Kicking. Squealing.
I wish that in the upcoming Presidential debates the two candidates would devote one debate to first principles rather than policy. In particular I’d like to witness their responses to something that Matt Yglesias tweeted the other night:
The concept of “redistribution” falsely implies that the existence of property is prior to the existence of the state.
#mythofownership
The question is being discussed now by Yglesias at his blog, and Bryan Caplan has weighed in on a secondary dilemma: if a Lockean theory of property rights exist, if we have a natural right to property that exists prior to government and if property is justly owned when it is passed from one person to the other through legitimate means, how do we account for the expropriation of Native American lands? As Caplan lays out, Murray Rothbard has a response to that dilemma while Robert Nozick wrote in his most famous work Anarchy, State, and Utopia that this question had not yet been adequately addressed.
The latest Romney gaffe and Obama’s “bitter clinging comments” and now the video of Obama in 1998 telling a college crowd that he supports redistribution…this exposes huge differences in political philosophy. This is an obvious statement.
I don’t want to come off as being too defensive of Romney – what he said in May was poorly thought out. Even if he was just giving his crowd what they wanted to hear, the most common pseudo-defense so far, there were better ways to parse the issue. Romney would have done well just to say that people who favor more government (a number which will more closely match the percent of Obama voters) will not have their minds changed. People who don’t think that it is right to criticize people who don’t want to work very hard for their pay; people who advocate for the poor no matter what – that is Obama’s true constituency who will not be swayed. On the other hand, many of the people Romney ended up criticizing would be critical of their own life station. They aspire to move out of that life station not just because they would be better off but because they are constitutionally opposed to the idea of being a taker.
Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party, despite some of their overlaps, stake out the two different camps. The reason that Ron Paul doesn’t play too strongly to OWS despite his criticism of the Federal Reserve and the banking system lies in the two fundamentally different beliefs on the relation of individual property rights to the State. One side generally believes that the State exists prior to the concept of property; the other believes that property exists prior to the State. It is reasonable to expect that Obama does believe the former while Romney believes the latter. In fact, everyone knows that Romney believes the latter, but we only have a sneaking suspicion that Obama believes the former. It would be nice if they’d lay it out for us, nice and neat.
We have Paul Ryan who has filled his stump speeches with lines like “Our rights come from nature and God, not from government.” The Lockean theory of property rights which Yglesias disagrees with. If property is a function of the State then the State can do what it wants with property. It fulfills what was stated at the DNC that “government is the only thing we all belong to.” It carries from Obama’s “you didn’t build that” line. Do we work for the government or does the government work for us? Do we accept progressive taxation schemes as a means to achieve distributive justice – because the ownership of property and/or income is, in effect, stolen from others further down the economic ladder – or is the existence of such schemes an injustice in and of itself? I don’t claim these would be original discussions or that no other candidates have addressed them, but they just seem most at the forefront, ready for picking, at this particular election. The electorate wants this battle to be waged.
Whatever we all might think about the gaffes of each candidate (Romney has more “gaffes” whereas Obama is able to openly insinuate that Romney would leave poor people in the gutter) , most people don’t vote in their immediate best interests. This is where we become complacent and where we consider the two candidates the “lesser of two evils”. Considering their limited political leeway, yes, we do end up seeing two candidates who make similar arguments and quibble over a couple of tax rate percentage points. Many people vote, I believe, based upon what their candidates fundamentally believe. This informs what those candidates would do if they had free rein. What they would do if they were dictator or king. And could we deny that if Barack Obama or Mitt Romney were granted such power that they wouldn’t lead us in two quite different directions which stem from their first principles on the concept of property rights in relation to the State?
And, of course, thrown into all of this are the conservatives who don’t hold a natural rights view of property. It would fall on Romney to tease that one out for anyone who cares.
The funny thing about this, is that MY’s tweet isn’t just true, it’s trivially so. If we were in a state of anarchy your right to land is only secured by your ability to defend it. In a state with a monopoly on violence your ownership is at the mercy of the state, which for most people has been just fine. Might doesn’t make right, it makes reality. A moral right to land is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.
A lot of things technically don’t “exist” without a State, or it’s precursor collective. I don’t really see what the point is with this statement.
