counting the children of the Amish, which is a slightly different matter.)
Then let me ask should libertarianism be imposed upon them whether they want it or not?
EG
Since I’m not a “proper libertarian” anyway, at least according to that guy who knew everything about everything that used to post here, I can ignore the thread hi-jacker and deal with a couple of issues raised by the original post—a novel approach, I know, but bear with me.
The cited policy toward the BNP is just as an earlier post described it: a fashionable attempt to look good without bothering with any complicated rationality about being consistent, or actually making moral judgements as to which political beliefs are truly dangerous.
It’s always ok to be anti-right extremist, in the colloquial political usage. It never needs to be justified or explained—everybody just knows those nasty guys who espouse x, y, and z, are villians. After all, it’s not like those poor, misguided leftists who mean well even if things don’t always turn out so good in the end.
I just saw an ad about another BS movie about the McCarthy hearings, for crying out loud. This one’s going to make a big hero out of Ed Murrow, who I remember on TV sitting in a cloud of cigarette smoke, as a way of rehabilitating the media and TV anchormen.
Neither one has been doing very well lately, so it is necessary to remind us ungrateful peasants that media superstars are the only thing standing between fascist terror and our miserable little lives of futile ignorance. Don’t pay any attention to that criticism about the Katrina non-news, or any cheering for the oppositiopn you might perceive to be found in media editorials—um, I mean, news reports.
One other point. Competetive government was a fad amongst earlier exponents of free enterprise and free individuals, based on the belief that, since competition is good, it would be good for states as well. But, in the real world, two things happen.
One, the states who promise the most benefits are much loved by those who dislike individuality, which is practically everybody after a century of indoctrination about the “common good” and the “social compact”.
States offering the challenges of a raw frontier are heaven for the adventurous soul, but a terror for the guild member who likes his 35 hour work week and all the other benefits of the statist model.
Second, the reality of the conflicts, both past and present, forms a more comprehensive scorecard of which forms of social organization are more attuned with human development and progress than any checklist to find some minor differences between Scotland and Britain, for example.
Since 1898, we have seen the dismantling of several major empires, the defeat of marxism, fascism, and Japanese feudalist militarism, and we are now engaged in a open conflict with totalitarian theocracy—perhaps our most ancient and dangerous adversary.
The challenge for the present is not to ask what states can do for us, but what we can do to reduce the dangers of statism, and its excessive concentration of political and economic power in the hands of those who are the least worthy of wielding them.
The muticulturist drivel of this little fire department is just one more small battle in a larger conflict. It is the individual who needs protection from the mob, not the other way around.
This is not a solely libertarian issue,this is a straightforward case of a jumped up dirigist public servant getting too big for his boots,he is also making a conjecture as to probable actions.
It is not for the Chief of Dorset Fire service to inquire into the political beliefs of anyone,I should imagine that Dorset has “We are an equal opportunies employer” on all its stationery.,at what point are they going to ask applicants what their political affiliations are?
Will the ask those from Pakistan if they are members of any jihadist group? Will Jehovahs Witnesses be banned because of the possiblity that someone will need a blood transfusion?
This is beyong this official’s remit,he is a fireman this is a legal and political decision which is one,the end of the totalitarian wedge and two,likely to get Dorset Fire Service’s arse sued off.
Boy are you clueless! Lemme educate: Libertarianism is the (the minarchist version) the minimum amount of state to keep order or (the anarchist version) no coersive state at all.
To ‘impose’ libertarianism is therefore a system that minimises/refuses to allow people to impose their will by force on others without prior concent.
So if you want to impose your will by force on me, yeah, I would like to ‘impose’ on you an inability to do that. capicce?
Peter makes a wild guess that they have “We are an equal opportunity employer” on all their stationery. Surely they will have added: “Strength through diversity”?
Will any Muslims flocking to join the service refuse to rescue women from burning buildings because they’re not allowed to touch women outside their own families? Ever thought of that Mr Martin Chapman, Dorset Fire and Rescue chief fire officer? And what about the Jehova’s Witnesses angle, Mr Martin Chapman, Dorset Fire and Rescue chief fire officer? Will vegetarian fire officers refuse to rescue meat eaters? Will Jewish fire officers refuse to rescue fellow Jews who don’t keep kosher? Are you beginning to feel a bit stupid? Are the superiors to whom you were toadying beginning to distance themselves from your swivel-eyed pronouncements?
This is, Peter rightly says: “likely to get Dorset Fire Service’s arse sued off.” I will light a candle.
I am not really a libertarian either, I just have the advantage of knowing what it actually means, unlike some I could mention (and that is why I am not a libertarian, at least in the very narrow Lew Rockwell/Rothbard sense). I am a classical liberal, a minarchist, a social individualist, whatever.
So when people say”this is not as libertarian issue”… my response is ” so what?” I am more concerned with “what is correct? How is this best understood?” etc. I care rather less about the political taxonomy.
Presumably in a libertarian minarchist state you could join with your fellow statists and create a substate that would be governed by contract and voluntary participation. You would still have to pay your dues to the superstate, but there would be little overlap between the substate and the superstate so you would be not much worse off than if your fellow statists had your own state separate from everyone else.
Then you could define it, but you refuse to do so. In any case, such a definition would conflict with other definitions, would it not? And of course others say it cannot be defined, so you cannot both be right. Still others just evade.
