RE: “Defining Voluntaryism” - No, private property is not “optional” (addressing @lukestokes)
@lukestokes, please define "a different approach."
If I fairly earned my wealth and spent it on land, that land is mine. No one else has any right to it.
Let's use an example:
I buy 100 acres of forest near the mountains in Virginia, and I put a cabin on it. Then I rent that cabin out when I'm not there. Am I allowed to have that property within your system?
Here's another example:
Because I have accumulated a lot of wealth, I own multiple businesses and homes. I rent the houses out for profit too. Am I allowed to own those businesses and homes in your system?
When is my private property no longer ethical to you, Kenny, and others? How much am I allowed to own before you will use force to take it? Please explain to me, using examples, where you stand.
Can people call themselves Voluntaryists and be against private property? My answer is absolutely not. It's not possible and never will be. Perhaps you can explain to me why you think it is possible though.
What about the indigenous peoples who may have roamed the lands before colonists stole it as their own?
Where these individuals had established settlements they should be recompensed if possible and reinstated to the land.
Simply being nomads on unaltered lands, however, cannot grant a property right. This is because this would mean one could simply roam around anywhere, and claim they owned any and all lands roamed upon. This excludes others from exercising universalizable opportunity norms in regard to finding/claiming resources necessary for life. This objectively potentiates/creates violent conflict by systematic design (indeed it is another iteration of the “divine right to rule”) and as such, is incompatible with voluntaryism.
Roamed is the key word there, but tribes still had territories. They fought and died defending them from other tribes too. Then the Europeans came in and defeated them. Do I agree with what was done? I absolutely do not. If I were alive back then, I'd be fighting with the tribes against the outside invaders. Fast forward to today though, and what about those indigenous people? How much should I be responsible for to right past wrongs? Did I commit them? I've written before and will write it again: get rid of the federal government, and give national parks to the tribes. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it is something closer to the complete lack of justice they have seen so far.
Ironically it was the concept of stewardship as opposed to ownership that probably saved the lives of the first colonists. My favorite piece of the theiving lore was that they bought Manhatten for some beads. My guess is that the concept of selling off (or for that matter owning in the first place) a piece of Mother Earth was likely a foriegn concept to the natives.
Voluntarism needs to adopt the stewardship approach to avoid inevitable conflict over land ownership, in my opinion.
The voluntaryist property ethic is already based on objective reality, and is universalizable. Merely having a vague and arbitrarily defined concept of "stewardship" objectively and systematically creates greater potential for violent conflict as there would be no equality of opportunity (universalizability) in regard to the necessity of appropriating and acquiring resources for the sustenance of life.
Settlements that existed and which indigenous individuals appropriated with their bodies should be returned as best as possible.
Assigning centralized, arbitrary "stewards" (dictators) is a recipe for more disaster, if history and logic have anything to say about the matter.
Now, if some people want to live in stewardship-based communities/societies (as they define them), GREAT! As long as each individual to be governed by the guidelines explicitly consents to them. This, too, is Voluntaryism.
Ownership of pieces of the earth by individuals and voluntarism will lead to inevitable violence in my opinion. Until a voluntarist can break from their crapitalist programming they will not be able to make the leap from theory to practise in my opinion. That same opinion is held by me for many Libertarians as well. No biggie, it just breaks the concept for me.
That’s your opinion, but I have an argument based on concrete, objective reality:
Without a universalizable means by which to appropriate scarce resources necessary for the sustenance of life, violent conflict is engendered. Do you agree?
Well that's the thing. Never came looking for an argument nor to change the opinion of others unless they want to change those opinions. 😎
There are too many factors leading to your theoretical choice to give a definitive answer and too tired to give a more robust explanation. Think my points have been made. Take 'em or leace 'em. ✌💛
Not an argument as in a “fight,” of course, but in the classic sense of discourse.
What a cop out answer. Lol. I came and said a bunch of stuff, but I’m too lazy to defend it. Okay.
Well. Have a good one.