Even if ‘property’ doesn’t exist without the state, that then doesn’t imply that all property belongs to the state to do with as it pleases. ‘Property’ as Yglesias is using the term is just legal jargon, in the same way that “murder” doesn’t exist prior to the existence of the state.
I’m assuming being logically consistent that Yglesias next post is going to be about why various state-based genocides have been just, because in an alternate reality what-if scenario those victims might never have been born or would have already died without the existence of the state that murdered them in the same way that you might not have had the force necessary to protect your property so ipso facto it doesn’t really belong to you anyway (just like your life).
Or maybe his next post is going to be about Prima Nocta for the 21st century because marriage doesn’t exist without the state, and his nebbish kike friends that make up the civil service need sexual rights to your shiksa wives and daughters, because really that is absolutely the same argument.
The whole “redistribution” doesn’t exist because ‘property’ doesn’t exist so all things under the sun belong to the government is one part semantics and one part goony faggot that has read too many comic books.
Property ownership may not be a natural right, but it’s been around at least since the Neolithic, if not earlier. It’s hugely important to living in groups, and preventing freeloaders from dragging the society down (any group-living species requires non-cheaters to support the cheaters; this is true for slime molds, humans, and everything in between).
So, yeah, not a natural right. But an important concept nonetheless.
“… a monopoly on violence your ownership is at the mercy of the state, which for most people has been just fine. ”
Spoken like a true castrati on the coastal elite bubble.
First off, the state cannot hold a monopoly on violence because criminals exist. Second, if for most people was “just fine”, private gun ownership wouldn’t exist, and it does. Third, holding the State as the ultimate arbiter of morality is basically making the State take the place of God. No institution of men deserves that and the idea that it does is a)Extremely repulsive and b)Proven wrong over and over again with the massive failures of Communism.
I like your idea of a first principles debate. It can be difficult to have a conversation, let alone a debate, with someone who’s (usually unstated) axioms are different from your own. So many arguments are based upon those first principles and they’re definitely worth stating and examining.
Gx1080, you may already know this but “monopoly on violence” usually refers to the state deciding what is and what isn’t legitimate violence. I think it goes back to Max Weber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
Essentially government is an approved criminal syndicate. Sometimes literally, but in our case in the United States, it’s more figurative, though that seems less and less true each year.
Still the government can strong the citizenry and does the same way a mob does in its community. It’s ‘You want this, pay taxes or we throw you in jail’ versus ‘You want to keep your legs intact, pay me’.
Not saying that I’d like to be ruled by a mob, just that the principles of government when allowed to be controlled by said government has a tendency to create flexibility of principles.
A government that still believes it is derived of the people and not the other way around will be more sincere in their efforts due to accountability.
I wonder if Yglesias and ilk realize the “myth of ownership” line of thought is just a strong an argument for feudalism as it is for redistributionist social democracy.
The end game of redistributionist social democracy IS feudalism.
Do property rights flow from the state or from some natural origin?
No need to ask our President that question.
Hereward,
You’re right. If property is a function of the state then it is basically at the whim of the political structure. In our case, the mob of voters. But then that brings up the question of where the right to vote and participate in a democracy comes from. Yglesias would have to accept that voting is not inalienable. It is just the chosen tactics employed by the regime to determine who its political leaders will be.
One thing is for sure: Yglesias, as a national media entity, would not exist without the state.
A first principles debate would be a disaster for Romney.
Q1: Mr. Obama, tell us why you believe everyone should be equal and happy all the time?
Q2: Mr Romney, why do you believe that poor people should starve to death?
And so on
@CR
No he wouldn’t. He would simply twist things around, or invent a new rule that property is dependent on the state but democratic participation is a natural right. You can’t trap these people on their principles because they are smart enough not to have any.
Ever since the Civil Rights, mainstream conservatives have not been able to discuss anything substantive at first-principles level. Reagan came the closest, but in the end all they can do is argue about vague abstractions like “freedom” and “rah rah America” or attack proximate evils like taxes and big government. They can’t help but concede the first principles to the Democrats, and this is why liberals run circles around them.
How would a conservative politician sound if he were arguing at first principles? He would sound like like Lawrence Auster. Can any credible American politician bring that on?