It’s hard to avoid the impression that what you want is the freedom to posit a solution to the world’s problems without the tedious necessity of having to say what the solution actually is beyond “not what we have now.” When people challenge it, taking as baseline the writings or theories of others who call themselves libertarian, you want also to have the luxury of saying that this is not what you mean by libertarianism, but STILL you won’t define what it is you actually want.
What is libertarianism? Is it Friedman’s anarcho-capitalism? Is it Hayek’s view that expanding population and increasingly complex society demands greater regulation and state provision of services? Is it something in between?
Much of what is posted on Samizdata is complaint at the way things are. That’s fine, but you aren’t proposing any concrete improvement beyond throwing out nebulous phrases such as non-initiation of force (which means private property shouldn’t exist), deregulation (to what extent is never made clear), privatisation (ditto, plus no clear idea of how to deal with public goods) and voluntarism in place of welfare (with no assessment of how likely this is to actually work and what is to be done about any shortfall). Whenever these ideas are criticised, the response is along the lines of “you don’t understand what libertarianism means.”
I seriously wonder if it occurs to you that one of the major reasons why libertarianism is about as popular as bubonic plague is precisely this: that you refuse to define what it is. Nobody knows what it is you want, so unsurprisingly they will simply ignore you and deal with others who actually can articulate their philosophy.
Libertarianism – the Peoples Front of Judea for the 21st Century.
EG
Mr Chapman sounds like a snivelling little PC creep who’s hoping to brown nose himself up the career ladder.
If Liberty had a clue they would sue his ass for this, but somehow I doubt it.
I can see an argument for public workers being allowed to join any legal political party. I can also see an argument that public workers be banned from joining political parties. But is is clearly wrong for some half-arsed jack in office to start deciding which political parties are acceptable and which aren’t. I really hope this moron and his employers get skewered with their own human rights legislation. Maybe Cherie will take the brief?
nebulous phrases such as non-initiation of force (which means private property shouldn’t exist)
Que?
It works like this:
Private property derives from the ownership of land, because either it is land or it is the product of human effort on the land. Land was not owned before man came along to claim it – indeed, nothing was owned and the concept of ownership of property is a human construct. However, it all goes back to land.
The first instances of establishing ownership of land were someone declaring that now all this belongs to me, and if any disagrees he’ll get thumped. This is coercion.
Even if you don’t want to go that far back, and it’s technically correct but arguably practically useless to do so, consider much of the privately owned land in the United States. Large parts were acquired by military conquest, personal use of coercive force or simple land grab. The property rights of the current owners are defended, but what of the rights of the previous owners, from whom the land was taken by naked force?
All the non-initiation of force idea does when applied to property rights is to set an arbitrary cutoff point beyond which rights are ignored – essentially, it says the current situation is just for no better reason than that it IS the current situation. Simply going back one small step completely reverses the situation as to who first used force, and taking this back to the initial creation of property it is plain that the whole concept is based on initiation of force.
Whilst it is perhaps futile to say that the concept of private property is invalid, it is certainly the case that the application of non-initiation of force to the concept of property rights is NOT some superior morality. It is in fact an ad hoc justification of the current pattern of ownership, nothing more.
EG
Prperty derives from having your own spear,axe,bow and arrow.When the hunter gatherers settled down to cultivate land,wandering tribes of saw this and tried to steal it,which is where weaponry and the concept of property arose.The wandering tribes cunningly invented socialism to save themselves the bother of actually doing anything themselves.It was found that banning weaponry much enhanced the transfer of property.
Exactly. The establishment of private property ultimately rests on coercive force.
EG
Exactly. The establishment of private property ultimately rests on coercive force.
So provided I’ve got more firepower you’ve no objection to my taking your house?
I think this is a pretty stupid doctrine, and taken to its logical conclusion gives you a situation like Zimbabwe. If private property is indefensible then property is theft, and all property must belong to the state. Let’s kill the kulaks, it worked in Russia.
By the way, all private property is not land is it? Disobey one of Mr State’s many parking regulations and they’ll come along to take your car away, not your house (yet).
Hardly. I said this is how property orginated, and therefore that any idea that the sanctity of private property is rooted in the principle of non-initiation of force is invalid because the initiation of coercive force is exactly how private property came to exist in the first place. Whether the current pattern of ownership is considered coercive or not depends simply on where you place the cutoff point beyond which you ignore everything.
I did say that private property is either land or the product of human effort on the land. To clarify, if I make widgets I cannot make them unless I have somewhere to build my factory, and that needs land. The same applies to all the component parts that make up the widget and which I buy in from suppliers. Therefore, the widget is a result of human effort on the land, and if the ownership of land ultimately rests on coercion the widget is also a product of coercion.
It’s not to say “property is theft” but rather to illustrate that the idea that non-initiation of force is applicable to private property simply does not hold water. To the extent that libertarianism (whatever that means this week) is based on the sanctity of private property AND on the non-aggression principle, then that libertarianism is logically invalid because these two things are incompatible.
To clarify again, it is of course in practice absurd to deny anyone the right to any property, and we must in reality have some cutoff point beyond which prior claims cannot be admitted, and we must enforce claims after that time. The point is, though, that the concepts of private property and of the non-initiation of force are contradictory.
But f private property is after all indefensible as a concept, then we can consider all property to be theft, although the difficulty arises in defining from whom it was stolen. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it is taking without valid title, rather than taking from someone else who has valid title. Even if this is so, it does not mean that all property therefore belongs to the state. This is a false dilemma, because there is a third option – common ownership. Substantial areas of land are held in common ownership in many countries, and of course the seas are not owned.
EG
It’s interesting how the topic drifts, but never mind.
