This is where I stop believing Obama is possibly a rational, intelligent man.

[benjamindees]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

I'd also like to know which libertarian policies, specifically, you feel are oppressive.  Saying "the market" is not sufficient since markets exist even in the absence of government.

[lemonginger]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

How about the example by where a group of people who don't believe in private land ownership or titling or other Western concepts of contract law have their land stolen by a bunch of people who then sell it to anarcho-capitalists who claim that the original landholders/users aren't entitled to either their land or compensatory damages because they can't show proof of ownership?

[Anonymous]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

How about the example by where a group of people who don't believe in private land ownership or titling or other Western concepts of contract law have their land stolen by a bunch of people who then sell it to anarcho-capitalists who claim that the original landholders/users aren't entitled to either their land or compensatory damages because they can't show proof of ownership?

Land has little value nowadays. Value is derived mostly from other media. Even if we could return land to its rightful owners, it would add little value to the situation at large. In fact, it would take away more resources to make such a thing happen. It's an unrealistic gambit.

[benjamindees]

Value is derived mostly from other media.

"Media" like the slave labor of landless peasants?

[MoonShadow]

He means the improvements of construction and the like.  The land that once belonged to an indian tribe in Florida was nearly worthless swampland until Walt Disney & company bought it up to build Disney World.  It was the idea that was most valuable, not the real estate.  But even the idea was worthless without the labor to make it real.

[lemonginger]

Land has little value nowadays.

Land has plenty of value everywhere. Land still has an incredible amount of value and is the difference between being able to live/die or provide for your family without slave labor in someone's factory 2 days away in large swaths of the unindustrialized world.

You do realize clashes over land reform and land ownership are still resulting in guerrilla and  civil wars in many countries, right?

I agree that "land" tends to be fetishized by socialists and libertarians alike, and that today large scale inequality in capital may be of much more pressing importance in industrialized countries, but it still doesn't chance the fact of the argument that basing a society around an atomistic view of the individual and individual rights as well as strong and exclusive property rights rests on axiomatic assumptions that people have to agree to (or be forced to agree to) which was my original point and at least part of AyeYo's point (I think they want to make other points as well, so I won't speak for them)

[benjamindees]

Well, it's not really pertinent to the topic of the thread, but there are far too many erroneous assumptions in a statement like "land has little value nowadays" to even begin to deconstruct here.  It's kind of like, if I burn down your house, and then give you a tent, and then erect a monetary monopoly that spends a hundred years forcibly subsidizing tents and burning down houses, and then claim that "value no longer comes from houses, it comes from tents".

[Anonymous]

What I mean is that most wealth today isn't derived from land. It's derived from innovation and a lot of intangible products.

[AyeYo]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

An actual example of what?  The fact that, if defined as you people define it, ANY system of social contruction is "coercive" to those that do not 100% agree with it and ALL are enforced under threat of violence to one extent or another?

I'm not sure which part of that you're having a difficult time wrapping your mind around.  Perhaps it's because you think Liberland would be a flawless utopia that no person could do anything but love with all their heart.

If you really can't stretch your mind even the slightest bit, this snipet from a blog I read recently sums up the issue pretty well...

A market economy is the collective sum of the decisions of individuals. This affects other individuals, including those who do not want to be subjected to market outcomes. The market is coercive. But the word “coercion” to a libertarian can only refer to coercion by the state that doesn’t involve protecting property.

Now, try hard, using my previous posts, if necessary, in which I've had to repeat myself at least five times, to understand the simple 1 + 1 = 2 going on here.


EDIT:

Just noticed this post, in which the issue is summarized even better:

but it still doesn't chance the fact of the argument that basing a society around an atomistic view of the individual and individual rights as well as strong and exclusive property rights rests on axiomatic assumptions that people have to agree to (or be forced to agree to) which was my original point and at least part of AyeYo's point (I think they want to make other points as well, so I won't speak for them)

[MoonShadow]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

An actual example of what?  The fact that, if defined as you people define it, ANY system of social contruction is "coercive" to those that do not 100% agree with it and ALL are enforced under threat of violence to one extent or another?