PA,
that’s a good point. i guess i’m cherry-picking here because i know that Obama would look worse on this particular question than would Romney (I have to say again that I don’t even like Romney but I’m mostly just rooting for him a bit because he’s the underdog and because I loathe Obama’s base even more than Romney’s base). what we already know about Romney is much closer to the truth than what we know about Obama. if Obama laid out for us what he believed on this particular question – and actually a better debate would be had between Obama and Paul Ryan – i think a lot of people who aren’t already turned off by his policies would be turned off by his principles. just as they would be turned off by his arguments – which we know he holds but which he hasn’t had to elucidate – that ours is a fundamentally racist, white supremacist society. if Obama said these things, if his true colors were let out, i wonder how he would be perceived.
but, to the second part of the question, i don’t think the conservative argument boiled all the way down would have to sound like Auster. and i focus on “sound” because Auster chooses his rhetoric to be even more unpalatable than it already is.
The “unpalatable” thing about Auster is his undiplomatic temperament, not the principles themselves, don’t you think? I can picture someone with a strong frame and good public speaking skills like Gingrich pulling it off more in a way where his personality doesn’t detract from the message, if those were also his core principles.
Speaking of Gingrich, he did get real close to genuine HBD in 1994 with his successful attack on welfare and when he flirted with more far-out ideas like orphanages for ghetto welfare single moms.
Personality, I find little unpalatable in Auster’s message. Other than game/sex, he is very reasonable about pretty much everything else. And lately he’s even been showing more understanding of Game principles as they operate in the real world, thought he won’t call it that.
The “unpalatable” thing about Auster is his undiplomatic temperament, not the principles themselves, don’t you think?
Auster knows that he’s talking to like-minded people so he doesn’t bother to pull punches in service of a “big tent” philosophy. I think he wants his core readership to continue being a small and pure group.
Older men don’t seem to take to game very well. I think they don’t quite realize how things are for young men today. I don’t like PUAs, but there are so few of them out there it seems silly to worry about them. I suspect most of them are businessmen more than anything.
All human societies are based on social contracts of some kind or another. You want to get along with your neighbors, make things work. Sometimes you do this by talk, sometimes a boot to the proverbial neck. Its not complicated,
We can’t do get along because of the the power-status and money junkies , cultural teachings that differ too much and because of political history.
Best solution would be probably be smaller polities with minimum (not none though) contact with each other and highly localized economies. However I can’t see anyone endorsing that.
As far as the abstruse “moral” dimension, sampleM put it better than I could.
“Many people vote, I believe, based upon what their candidates fundamentally believe.”
This is why projects like liberal-tarianism are doomed. Even if they can agree that the actual mixed economy of crony capitalism is worth getting together on, each is utterly turned off by the other’s fundamental beliefs. Even if they’re only abstractions that have shit-all to do with the real world.
The IDEA of the corporation, e.g. is just fine with libertarians. It isn’t with liberals. This is the level they conflict on, not political reality.
PA wrote: “… but in the end all (mainstream conservatives) can do is argue about vague abstractions like ‘freedom’ and ‘rah rah America’ …”
I’ve got little interest in defending mainstream conservatives, but both of those — freedom (liberty) and rah-rah-America (nationalism) — are first principles. They are the operative, oft-expressed premises of the American right.
It’s the left that rarely elucidates its first principles; in fact, I suspect many on the left couldn’t even drill down to articulate why they believe what they believe — to even identify “equality” and “fairness” as distinct first principles in the first place. With leftism so embedded now in American culture and politics, that stuff is just part of the air they breathe. They don’t grasp that equality is an explicitly ideological concept, let alone that it is in friction with the explicitly ideological concept of liberty.
In other words, they don’t really grasp what the debate between them and conservatives/libertarians is even really about: a conflict between the fundamental operating assumptions about the nature of man and society. And so they just casually dismiss their opponents as racist, selfish assholes.
It’s maddening. Which is why C.R. is right: a debate on first principles would be mighty illuminating. It could be one of the most productive moments for American politics in ages.
There are only two first principles.
1. Strive towards Supremacy.
or,
2. Descend into nothingness.
Man can’t float.