Euan Gray wrote: “Land was not owned before man came along to claim it – indeed, nothing was owned and the concept of ownership of property is a human construct.”
I beg to differ. There are a great many other aminals that protect their property (mostly nests and feeding grounds).
Best regards
Isn’t that what happens in debate?
I think there a distinction to be made between territory that is under your control as long as you’re strong enough to keep it, and property which is formally owned with rules about inheritance. In the case of man, the second followed the first – the first is the guy with the stick saying “it’s mine, keep off” and the second is the evolution of laws and rights of property. However, the animal concept is quite correct and simply supports my argument – property ownership comes from force.
That’s not the point, though. The point is that it is invalid to say that property can be justified by resort to the non-aggression principle, since it is clearly coercive force that set out property at the start.
EG
EG, as ever, has a strong point in this thread against people who advance the idea that libertarianism is a unitary coherent philosophical position that people who disagree with it don’t understand. (At least the Marxists had the get-out of false consciousness.) I’ve elsewhere opined that it it is no such thing, more of an orientation towards liberty and rationality. But here, I (as someone who does engage in real politics) think he goes wrong:
I seriously wonder if it occurs to you that one of the major reasons why libertarianism is about as popular as bubonic plague is precisely this: that you refuse to define what it is.
Proper definition is irrelevant to the success of political ideas in the real world. Ill-definedness is actually an advantage. Libertarianism is no different from socialism, communism, fascism, environmentalism, or any other ism to hand on that score. Where libertarians are relatively weaker than these is in the absence of anything resembling a programme or an utopian vision that is explicable in everyday terms.
There’s also this problem. There have been anti-political movements aplenty in the past in democracies. But generally their popular appeal has been on the basis of rejection of the political process and the political establishment as standing in the way of the use of power for some popular end. Libertarians would prefer a different sort of anti-politics in which the point is to prevent the exercise of power, so it is hard for them to offer anything in exchange for people’s support.
What’s a nudist? Nudism consists in not doing something and it is a struggle to give it any positive content. You either enjoy not wearing clothes or you don’t. Libertarians are political nudists.
To pursue that analogy, nudism only makes sense (as a label for a general avocation) in a society with taboos about the body, and liberatrianism only has meaning to its supporters as a contrast with a predominantly statist political culture.
What’s needed for libertarianism to be more than marginal complaints on the issues of the day is a concrete programme and some non-concrete attractions, as well as a bit of compromise. Otherwise wWe have more in common with Salafists than it is comfortable to contemplate.
Nigel Sedgwick – That’s an interesting point about animals and of course, you’re right. Dogs are extremely territorial. So are cats, but in a different (more civilised) way. In a neighbourhood with a lot of cats, they do timeshare. From here to garage two houses down, is your territory (including the end of my garden and wall walking privileges) until noon and I will not challenge you. From noon until twilight, it’s mine.
You get whole networks of cats who have this territory thing tied up like a legal document, and they all abide by it.
I don’t have any problem with this. My point about definitions is this:
1. If you’re going to dismiss criticism of your philosophy as a straw man, you need to define what your philosophy is, otherwise there is nothing to erect a straw man against;
2. If you say it cannot be defined because it is more of an orientation, that’s fine, but it means that you cannot dismiss objections as straw men because to do that you need to point to a defined policy or proposal the straw man misrepresents, and not an orientation.
My objection is that some people seem to want it both ways, and that cannot work.
OK, a valid point.
Surely, though, there’s a limit to ill-definedness? If the idea is so vague and nebulous that nobody has a clue what the proponent actually intends, this must be counter-productive?
There seems to be no shortage of Utopian visions or programs. The problem is they all contradict each other. Is it Friedman-style anarchy, or is it Hayekian sort-of-small state, for example? Both can be and have been described as libertarian, but they are radically different.
All very well, but surely the aim is to convince others, people who are NOT currently supporters? This can hardly be done by offering an essentially negative vision. Whatever one thinks of the political process and system, in order to get a philosophy accepted one has to convince people, and this needs a positive program. Since it doesn’t have such a thing in any unified and agreed upon sense, libertarianism seems doomed to remain an odd philosophy adhered to by a tiny minority of people, and libertarian debate seems doomed to remain a self-satisfied amen chorus of moans at everything else. This is unimpressive, to say the least.
Ah, yes. And how likely is that? There are enough libertarians who are satisfied that what one might call Austro-libertarianism is logically watertight, proven and unimpeachably correct, and who deny any utility in assessing real-world data to see how their theory performs in practice. How are such people likely to compromise with anything or anyone?
There are others seemingly less extreme, who nevertheless hold dogmatic, often absolutist positions on things ranging from property rights to social and economic regulation – frequently in denial or (possibly more likely in some cases) ignorance of reality. They may be saner economically, but how likely are they to compromise on other issues?
EG
Euan, as often happens, has it 180 degrees turned around.
Private property is not based on the use of force. Force is the antithesis of private property. He cites numerous examples of force defeating property rights and then claims that property finds its validity based on force. It’s rather frustrating that he doesn’t differentiate ‘property’ from ‘property right’ in his statements. One must conclude he considers them to be indistinguishable.
Some people in this thread seem to have bought into the idea that property is a pie to be divided fairly. So here’s another hypothetical. I right a book. Someone prints bootleg copies. How is my right to the book I wrote based on force? It is defeated by force! But Euan says
One must conclude that not only my right to my book, but my entire right to exist is based on land, but there is no right to land! It is only a product of strength. The only extrapolation I can make from this, is that existence is at the mercy of the government? Be they thugs or benevolent.
