Inequality is the enemy of growth. Discuss

[Eiuol]

Doesn't the positivist theory of meaning arise out of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy? I look forward to your thread.

Logical positivism yes, positivism I don't know. I don't know if Plasmatic meant to say Logical Positivism instead.

[Jon Southall]

Plasmatic,

That's your assertion. If you believe I am being irrational then why don't you move on.

[Plasmatic]

Jon, if you believe that its mere assertion then why not actually address my argument specifically and in detail?

Edited October 15, 2014 by Plasmatic

[Plasmatic]

Critical said:

CriticalThinker2000, on 15 Oct 2014 - 07:40 AM, said:

Doesn't the positivist theory of meaning arise out of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy? I look forward to your thread.

Logical positivism yes, positivism I don't know. I don't know if Plasmatic meant to say Logical Positivism instead.

Yes, it does. Similarly Kant claimed to be an empiricist while his premises made that claim a stolen concept....If Kant held we cant know "things in themselves" how does he have the concept neumenal, brute fact etc.? Edited October 15, 2014 by Plasmatic

[Jon Southall]

Plasmatic, you've asserted land is capital. There is no reasoning or argument in support your claim.

You're not alone in making this mistake. Professional economists often declare land is capital. However the number of supporters there are does not make a theory right. You are not right.

I have justified the distinction on the basis of the law of causality. If you deny its application with respect to property then property reduces to a collective opinion. As it has in this forum. Not based on logic but on feelings.

To you, if a group of ten individuals consists of nine muggers and one victim, the reason of the nine muggers triumphs.

To me, what an individual is the cause of is his. Against the claims of the whole world. This is based on logic and not the whims of the collective.

[Spiral Architect]

Why does it even matter?  It is taking the focus off the greater context.  Either you own it, which means have disposal rights, or you don't, which means someone else gets to decide that for you.  The first is the definition of a free society and the second is not.  

 

Why do you see the need to draw the distinction?  What is the point this is leading to?   

[tadmjones]

Jon

You claim to understand O'ist epistemology, and yet insist on making a moral argument from the standpoint of economics, that to me suggests a lack of integration.

You are correct 'land' isn't capital, the ownership of it is.

"Makes you wanna build a ten percent down white picket fence house on this dirt"

[Jon Southall]

Tadmjones

"Capital is ownership". Can you explain what you mean?

[tadmjones]

Tadmjones

"Capital is ownership". Can you explain what you mean?

What I meant was that land isn't literally capital, the capital is the ownership of the land. That one may trade and or leverage the legal distinction of holding title for monetary gain through voluntary association with others.

[Jon Southall]

Tadmjones, why do you think "capital is the ownership of the land"? I want to be clear.

If you acknowledge monetary gains are achieved by holding merely a title, does it not matter what basis in justice that title is held. A slave owner would claim he owns slaves, he might prove he bought them. To assess the morality of the title we must look at what those titles are based on. If its immoral we ought to ignore his claims. Do you agree?

[dream_weaver]

"To assess the morality of the title, we must look at what those titles are based on. "

 

The same principles that give rise to the moral principle of individual rights deny legitimacy to any claim of title over another individual. Property, even unimproved, is not a moral agent.

[Jon Southall]

"The same principles that give rise to the moral principle of individual rights deny legitimacy to any claim of title over another individual. Property, even unimproved, is not a moral agent"

Is your argument that man is a moral agent and cannot be owned on that basis? I want to be clear.

[Plasmatic]

Jon said:

"The same principles that give rise to the moral principle of individual rights deny legitimacy to any claim of title over another individual. Property, even unimproved, is not a moral agent"

Is your argument that man is a moral agent and cannot be owned on that basis? I want to be clear.

Its the same difference between the morality of crushing a rock vs a baby.

[StrictlyLogical]

Careful, we are not speaking of mere "selfish" morality... you cannot forget about the ends:

 

"production" and "growth"... the almighty economic imperatives of society.

Edited October 16, 2014 by StrictlyLogical

[EC]

So if a person became the owner of their property by right and it is then inherited by their descendants by right and a given descendant chooses to exercise their rights to their rightfully obtained land by charging others for usage of what is theirs by right they are a "parasite" on production? LOL

 

It is true this person may not be excising their true potential in life and may not otherwise be in a state of productiveness but that is all on them morally. It does not change the fact that charging others to use their property that was obtained by them by right is still perfectly legitimate if that's what they choose to do with their rightfully obtained property. It could also legitimately be argued then be a "land baron" if that's what one chooses to do with their life is perfectly legitimate. 

