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Originally posted by IAMIAM
Originally posted by mnemeth1
How about I just take it.
If you need it that bad that you are willing to take it, just say you need it, and you can have it.
It isn't going to do me any good with what is coming down the pipe. It will just be left behind soon anyway. So, if you want it, come and get it.
I will find another way to get on ATS when I need to.
With Love,
Your Brother
Originally posted by mnemeth1
He's avoiding the obvious confrontation the lack of property rights he is proposing would cause.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
peace is about voluntary trade
peace is not about taking the fruit of other peoples labor without their consent, which is what a lack of property rights imposes.
No one has the right to take the product of a another mans sweat without his consent.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
Originally posted by IAMIAM
There are no ownership disputes if no one owns anything.
Ok.
I'll come over to your house tomorrow and clean out your fridge.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by Janky Red
The exchange of labor for wages (gold) is voluntary.
Taking another mans property at gun point is not.
Your attempt to equate the two is ridiculous.
One involves a weapon, the other involves a handshake.
edit on 12-1-2011 by mnemeth1 because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by mnemeth1
peace is about voluntary trade
Originally posted by mnemeth1
peace is not about taking the fruit of other peoples labor without their consent, which is what a lack of property rights imposes.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
If I toil for hours to make myself a fishing pole, you would have zero right to come and take it from me, and I would naturally defend that fishing pole as my own from you. - a confrontation would ensue - just as it would with 99.999999999999999% of anyone else on this planet.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you assume that consent must be given before property can be taken, then you assume a system of private property rights must exist. - which makes you a capitalist.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you don't assume that consent must be given - that could only mean you support the use of violence to take it from him if consent is not given
Reflections restricted to our current bounty ignore that most colonists in both Jamestown and Plymouth starved under their initial communal-property rights. Then, when private-property rights were established, starvation gave way to increasing prosperity in both colonies.
In Jamestown, colonists were indentured servants whose first seven years' output was to go into a common pool. In Plymouth, all accumulated wealth was to be held in common, against colonists' objections, by sponsors worried they could not otherwise collect on their distant investment. In both places, the fruits of people's efforts went to others, with disastrous results.
Sixty-six of Jamestown's initial 104 colonists died within six months, most from famine. Only 60 out of 500 arrivals two years later survived that long. The consequences of this "starving time" included cannibalism. Plymouth's first colonists fared little better, with only about half surviving six months. Some, in desperation, sold their clothes and blankets to, or became servants of, Indians.
Common property's disincentives produced terrible results in both colonies. Shirking was so severe at Jamestown that Thomas Dale noted that much of the survivors' time was devoted to playing rather than working, despite the threat of starvation. Plymouth Governor William Bradford noted that "this community of property was found to breed much … discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort," even despite the use of whipping to limit shirking, with results described as "injustice" and "a kind of slavery."
In response, both Jamestown and Plymouth moved to systems where people could produce for their own benefit.
In Jamestown, each man was given three acres of land, in exchange for a lump-sum tax of two and a half barrels of corn, and communal work was limited to one month (not during planting or harvest). In addition to creating private property, this made the marginal tax rate on most of colonists' efforts zero, turning indolence into industry. Rather than starving, they became exporters of corn to the Indians.
In Plymouth, Governor Bradford observed that since
their victuals were spent … they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop … that they might not still thus languish in misery … the Governor gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular … And so assigned to every family a parcel of land.
Bradford also described the consequences:
This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use … and gave far better content.
The change from communal- to private-property rights dramatically increased the Pilgrims' productivity. The beginnings of that productivity led to the bounty celebrated at Plymouth's famous 1623 Thanksgiving. And as historian Russell Kirk reported, "never again were the Pilgrims short of food."
Plymouth Governor William Bradford noted that "this community of property was found to breed much … discontentment and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort," even despite the use of whipping to limit shirking, with results described as "injustice" and "a kind of slavery."
Originally posted by mnemeth1
If you assume consent must be given, then you assume people have a right to their own property.
While it would be wonderful if the entire world operated as a charity organization, the facts are that humans have a general tendency to do as little as possible for the most amount of economic gain.
This human tendency, which is called the disutility of labor, shows that humans will only work to produce something if the products they can buy/make with their labor are of a more urgent desire than that of leisure.
If humans are allowed to live a comfortable life without expending labor, they will do so. Which is the primary reason all of our welfare programs have never actually reduced poverty.
So what we can gather from this is that what stimulates humans into productive behavior is the profit motivator. Even non-for-profit organizations PAY their employees a wage. The organization may not generate net profits, but their employees on an individual level all work for the profit motive.
If profit from trade is removed by the abolishment of private property rights, the motivation to produce drops like a rock. The early American colonists experimented with the very type of socialist system you are proposing.
They nearly starved to death because of it.
Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
To me, a universal shift in consciousness that results in a society where people stop using violence as a means to acquire the resources of others results in anarcho-capitalism.
That is the only plausible result if you concede the fact that people inherently own the fruits of their labor.
An anarcho-capitalist society is the only possible outcome.
Originally posted by IAMIAM
Originally posted by mnemeth1
reply to post by IAMIAM
To me, a universal shift in consciousness that results in a society where people stop using violence as a means to acquire the resources of others results in anarcho-capitalism.
That is the only plausible result if you concede the fact that people inherently own the fruits of their labor.
An anarcho-capitalist society is the only possible outcome.
When you can explain how you make this dichotomy Anarchy/capitalism work, I might buy off on it. As long as you need to own something, you will need a government to protect what you think you own.
With Love,
Your Brother