Euan repeatedly makes his case that property is based on land, therefore property is based on force. He states his position over and over again, so I don’t think I’m getting it wrong.
By his reasoning, he apparently considers the first person to remove property forcibly from someone else to be the first ‘rightful’ owner. That is unless, like most leftists, he considers defense of property to be an act of aggression and does not acknowledge any ‘right’ to property at all. He does make the remarkable interpretation
and states
In any case, as John K, points out, Euan grants all property (without reference to rights) to whoever is strongest. Anarchy has always devolved immediately to ‘the strongest rules’ so this is a totalitarian belief system that Euan is defending.
Even in his most recent statement he says
His case (until he amends it) leaves us with the following conclusions.
Possessions are property.
Property is derived from land.
Land is held by force.
Therefore, possessions must be derived from force.
Possessions are necessary to sustain life.
Therefore life derives from force.
Well, lets see how I ‘misunderstood’ him this time.
Make that ‘second most recent statement’.
EG,
All very well, but surely the aim is to convince others, people who are NOT currently supporters? This can hardly be done by offering an essentially negative vision.
I’m agreeing with you. My point is that libertarianism is not a political movement or programme in the ordinary sense, more a bundle of objections to the tenor of the times. That does not require an aim to convince others. (Compare non-missionary religions, where it is quite sufficient that the practices of the faith sustain the community in which they are practiced.) Neither soi disant “libertarians” nor their critics can have it both ways.
I would like to engage in the world and improve it by my lights, which does require policies and either a positive sell or opposition to particular concrete things. I might do so while thinking of myself as a libertarian, but it would be foolish of me to assume this conveys anything much to most people, let alone acting to convince them. I think coherent, moderate libertarian/liberal/individualist policies could be developed, but were an organisation to appear in Britain calling itself the Libertarian Party (something I don’t recommend) then Libertarian Party policies would necessarily not please many libertarians all the time, any more than Conservative Party policies would be identical with the views of all those we might call conservatives. A party, whatever its name, seeking to lead the country or the world in a libertarian direction, would necessarily not adopt policies very far from the centre of gravity of popular opinion–though should follow the example of Mr Blair in choosing an unexpected direction from the centre.
With respect, I think you’re the one conflating the two different things.
The concept of private property comes from the initial private control of land. Unless you can posit some reasonable alternative, it’s hard to see how else land could first have passed in to purely private hands than by somebody claiming it and using force or the threat thereof to deter anyone from disputing this. This is clearly coercion. Furthermore, it’s clearly what has happened throughout recorded history, so there is little reason to suppose the initial creation of property was any different. Once the concept is established, presumably through successive inheritances, the order of things tends to become accepted. But that does not mean it was not originally based on coercion.
The concept of property right is meaningless without the concept of property, and therefore I think it reasonable to say that the right flows from the fact of property. Because the fact of property is ultimately founded on coercive force, the rights surrounding property are the rights created to defend an order of things, that order of things arising through coercion.
Essentially what you have is the consensual acceptance (perhaps grudging in some cases) of a settled order of things, and the construction of rights – all of which are artificial social/philosophical constructs – to defend and preserve this order. These rights are not contingent on (coercive) force to exist, although obviously (retaliatory) force is necessary if they are to be implemented. What it amounts to is that, once established, property is no longer dependent on coercion, but that the very concept of property could not have arisen in the first place without coercion.
Hence, my contention that the basing of any philosophy on both the sanctity of private property and on a complete rejection of the initiation of force is invalid, because they are contradictory. The most you can say is “no initiation of force after this arbitrary point X”
Going back to land in North America, because it is a clear example most will follow, consider land acquired through military conquest. The people who own it now have rights to it, but they are only able to own it because it was acquired through the coercive use of force. So you can defend their existing property right by denying the validity of initiating force, but you cannot say the same about how that property came to be in the hands of American citizens in the first place. You’re saying, in effect, coercion before the date of conquest is irrelevant, but coercion now is not permitted. Another arbitrary point X. All the critic has to do, though, is say that the coercive use of force by (in this case) the United States government is wrong, and we have the situation where the current property right is indefensible.
That’s a fairly advanced right, and it is a right surrounding intellectual rather than tangible property. Although the history of copyright is a fascinating subject in its own right (no pun intended), this is not the place to go into it. Suffice it to say that it is not all the same thing as rights surrounding tangible property.
This is wrong, but the first part flows understandably from the earlier error in assuming that because the concept of property is based on coercion so the right of property is based on coercion – it isn’t, it is a non-coercive right in defence of something that exists because of initial coercion. Why this means some or all other rights are necessarily based on the rights of property I fail to see. Why the government comes into it really have no idea.
No, the first person to declare it to be his and successfully defend it. Whether he stole it from someone else or just claimed it is not the point.
No, I say this is how the concept of property came to exist. Looking at your list of conclusions:
Possessions are property – True
Property is derived from land – True
Land is held by force – Ultimately true
Therefore, possessions must be derived from force- Ultimately true
Possessions are necessary to sustain life – Untrue
Therefore life derives from force – Conclusion invalidated by untrue premise
EG
Preview is your friend. The only part of the paragraph intended to be in bold face is “The concept of property right”
EG
Fair enough, I can accept that.
And that too. This critic would just like to know which way the libertarians want to have it so he can respond accordingly.
EG
No the establisment of private property depends on DEFENSIVE force,innitially nobody wanted the land until somebody added value to it.