But this also means that “property” can’t be seen as strictly tangible. It is in this manner that the “anti-capitalists” can convince themselves and others that Capitalism can be destroyed. Capitalism cannot be destroyed. Man strives towards Supremacy. His story is two millenniums of seeking to be more credible than his fellow man.
The value of “property” was and is equal to the willingness of the man “holding it” to kill and die to keep “it” mashed up against the willingness of the man attempting to steal “it” to kill and die for said “property.” The State is and was always bound to be middleman/arbitrator at best.
So if I wanted to steal your soul and you were willing to fight me to the death to keep it and had the endurance to keep up the defense of your soul for as long as it took to kill or reject me, what is the value of your soul?
Who is the man with most Capital?
Jesus Christ…
or,
Carlos Slim?
Whose capital can be destroyed and whose Capital can’t be destroyed?
As long as we play by the “first principle” of the radical autonomists, the only way to “win” is to descend even further. That’s no “win” at all.
“freedom (liberty) and rah-rah-America (nationalism) —are first principles. They are the operative, oft-expressed premises of the American right.”
Not of the American old Right, or its modern but still inchoate heir alt-Right.
Liberty and nationalism are abstractions. You may as well be for air too. Abstract principles, to be useful as political first causes, must be tied to a particular people. WHOSE liberty? WHOSE nationalism? Those are the political first causes that the mainstream American right is afraid or unable to articulate.
Bottom line for leftists is: For them or the kind of people they like, ownership is absolute and is not a myth. I’m pretty sure Yglesias regards HIS OWN car/house as sacred human rights. The idea that someone could vote to take away HIS property would seem laughable to Yglesias, because he’s one of the “good guys.”
Anyone leftists don’t like doesn’t get to own property – it’s supposed to be up for grabs or the “common good.” Examples – carmakers have to lose money building electric vehicles cause govt says so, and adhere to money-draining union rules because the mob voted on it.
Oh, I went and looked at Yglesias’ blog and he’s even stupider than I thought. He’s basically saying that no one in the US can claim legit property rights because it was all stolen from the indians in the first place.
Again, let me see Matty giving up his stolen indian land (and house) first and then I’ll think about following his noble example. Otherwise he’s just trying to open a loophole to let the government steal any property from anyone Matty and leftists don’t like, any time they feel like it.
The biggest problem with the idea of a philosophic debate is that Mitt Romney has no philosophic principles. He can’t articulate conservative principles other than through a series of talking points. Obama has actually thought through what he believes, wrongheaded as it is.
Liberty and nationalism are abstractions. You may as well be for air too. Abstract principles, to be useful as political first causes, must be tied to a particular people. WHOSE liberty? WHOSE nationalism? Those are the political first causes that the mainstream American right is afraid or unable to articulate.
I’m not really sure of your point. Principles are concepts; they are “abstractions” by definition. The very discussion on the table here is whether there should be a debate about principles — a debate about “abstractions.”
It sounds like you’re saying that we should just keep having political debates, only with more candor. That’s all fine and well, so long as you realize that what you’re advocating isn’t actually a first-principles debate.
The biggest problem with the idea of a philosophic debate is that Mitt Romney has no philosophic principles. He can’t articulate conservative principles other than through a series of talking points.
I suspect this is correct.
Obama has actually thought through what he believes, wrongheaded as it is.
I suspect this is too, and Obama is the sort of leftist who’s the exception to the general portrait of leftists painted in my earlier comment.
Why talk about first principles? Why not simply state your first principle?
I strive towards Supremacy.
The point is that these things are so abstract as to just be slogans. They aren’t actually principles. Liberty can be a ‘first principle’, but more often than not, it’s not. For mainstream American conservatives, it’s not.
I also wouldn’t even say that mainstream conservatism has even an element of nationalism. Their ‘patriotism’ is an entirely different phenomena. It’s a wordism. It’s one of the few socially acceptable signalling behaviors left to conservatives and that is all it is. Two people can be very ‘patriotic’ and have diametrically opposed views on every pillar of nationalism, and neither could be nationalist while doing this.
American patriotism is not a ‘first principle’ because it is meaningless on its’ own. It is only imbued with meaning in that it is correlative with other beliefs with more substance.