I'm not sure which part of that you're having a difficult time wrapping your mind around.  Perhaps it's because you think Liberland would be a flawless utopia that no person could do anything but love with all their heart.

Wow.  You really have no clue what a libertarian believes.

[lemonginger]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

An actual example of what?  The fact that, if defined as you people define it, ANY system of social contruction is "coercive" to those that do not 100% agree with it and ALL are enforced under threat of violence to one extent or another?

I'm not sure which part of that you're having a difficult time wrapping your mind around.  Perhaps it's because you think Liberland would be a flawless utopia that no person could do anything but love with all their heart.

Wow.  You really have no clue what a libertarian believes.

I think the question AyeYo is asking is thus:

What if non-libertarians in a libertarian society object to the use of force to establish property rights on the grounds that the libertarian conception of property is one that they reject?

Corollary: There is no "true" conception of property (or of the individual, though that is a different argument) - and right-libertarianism, though it is very internally consistent on coercion and rights, still rests on an assumption about what property is just as various flavors of left-libertarianism, also internally consistent, rest on different assumptions about the nature of property and ownership.

[MoonShadow]

That's completely untrue.  I'm being forced under threat of violence to conform to a society whose rules I do not agree with and whose "coercive" market forces (your definition, not the real one) affect my daily life even though I do not agree with the policies that created them - just like you living in our current society.

Care to present an actual example of this?

An actual example of what?  The fact that, if defined as you people define it, ANY system of social contruction is "coercive" to those that do not 100% agree with it and ALL are enforced under threat of violence to one extent or another?

I'm not sure which part of that you're having a difficult time wrapping your mind around.  Perhaps it's because you think Liberland would be a flawless utopia that no person could do anything but love with all their heart.

Wow.  You really have no clue what a libertarian believes.

I think the question AyeYo is asking is thus:

What if non-libertarians in a libertarian society object to the use of force to establish property rights on the grounds that the libertarian conception of property is one that they reject?

Then they are still free to start their own society or leave and seek out an existing one more to their own liking.  The fiction book, The Diamond Age explores this concept with depth. 

[lemonginger]

Then they are still free to start their own society or leave and seek out an existing one more to their own liking.  The fiction book, The Diamond Age explores this concept with depth. 

Well, I do like Neal Stephenson, and I actually think that is his best book - even beats Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash in my head, but this still does not resolve the question of me not having the choice to leave, or me being in a different society but the lib society is infringing on me, etc and doesn't resolve questions of actions which affect people across time and space (like say, dumping carbon into the atmosphere or launching radioactive waste into the air and putting it on the moon). Hell, even right libertarians have substantial disagreements on IP.

It's not only a matter of past injustices, but of ongoing "theft" from the commons, or from future generations. There are considerable (huge) differences between even "middle ground" versions of libertarianism such as mutualism and georgism mcuh left full on anarcho-socialism and anarcho-communism (which is where I roughly fall politically) that can't simply be resolved by saying - okay, well you anarcho-capitalists get this state and you anarcho-socialists can go set up your collectives across that mountain over there

--

There isn't an answer to this one, I would just like right-libertarians to admit that at some point their society does in fact rest upon an arbitrary definition of property and individual rights and then seeks to be coercion-free from there, but is not in fact without coercion if you don't accept the starting point. Just as left-libertarianism rests upon assumptions that right-libertarians would find coercive.

[Anonymous]

You can't eliminate any 'coercion' that may derive from self-ownership.

[MoonShadow]

Then they are still free to start their own society or leave and seek out an existing one more to their own liking.  The fiction book, The Diamond Age explores this concept with depth. 

Well, I do like Neal Stephenson, and I actually think that is his best book - even beats Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash in my head, but this still does not resolve the question of me not having the choice to leave, or me being in a different society but the lib society is infringing on me, etc

You can't even come up with a condition that a lib society fails to grant you the choice to leave, or how a lib society could actually be infringing upon yourself.  If you violate a known libertarian 'law', such as kill someone in the act of attempting to possess material objects that they would have considered their property, then you are a criminal.  Other than that, if you don't like living in a libertarian society, what prevents you from leaving?  Your complaints are without merit.

and doesn't resolve questions of actions which affect people across time and space (like say, dumping carbon into the atmosphere or launching radioactive waste into the air and putting it on the moon). Hell, even right libertarians have substantial disagreements on IP.