It is the socialist tribe which uses coercion under the pretense of redistribution
And how does that work in the American example, exactly?
EG
We have two separate events bound in to one as though they could not exist independantly.
First off, I’ve never heard of songs being claimed by a discoverer. (George Harrison’s Sweet Lord, aside.) Intellectual property is a product of a thinking person, not plate tectonics. (I note lower in your comment you say something that can be interpreted to mean you overstepped your case and don’t want IP to count in this discussion.)
But even if we ignore IP and use the case of a desert island, one without any historical claim, the first claimant does not use force to claim it. If is common for holders of common property to divvy it up by lottery or some other means. It is when someone makes a second claim that the conflict occurs. So, clearly it is possible to hold even land without force in the absence of a second claimant. Your case for only a forcible possession of property is a chimera.
Your intention to conflate unchallenged possession with challenged possession is a devious way of denying the possibility of peaceful ownership. That helps you avoid making a moral judgment on the claims of either party. I state, in contradiction to your case, that each party’s claim will have differing merit. You avoid this case by denying the possibility of peaceful ownership.
So where does unjust possession of property fit in? Throughout your case, you seem to be denying the unjustness of forcibly taking property. To do this, you avoid the concept of rightful ownership. You say all rights are “artificial social/philosophical constructs”. Property itself is an “artificial social/philosophical construct”! If you are resorting to that argument then you have no business discussing property in the first place.
You use for an example of forcible first ownership, America, and you pick it up in the middle of a conquest of the prior owners. You then go into such a tangle of CYA denials and qualifications that I won’t bother to itemize. You then go back to more familiar turf and make the following claim.
Ah, … what?! How can
make the slightest bit of sense?
And in the final comments you agree with everything I attributed to you up until –
I’m not sure about you, but I certainly possess the food I eat. I haven’t figured out how to eat it without possessing it. And I do think it’s necessary to sustain my life.
I’m done with this topic on this thread. Maybe if it comes up on a more suitable thread, I’ll follow it up, but other people can do that as well as I can.
Midwesterner,
Your first two paragraphs don’t make sense. You cite my comment on the origination of real property but then discuss intellectual property, although it is a completely different thing. Even if you’re trying to equate the two, you are only stressing the difference. Please clarify what point you’re trying to make here.
But this is in the case of uncontested possession. Civilisation did not arise from a solitary individual on a desert island, but from groups of nomads adopting a settled life. In such circumstances, the probability of the first attempt at possession being contested is very much higher – almost inevitable, I’d say.
In any event, your objection does not address the case of land acquired by conquest and the subsequent allocation of property rights.
I don’t deny the possibility of peaceful ownership. However, I do question the relevance this has to the development of the concept of property amongst nomads starting to settle.
So who judges, on what basis is judgement reached and by what right is it enforced? If it is by superior firepower (or axe-power, whatever), then it still comes down to force. If it is by some other means, presumably the judgement is enforced somehow, and this too requires coercion. So either way, we are still left with the initial creation of private property as an act of force.
Quite the reverse. I questioned it in the case of land acquired by conquest and in several earlier comments where I asked what happened to the rights of previous owners from whom land was taken by force.
I know. What’s your point here?
And what is your answer to the question of the validity of current ownership rights of this land, since it was undeniably obtained by military conquest? You acknowledge my use of the example, but you don’t answer the question.
Fairly obviously. Why does it matter whether he stole it from someone or claimed it before anyone else did? Assuming he is successful, he is either using force to defend an act of theft, or he is using force to defend anyone who subsequently disputes his right to vacant possession (or will be as soon as someone challenges it).
There is a distinction between simple possession and ownership. Possessions in the simple sense are necessary to life, since you have to actually have food in order to eat it. You don’t need to own it, though. The concept at issue is not mere possession of an object but the idea of ownership of the object, and that is assuredly not essential to life.
EG
Oh Euan. And they say you don’t have a sense of humor. Please don’t return any food you’ve eaten that was borrowed from me.
Seriously, in a nutshell, this is your statement that we don’t even own our own bodies.
Actually, I don’t think they do, but that’s neither here nor there.
You’re a nomad, wandering across the heath and you happen across a tree. You pick some fruit from it and you eat it. You possess the food, in the simple sense that it is in your hand. But in what sense do you own the food, or the tree, or the heath?
You live in a primitive tribe which has only communal property. You eat, but in what sense do you own the food?
I possess a laptop computer, but I don’t own it. It belongs to my employer. You see the difference between possession and ownership? Between having a thing and having a title to a thing?
Also, I’d be really interested to hear your view on the validity of property rights in territory taken by military conquest.
EG
You don’t know (and you sure don’t) so nobody does, eh? What a self-important jerk.
Jesus people, can’t you see a troll when you see one? Do not feed the trolls! He will not EVER say you have answered him unless you agree with him! And stop letting him hijack every thread with endless digressions! IGNORE HIM!
What American example?
Are trolls banned from the fire service also,on the grounds that they block the ladder whilst engaging in meaningless wittering?
“The establishment of property rights rests on coercive force”, writes EG.
Heh?. It is entirely possible to conjecture how ownership could arise through a non-coercive route, though of course in reality the existence of governments and forced transfers of property have clouded the issue a lot, to be sure. But to say that property rights necessarily involve the initiation of force is is an assertion in need of proof, Euan. You cannot go around making statements like that without demonstrating your reasoning and considering alternatives.
Go and read this book (Link)for some pointers on how property rights can arise without coercion.