Edited October 16, 2014 by EC

[Jon Southall]

EC, you start by "So if a person became the owner of their property by right..."

 

The IF in that statement is what is contentious. I'm asking "HOW did a person become the owner of land by right". Most people here give an answer to a different question - "HOW did a person become the owner of capital by right?" and claim they produced it. They changed the unimproved land into farmland, or built a factory on it etc. That would be all well and good if it answered the question I am asking. The issue is they struggle to distinguish land and capital as two factors of production, one of which is not man made and one of which is.

 

Say for arguments sake that they didn't become the owner of that land by right. If they then charge for its use, have they suddenly got a right to take that money? And who pays them? Where does their money ultimately come from?

 

If you can answer these questions, honestly and you are a virtuous person as I am sure you are, you will start to identify the injustice. However it means accepting the possibility that some property we thought was private property might not be. This is very threatening because it appears to present a contradiction to those who love property rights and individual rights. There is fortunately no contradiction. No one has a right to demand the unearned. No title can grant such a right without being unethical. Identifying that something is dressed up as private property when it is not private property acquaints us with reality, and that is a good thing.

 

Rights are not granted or given to people. The roots of rights lie in the individual, not society.

[dream_weaver]

Let me preface this with a paragraph from Chapter 10 of OPAR:

Whoever understands the philosophy of Objectivism (or implicitly accepts an Aristotelian morality of self-interest, as was done by the political thinkers of the Enlightenment), can read off the proper human rights effortlessly; this may cause him to regard such rights, in the wording of the Declaration of Independence, as "self-evident." Rights, however, are not self-evident. They are corollaries of ethics as applied to social organization—if one holds the right ethics. If one does not, none of them stands.

 

As a brief aside, you address an interesting quote, to which I'm more interested in grasping relative to Objectivist principles than to Georgian theory. The law of causality, as I understand it, is a metaphysical principle. So for Miss Rand to state what she did, suggests to me that there is more to this than meets the eye here.

 

So, while man is a moral agent, more fundamentally, man is a conceptual being. How does all this conceptually tie together?

[EC]

 

 

Say for arguments sake that they didn't become the owner of that land by right. If they then charge for its use, have they suddenly got a right to take that money? And who pays them? Where does their money ultimately come from?

 

 

 We aren't talking about those people though. They are criminals. So the rest doesn't follow.

[tadmjones]

Tadmjones, why do you think "capital is the ownership of the land"? I want to be clear.

If you acknowledge monetary gains are achieved by holding merely a title, does it not matter what basis in justice that title is held. A slave owner would claim he owns slaves, he might prove he bought them. To assess the morality of the title we must look at what those titles are based on. If its immoral we ought to ignore his claims. Do you agree?

I said that voluntary trade is what brought the monetary gain.

[EC]

In other words, how can their be a contradiction when one of the premises that supports the "contradiction" is not true. I.e., that some people are charging for land usage that they didn't obtain by right. You might be questioning HOW they obtained their property and if that was right which is valid, but assuming that it was a legitimate transaction, via production, inheritance, "whatever legit means" then there is no contradiction and the question is invalid.

 

Oh and I might be missing something else because I am just semi-skimming these threads since I haven't been on the forum in a few months.

[Jon Southall]

Hi EC, you mentioned production. Why production? I don't disagree but what is it about production that entitles someone to say "this is mine" and what is the "this" that they can be referring to?

[StrictlyLogical]

Jon:

 

In your opinion, what is the Objectivist position, based on Objectivist ethical and political principles of

1. what property rights are and what gives rise to them, and

 

2.  what kinds of concretes fall within the group of all concretes to which those rights can apply (and explain why with reference to the principles in your answer to 1) and what kinds of concretes fall within the group of all concretes to which those right cannot apply (and explain with reference to the principles in your answer to 1)

[EC]

By production I'm thinking something like the Homestead Act like mentioned above. Before say converting the land to farming it was owned by no one. But after they put work into it and via a legit contract with the government it became the farmers legitimate property. I don't personally know all the legit legal ways of doing this just the principle behind it (which is all that matters in the end I think).

[Jon Southall]

I like your answer that by putting work into it and via a legit contract one establishes ownership.

I suspect the only difference is I think the homesteader owns the farmland-as-capital. This in my judgement does not give him a monopoly claim to the unimproved value of the land. I think the practice of charging for permission to produce is wrong and can impoverish those who work, by denying them the full fruits of their labour which according to distributive justice, they are entitled to.

[Jon Southall]

Thanks for your question SL, I do not have time to do it justice right now, but I'll come back to you.