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RE: “Defining Voluntaryism” - No, private property is not “optional” (addressing @lukestokes)
Ownership of oneself seems straightforward enough. It seems that things get more complicated when claiming ownership of things like pieces of the globe or lakeside plots of land.
It had been explained to me that using ones energy on nature can give someone claim of ownership like in the clearing of forests to make fields. Such a criteria sounds subjective, and unworkable, to me.
I completely agree with you. Land ownership is very tricky which means some aspects of private property are very tricky. If you go back far enough, land ownership claims almost always involve some violent group against another. Self-ownership seems obvious to me as well, but surprisingly I've actually had debates with people who feel otherwise. It's usually a waste of time.
Then we are in agreement here, that voluntaryism is always based on private property norms of one sort or another because self-ownership is private property. This is ALL I am saying. Thus, asserting that some legitimate conceptions of voluntaryism are not based on property is incorrect, by definition.
Are you going to put efforts into improving the Wikipedia page? I agree with your perspective, I'm simply saying not everyone does and as evidence I give the encyclopedia.
Self ownership is a form or private property, yes. There are many forms of private property, many nuances to it (such as land rights and land disputes) which are not at all clear. Some people have views on those aspects of private property which you or I may not agree with, but they still hold to the NAP, self-ownership, and a "philosophy which holds that all forms of human association should be voluntary." I've met these people. I don't agree with them on everything, but I won't tell them what labels they are allowed to use based on nuanced private property disagreements. That was the point was trying to make, not that self-ownership isn't part of voluntaryism.
If S.O. is a form of private property (your second quote here), then your initial assertion (first quote) which asserts that some who don't violate the NAP may disagree, becomes illogical.
To disagree with ISO and to abide by the NAP is an absurdism, as to abide by the NAP is to agree with ISO.
Do you get it? Any NAP-based definition of Voluntaryism inlcudes private property, as to abide by the NAP one must respect and understand ISO (private property).
So it is not just "my definition" but any NAP-compatible definition which includes private property.
I am glad to see we actually agree here now.
To me, self-ownership (undisputed) is a subset of the larger category of private property (disputed). They are not exactly the same thing, though built of the same stuff. As an example, land ownership is a form of private property. There are many real disputes within the voluntaryist/anarchist/etc community about justified claims of land ownership. There are disputes and disagreements about this category of private property. Those same people may have zero disputes or disagreements about self-ownership.
Right, so your initial statement (first quote) was not accurate and demonstrably incorrect.
You stated that some people's NAP-based conceptions of voluntaryism do not include private property. This is categorically incorrect as ISO is a form of private property and is necessitated if NAP compliance would be present.
I did not argue that there were no gray areas, once extrapolated.
I was referring to specific aspects of private property, not the entire concept itself which also includes self-ownership. You say "a form of" now which seems to agree with my distinction.
I did not say:
I said:
"may take a different approach on that point" should have been clarified on my part as something more like "have differing views on the role of some forms of private property as it relates to voluntaryism, specifically contentious ones related to land ownership."
As I've already mentioned (and you did not reply to), common understandings of these words are influenced by dictionaries and encyclopedias. We'd both be better off (as would the world) improving those common understandings than going back and forth here on things we essentially agree on.
Yes, and this necessary clarification and qualification was not made. Thus the correction. You can accept/concede this, and we can move on.
Haha. No, I think I will decide what I would be "better off" doing, thanks. I am clarifying, not going back and forth.
Maybe a tip that could help you in the future is to consider that going "back and forth" often happens when one party is unwilling to concede valid logical points for whatever reason.
Yes. You did not clarify. Thus the correction of the logically invalid statement.
We good?
I think this is far less subjective than the current paradigm of “I’m a special leader, that’s mine” but there are of course gray areas.
However, where Luke’s claim is concerned, no. That is not gray at all. I am a self-owner. Consent necessitates self-ownership (private property).
Please, do not misrepresent my actual views. My actual views on private property related to my comment deal directly with the complexities of land ownership. That was one of our original disagreements regarding national parks, if you remember. If I wasn't clear about my views, please ask for clarification.
I did. Only to be told I was not focusing on ideas and principles, but people. My reply to @novacadian is about the fact that ISO is private property. I did not say there were no gray areas in regard to private property issues. It is not hard to understand. Thanks for your input.
There has to be some form of private property ownership though. Some land, like the lakeside lot, is going to be worth more than other land. Some land will have gold on the surface or under it. Other land will not. Land near fertile areas will be worth more than desert land. Humans have to have a fair way to control those areas. If there is no private property system, who gets to control it then? Who decides where who lives? Who gets the lot with gold, and who gets to live beside the lake? That group or that person then becomes a ruler.
My feeling is that to move forward on a voluntarian system we need to adopt a stewardship mentality when it comes to property (land) ownership.
With an exceptable criteria of good stewardship a community could then decide to assign or revoke stewardship to land depending on how the individual lives up to that criteria.
Ad long as each individual in the society voluntarily agrees to this system, sure.
I'm a business owner, and I plan to add more businesses to my list of assets. Am I inherently evil for owning them? I also plan to buy properties with houses or cabins on them to rent to people. Does that make me evil? According to some people here, I'm not "allowed" to have such things. Having them makes me a tyrant in their opinion apparently.
Not evil in the least, in my opinion, @finnian. To be applauded in fact in capitalism. My thought was that too much of capitalism is backed up with guns to be a good economic system to use in a voluntarist community.
Corporatism is. Capitalism, absent the state, is nothing more than the freedom to trade. This will always be fully present in any free society.
Bringing land ownership into trade changes things considerably, in my opinion.
The trade of which you speak brought to my mind an image of a post crusade english market... existing after the crusades yet before the Lords of the Land stepped in and outlawed all transaction tokens but their own.
In the new markets of post crusade england a boot maker might give a boot chit to the miller for flour who might then give it to a guild member he wants to do work on their mill. The peasants were accumulating wealth and with such trade; as you rightly mention; more freedom. They still did not own land at this point.
By adopting crapitalism volunterists are destined to create a new boss from the old one; should they ever move from theory to becoming actualized, in my opinion.
Please see my other comment regarding the objective necessity of a universalizable property norm if violent conflict is to be minimized.