The bit where I wrote in response to Midwesterner:
Going back to land in North America, because it is a clear example most will follow, consider land acquired through military conquest. The people who own it now have rights to it, but they are only able to own it because it was acquired through the coercive use of force. So you can defend their existing property right by denying the validity of initiating force, but you cannot say the same about how that property came to be in the hands of American citizens in the first place. You’re saying, in effect, coercion before the date of conquest is irrelevant, but coercion now is not permitted. Another arbitrary point X. All the critic has to do, though, is say that the coercive use of force by (in this case) the United States government is wrong, and we have the situation where the current property right is indefensible.
It’s in my comment timed 7:12pm today.
EG
Then please do so, and explain why it is more likely than the coercive route.
Also, perhaps you could refer to the American example given where land was taken by force from its owners.
What is the justification for the current property rights in such territory? Answers along the lines of a libertarian society wouldn’t do that kind of thing in the future, or that it’s in the past so no need to bother about it don’t address the issue – the fact is that this situation exists.
What is the justification, using the non-aggression principle and the primacy of property rights, for granting property rights to the current owners. Does the use of coercive force – by a government, no less – in any way invalidate or lessen the right of the current owners to their property? If it does not, why not? Does the passage of time legitimise it? If so, can anyone occupy any land and wait for a century & then say everything is fine and legal? If not, why not?
EG
A community of persons could agree on a “prime mover” rule of homesteading open virgin territory, for example. That is an obvious example of non-coercive creation of property. (Let’s assume that there were no tribal groups around in this territory, just animals.)
In reality, all property has emerged through some sort of conflict, not necessarily through brute violence. Some seems to have been lost in the mists of time. But I think the theory of how property can arise in this way is extremely useful in rooting it in ideas we have about justice. Otherwise, as Midwesterner said, how can we debate what is unjustly held property and resist the State’s assaults, as in the dreadful Kelo case?
That is the problem with your “pragmatic” political philosophy, Euan. It all seems, well, rather cynical.
Fair enough.
So what about the other questions?
EG
I am ernestly following asus phreak’s advice to
In case anyone is still interested, the council rejected the request to ban the BNP from the fire service, on the grounds that the BNP was a legal political party, and that if one of their members misbehaved he could be disciplined in the normal way. Another comment was that since the fire brigades union was rife with communists twenty years ago, and they weren’t banned then, they saw no reason to ban the BNP now.
Andy.
Andy – Thank you for that breath of reality! And how interesting that the council rejected this little communist control freak’s diktat! They have more sense in Dorset than they do in the British Midlands, where banks are disallowing piggy banks so as not to offend a certain very-tiny-minority segment of society — in fact, it’s such a small segment, I can’t think who they are. Oh, wait a minute …
Once we find out which banks were involved, if any of them is a bank I do business with, that business will have ceased by the end of the business day. I will not do business with DhimmiBank.
Well, that’s easier than answering difficult questions, I suppose. The question of property rights and their incompatibility with the non-aggression principle does undermine quite a bit in libertarianism, but it’s interesting to see how the question is simply ignored, as if that would make it go away.
EG
Back on the original topic, one question I would like to ask this fire department is this: what other groups would you consider banning from joining the service, and why?
Euan, you did not answer my point about the possibility of property rights arising in a non-aggressive way other than just flick it aside! So spare us snide remarks about how we ignore your questions. I answered it and that’s that. I guess the only time you think we answer you is if you agree with what we say.
Go and read the book I linked to and then see me after class.
Your point was about property, not property rights – there is a difference. I had in any case already answered it to Midwesterner, when I said quite clearly that I did not deny the possibility of property coming to exist in non-aggressive fashion, but I questioned the relevance of it and said that I thought there were several questions still remaining: how likely is it? who judges competing claims? how are judgements reached? by what authority and indeed by what mechanism are the judgements enforced against dissenters? I do accept the point, as I have already made clear, but I think these questions remain unanswered, and the upshot is, I think, that you cannot remove coercion from the initial creation of property.
So, to make it really plain and clear:
I accept that property can arise peacefully;
I dispute that this is the most likely method;
My contention is supported by the coercive grabbing of property throughout history;
I’m not aware of many real world cases of it actually arising peacefully other than vacant possession in unpopulated areas;
Even so, that doesn’t address the question of the origination of the concept of private property;
Even if it did, questions still remain about the use of force.
You didn’t.
You haven’t addressed the point about property rights in land taken by military conquest. To say “lost in the mists of time” is risible in the case of North America, given that most of this happened well under 200 years ago. This is a question that strikes deeply at notions of the non-aggression principle and the sanctity of private property, and I note that answers have been avoided.
I have to say that I’m also somewhat reluctant to accept this kind of criticism from someone who in this thread repeatedly evaded a similarly inconvenient question and responded with scatalogical insult when pressed – and then said I was the bully. What’s bullying about asking difficult questions?
You also still haven’t told me why you think that calling lying about an adulterous affair hypocrisy is in any way “outrageous,” despite being asked more than once in that same thread.
EG
Another comment was that since the fire brigades union was rife with communists twenty years ago, and they weren’t banned then, they saw no reason to ban the BNP now.
Twenty years ago? If only. It’s still full of the buggers!
It seems obvious that there are only two equitable solutions:
1. Any person employed at the public expense should be forbidden from membership in any political party whatsoever;
2. No person should be prevented from membership of a lawful political party (you need to make an exception for the armed forces, though)
The first option is arguably unreasonable.