Why would I have to resolve those issues?  Those are questions of commons and externalities, even the ones that matter.  They are not coercive acts against you.  They are not even relevant to the question posed.

There isn't an answer to this one,

Of cours not.  There can't be a solution posed to a problem that doesn't exist.  I you can't even frame the problem as a 'strawman', even after you have been repeatedly promted to do so, then no problem exists.  Perhaps I simply cannot invision such a conflict because I'm biased.  But then perhaps you can't frame the problem because there isn't one.

  I would just like right-libertarians to admit that at some point their society does in fact rest upon an arbitrary definition of property and individual rights and then seeks to be coercion-free from there, but is not in fact without coercion if you don't accept the starting point. Just as left-libertarianism rests upon assumptions that right-libertarians would find coercive.

Well, it's far from arbitrary, but okay.  A libertarian society is dependent upon collective force used against those within, and without, who would choose to violate the (majority) accepted concepts of property and natural rights; compelling them to either cease or leave.  Most libs would call this the primary purpose of governments.

Happy now?

[lemonginger]

You can't eliminate any 'coercion' that may derive from self-ownership.

But we can have different definitions of property and therefore ownership
(And also different definitions of the self, though that gets further into philosophical waters than would be useful for this thread.)

[MoonShadow]

You can't eliminate any 'coercion' that may derive from self-ownership.

But we can have different definitions of property and therefore ownership

Let's get back to basics.  Does a person own himself?

[lemonginger]

Why would I have to resolve those issues?  Those are questions of commons and externalities, even the ones that matter.  They are not coercive acts against you.  They are not even relevant to the question posed.

Of course they are. If your definition of the commons is much smaller than mine and your definition of externalities is much narrower than mine, than in effect you can steal from me in particular/society in general

I've already given lots of specific examples - from carbon release to air pollution to problems with demanding a historical record of land ownership to an unwillingness to discuss how redistribution of current wealth (much/most/all of which was gotten in conjunction with corporate/state power) would occur, to ownership of space, to depletion of unrenewable resources, to an unwillingness to deal with economic power and hierarchy inherent in gross inequalities and the different between someone who owns the means of production and someone that has only labor to sell, etc

--

I could provide a variety of examples, but they have been well discussed elsewhere. It is clear that people have put a lot of energy into reading critiques of right-libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism from a classical liberal or statist standpoint, but there exists 200 years of left-libertarian theorizing and at least 50 years of left-libertarian critique of right-libertarian thought - Rothbard/Hayek/Von Mises/etc

But if the only goal of such an argument is to throw up one's hands and say "Well you can go live elsewhere then" rather than say, "Ok you identify as a libertarian and I identify as a libertarian but clearly we understand the meaning of that word very differently, how might both of our envisionings of a non-coercive society be deepened through dialog/debate" then meh.

[lemonginger]

Let's get back to basics.  Does a person own himself?

Hmmm, well I prefer to think in terms of autonomy rather than "ownership", but self-ownership is not incompatible with more egalitarian understandings of property rights.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CGAQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theorein.org%2Fvrousalis-ls.pdf&rct=j&q=left-libertarian%20self%20ownership&ei=JmACTrSbKaX50gG8pP2HDg&usg=AFQjCNHIIzoRWBVDkovvwQb2K6ivq8kGMA&cad=rja

http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=1418

[MoonShadow]

Let's get back to basics.  Does a person own himself?

Hmmm, well I prefer to think in terms of autonomy rather than "ownership", but self-ownership is not incompatible with more egalitarian understandings of property rights.

Then we need to get even more basic.  What defines "ownership"?  What does it mean that an individual believes that he "owns" a thing, whether or not others recognize his claim?