EG
It’s like there’s a parallel universe going on here. The topic, and then there’s Euan Gray eating up bandwidth and causing everyone to scroll down over his wordy personal PhD dissertations, seeking out the next on-topic legitimate comment. The people trying to stay on topic are swamped.
This is all part of the “core values” agenda. And it should be remembered that “anti racism” is only part of that agenda.
The central part of the agenda is support for “democracy” (meaning an elected government with vast powers) and positive welfare rights (to be provided by this government). One can see this in citzenship courses at schools and in the little courses for immigrants.
Anybody who does not believe in the above is an “extemist” whose freedom of speech should be limited (or so thinks the Charles Clarke the Home Secretary). So that is us in jail then (well apart from the Troll visitors to this site of course).
Laws against “Muslim extremists” can be used against other “extremists” as well. And (of course) there is the little law going through Paliament that will make attacking the religious opinions of Muslims a crime – a law that is not supported by the majority of people (but then “democracy” does not mean rule by the majority, it seems to mean rule by an elected government even when what they are doing is only supported by a small minority of people).
Of course if the fire bragade were made up of unpaid volunteers (as, to some extent, it is even is in high tax Denmark), they would have some sort of right to say “we do not like this person’s opinions, we do not want him in our club” ditto if it was a private commercial operation (say part of the services of a private town).
But if we are going to have a government service we can not have one that asks people what their political opinions are before it allows them to have (non security) government jobs.
For indeed, if not B.N.P. then why socialists? After all a socialist could say “I am not going to risk my life fighting the fire in a rich man’s house”.
It is the question of tax.
If the majority of people wish to give their money to a cult leader (say called a “Prime Minister” or a “President”) or follow all his ravings (“regulations”), that is up to them.
However, they have no right to enforce their “taxes” and “regulations” on the minority.
The problem arrises if one thinks that government is needed (which I sometimes do). Slight of hand such as found in John Locke (where individual consent suddenly mutates into majority consent, as pointed out by Gough in Oxford before World War II – Gough also pointed out that even in the middle ages scholars knew perfectly well the difference between individual and majority concent so Locke’s slight of hand is unacceptable) will not do.
I suppose one has to fall back on lesser evil arguments. Tax for the armed forces is a violation of property rights, but invasion and conquest will be an even bigger violation (although this does not cover the irritating habit of governments of starting wars in distant lands – but there we are).
As for a fire bragades I see no reason why this should be a government service (after all in many places in the world there are voluntary fire bragages), but if we have a government fire bragade clearly there can not be questions into the political opinions of the members of it.
Actually I am fairly positive about the view of the public on this (which is rare for me). I very much doubt whether most people would say that working for the fire bragade should depend on support for the correct political party.
Two things to avoid.
Compromise.
It almost goes without saying, but not quite. The temptation to say “of course group X can be hit – they are beyond the Pale” is fatal. After all (at least according the New Labour defintion of the lines) libertarians and traditionalist conservatives are “beyond the Pale” as well – there is nothing they want to do to the B.M.P. that they do not also wish to do to us.
Laughing.
Efforts to “laugh out” such policies tend to fail. “Ho Ho, it is politcal correctness gone mad”.
First it is not “gone mad”, it is just normal political correctness (i.e. intolerance for opinions that do not agree with the powers that be).
Second if one laughs at something it implies that it is not important. People have a good “Ho Ho” whilst reading it in their newspapers over breakfast and then forget about it.
Debate yes – “deal” no.
Anger yes – humour no.
Logical argument backed by anger (with the anger being a servant, not the master, of the argument) may not lead to victory but it may yet.
Start with a protest to Dorset Country Council. Anyone who lives in Dorset about?
And are they not supposed to be a Conservative County Council, honour bound to defend the traditions of this nation?
True Conservative party members (especially of the “modern” fraternity) invent endless excuses as to why they should not do their duty and oppose such evils as this – but that is no reason not to try and remind them of where their duty lies.
Euan, if I recall – it was a while back – my horror at your attitude was the “only the guilty have anything to fear” argument in defence of CCTV and the filming of aulterous people.
Whatever. No doubt we can debate your defence of the Big Brother state another time on a relevant thread.
Funny why you didn’t say that at the time, despite being asked twice, isn’t it? Even so, that wasn’t the argument I was making and you know it. You’re clutching at straws, I suspect, because you don’t actually have an answer to the questions. You haven’t said why you apparently think mendacity about adultery is not hypocrisy, either.
Nor, it would appear, do you have an answer to the question here about coercively obtained property. Possibly for the same reason – the question strikes at a matter which seriously undermines your thesis and you can’t respond without acknowledging this.
I don’t think because you don’t answer that I have won any argument. I simply conclude that you don’t have an answer and thus rather than saying so or admitting a difficulty you just ignore the question in the hope it will go away. The resort to verbal abuse merely reinforces this view, of course.
Provided we can do it without ignoring difficult questions, resorting to foul language or rephrasing issues to misrepresent my view – such as the “defence of the Big Brother state” above – then I’d be delighted to.
EG
At a meeting on 24 October the Dorset Fire Authority unanimously voted to drop the statement about the BNP.
Members defended the rights of fire officers to be judged on their actions not their beliefs. It was a small victory for freedom.
More can be seen on this for those interested on my blog.
I suspect that Gerald Hartup’s coment is worth all the rest of the comments (inculding mine) put together.
As for claims that the non aggression principle has never been defined or that libertarians have never explained their position on property – errr well I was writing on such matters decades ago, and other libertarians wrote about them long before I was born.
I don’t think anyone’s arguing that. The non-aggression principle is explained and easily enough understood, but it has problems – namely that going back one step in the cycle completely changes the situation, and that this can only be defeated by applying it after an arbitrary point and ignoring everything before that. The position on property varies between different libertarians, but it’s clear there is generally a heavy focus on the sanctity of private property. This also has problems, namely that people without property – of whom there are always many – have no power in a libertarian disposition & the idea that others will be queueing up to employ their skills or talents is laughable.
EG
Oh dear I am going to be unwise again and reply to what Mr Gray has said.
I think he means the problem that all most land (apart from some in Iceland and other rare cases) can, at one time or another, be held to have been taken by force.
So one could buy land from someone who had bought (or inherited it) from someone who had…….. but somewhere one would find a violation of the nonaggression principle (apart from in a few rare cases where can trace land ownership right back to the first human beings in the area and prove that there was no invasion).
I must confess this seems like a nonproblem. Unless one can point at a criminal – “that bad man stole this land”, or a victim “that person is the rightful owner of this land”. The sins of long dead forefathers (or people who were not forefathers at all) do not fall upon present generations or effect their title – which rests on long peaceful possession (see Edmund Burke on this point – he did not claim the estates once held by his Nagle ancestors, taken from them by Cromwell and other Protestant militants, for he held, rightly, that the present owners of these estates were the true owners).
It is a bit like the few black people who demand “reperations” from white people (most of whom were never slave owners in the first place). I wonder how such activists would feel if there was counter claim for the 600,000 men killed in the Civil War, the destruction of the South, the eternal National Debt for the United States, the welfare payments made since the 1930’s and (of course) reperations for the victims of crime over the last several decades.
All very silly on both sides.
“I who am not a victim, demand payment from you who have committed no crime”.
“My case is that a distant ancestor of mine (who died long before my parents were born) was a victim of someone who had the same skin colour as you”.
On the point about “different views of property” – well Mr Gray could mean “libertarian socialists” (in which case I am happy to call myself a “propertarian” if they have prior claim over the word “libertarian”).
Or, more interestinly, Mr Gray could mean the view of land held by some classical liberals (they did not call themselves libertarians of course) in the 19th century.
Both James Mill and Herbert Spencer said some odd things about land at times (although Spencer changed) – they let their hatred of the Corn Laws lead them into some rather nasty talk about land owners.
Of course this still lives with us in the followers of Henry George (for a refutation of Henry George’s ideas see Murry Rothbard ‘s “Man, Economy and State” 1962).
On the problem of the people with no property (other than their bodies), well property rights (i.e. civil society)are the best way to reduce poverty in the long term.
“But they will not accept this – they are comming over the fence with pitchforks, saying that your great, great, great grandfather stole the land anyway”.
Well I accept that can happen, but I do not think it happens on a whim – someone must have been leading the poor on.
It is not just “natural” for a poor man to want to rob a rich one (afterall, my income and wealth are well below the national avarage and I do not wish to rob anyone).
Normally it is some dishonest collectivist at the bottom of it. Lenin promised the peasants all the land (they owned a lot of it already – which is forgotten), and so did Mao (and the peasants of China owned most of the land before 1949 – which is also forgotten).
Both Lenin and Mao were lying – they intended the peasants to own NONE of the land (i.e. to lose what land they already had).
“The people” (i.e. the power elite) was to own the land.
This is normally the way of these things.
Not complicated philosophy, just power mad bastards trying to generate envy in the hope of profitiing from it.
Oh well “all most” and other wonderful typing from me.
Still that will be least of my worries, no doubt words will be ripped from their contexts, explinations ignored or distorted (and so on).
After all I have written on these matters (and written rather better) before – and to no effect.
I was foolish to reply.
OK, Mr Marks, let’s have a look at this.
Most land has indeed at some point been taken by force from rightful owners. I have no objection whatsoever to the idea that the passage of time legitimises this, provided enough time has passed and the plight of the descendants of the victims is no longer exacerbated by the fact. Compare, for example, land acquired by conquest in the US from Mexico to land forcibly acquired from black landowners in South Africa in the early 20th century. In the one case, the big picture is that no great injustice remains, but in the other it arguably does, although not JUST from the acquisition of land – the policy of systematic repression of the black peoples in South Africa is the main problem, of which the taking of land is but a small part.
My objection is to an absolutist view of property right and the application of the non-aggression principle to property rights. It is obvious that using such absolutist arguments, the current residents of, for example, New Mexico have no valid title to their land. It was taken from rightful owners by government force in a war of territorial expansion. The only way this can really be dealt with is indeed to set an arbitrary time before which claims are ignored. That’s fine and pragmatic, and I have no problem with it. However, it makes a mockery of the non-aggression principle and it denies the sanctity of absolute property right.
Suppose I were today to steal your property at gunpoint and defend it for myself. If your great-great-grandson comes to my great-great-grandson and demands restoration of the land, does he have a case? If yes, then the residents of New Mexico have no title. If no, then the non-aggression principle doesn’t work because all one has to do is wait a century or so and everything is ignored.
So which one is it, and why?
As for the USSR, the case is not as simple as you make out. When the serfs were freed and allowed to buy the land they worked, many of them did. Indeed, as you say, large areas of land were owned by the peasants. You may or may not be aware that under the terms of emancipation the peasants had to pay off heavy loans for the purchase of the land, and in some cases these were not due to be fully repaid well into the 1930s. The grievance of many of the peasants at the time of the revolution was not unfounded.
EG