Let’s say I’m Dagny Taggart and I’m mapping potential rail routes through Pennsylvania after a new big coal mine and power plant have opened up. Like most railroads it is a low cost operation. The only way it will work involves utilizing the only pass in a long ridge of mountains (a tunnel would sink most railroad ventures). That pass is owned by a family farmer who simply refuses to sell for any price. Under pure Laissez Faire Capitalism the railroad could not be built. Would the repeal of eminent domain laws be a significant enemy of progress and prosperity as was feared even in the 19th century?
Another similar real life example:
There was a town in Pennsylvania (Boyertown?) that was crossed by a Reading Railroad line. In the interest of denying competitors even the slightest foothold, perhaps irrationally, the Reading line refused a right of way even to a line that would have been perpendicular to it on both sides. People who wanted to travel across town on the trolley, or period, had to get out, cross the Reading tracks, and catch another trolley on the other side. It was like this for decades.
The repeal of imminent domain laws would have wonderful economic effects. It would help re-establish the absolute right to property and would eliminate a particularly egregious example of government interference in the economy.
Laissez-Faire capitalism is the only moral – and therefore the only practical – social system.
Unskinned, are you honestly suggesting that property rights are the problem with capitalism… the moral implications of this claim are disgusting.
Those aside, in your first example… you would either come up with another place to run your railroad, or develop a new way to ship your cargo across the mountain.
As for your second example… firstly, Reading had every right to do that. And besides this, I find it likely that the regulations imposed on railroads had something to do with their decision not to let so much as a trolly line cross their road.
Capitalism TUI by Ayn Rand is a moral defense of Capitalism. But it also implies that Cap. is efficient because it is moral. There is nothing efficient about what I have described above. In this case it is inefficient because it is moral.
I’m not currently having trouble with any other part of the idea of complete separation of Economy and State. But yes, I guess that is exactly what I’m suggesting/wondering: it is less MORAL but more EFFICIENT for the government to steal land from a couple mountain people with just compensation, than to have one man prevent the economic development of an entire region. That is, morality and the efficiency of an economy being two different things.
Of course individual rights must exist without exception. Emminent domain should be completely repealed. I’m just looking to flesh out the speific details of this example because it seems to be the one exception to the rule of capitalism being efficient because it is moral.
I think it would be more accurate to say that capitalism is practical because it is moral. As Rand said, “The evaluation of a thing as practical, depends on what it is you wish to practice.”
What Objectivism “seeks to practice” is the recognition and protection of individual rights, including property rights. By this standard, capitalism is the only practical system because it is the only system based on the legal implementation and recognition of those rights.
Property rights are only impractical if your goal is the confiscation of other people’s property. To see what happens when property rights are abrogated in the name of “efficiency”, look at the Soviet Union and North Korea and many, many others.
I guess that is exactly what I’m suggesting/wondering: it is less MORAL but more EFFICIENT for the government to steal land from a couple mountain people with just compensation, than to have one man prevent the economic development of an entire region
Firstly, as you already stated, the mountain couple was unwilling to give up their land at any price, no “just compensation” is possible.
More importantly, you are still aruging that allowing theft is an effecient way for an economy to run. As AisA said:
To see what happens when property rights are abrogated in the name of “efficiency”, look at the Soviet Union and North Korea and many, many others.
Allowing theft is destructive to a society and its economy, not “effecient.”
I agree with RadCap. Today you would be very happy if the government were to seize that pass and hand it over to you, but you wouldn’t be smiling the next day when they take away your railroad in the name of “national emergency”. And then you can’t even open you mouth to say “By what right?”, because this was just the logical consequense of your first action, that of taking away the couple’s rights.
I said all that on the premise that you would actually be unhappy about the government seizing your property, if you aren’t, then there is no rational argument that i can present to you, you deserve exactly what you get.
This is a good example of pragmatism’s war on producers, based on envy.
It is a simple fact that some property is worth more than other property. People will pay more for it. This is not “inefficient”. To allege this is context-dropping.
It is quite efficient–it is the reward for foresight, hard work, and all of the other things that the property owner thought and did. He is now in a position to monetize his wealth. Others should be happy for him, not declare this to be “inefficient”. Their pragmatism is the least efficient of all possible systems, because if everyone practiced it consistently, they would be waiting for someone else to produce something for them to loot.
This is like the “lifeboat ethics” questions that modern philosophers pose, in order to discredit egoism. The lifeboat ethics questions beg the question: is the universe malevolent. The question that started this thread begs the question: is ownership of valuable land a matter of blind luck?
Can an irrational man prevent his property to be used for productive purposes? Yes, he can. Of course, capitalism is the system that rewards men for their rationality. Capitalism–and this is why so many people hate it–tends to accumulate wealth in the hands of the most rational and most able men, and deplete it from the hands of the irrational fools.
Lets say a car company wants to open in a state, but the area that they need to build on for logistic reasons is occupied by homeowners who refuse to move. Farmers, elderly people who have lived on the land for decades, poor people who will not receive enough money for the property to buy a new home, and other people like that live in the area.
To get the land the state uses eminent domain to seize the “private property” that belongs to those who do not wish to leave and gives it, free of charge, to the car company over the objection of the “land owners” (if they actually owned the land the state could not have taken it from them).
Those who refuse to leave are arrested and their possessions are destroyed with the home. They receive less than market value for, what is already, low cost land.
This happened in Mississippi only a few years ago. The state of Mississippi took the land at the point of a gun, literally, and gave it to Nisan to build a factory despite the fact that it was a clear violation of the law.
In Memphis TN several years before this incident the International Airport wanted to expand one of its runways. They attempted to use eminent domain to seize the land of those who lived on the property they needed. One of the homeowners spent the months that they were given to vacate to load up on food, water and weapons. After an armed standoff that lasted for over a month the airport backed off and allowed the man the privilege of keeping the home he had lived in for the last thirty years. The people inside the house were not prosecuted.
Eminent domain is used by states to take land from private citizens by force. If they can do this against the will of the landowner, and without paying for it, then none of us can own land. We are only renting it from the state until they decide they want it back. I have enough American Indian in me to want to keep up with the state illegally taking land.
I have enough American Indian in me to want to keep up with the state illegally taking land.
:dough:
Sure.
I have the talent of absorbing certain information like a sponge. Whenever I mention something that most people miss or ignore the question almost always asked is “How would you know?” To save time I have got in the habit of explaing why certain things have caught my attention.
I am still trying to get used to not having to use PC newspeak references here. If I do not use them in my class room settings the ideas are imediately dissmissed without consideration. I use their own rules against them. If I identify as non-white (which I am) I can not be labeled a racist for making statements like,
Eminent domain is used by states to take land from private citizens by force. If they can do this against the will of the landowner, and without paying for it, then none of us can own land. We are only renting it from the state until they decide they want it back.
I do not understand how statements like this can be considered racist, but since only whites can be labeled racist with impunity I have to make sure people do not know what I am. I did not start doing this for them, I just do not consider my race important in any way to my mind. This has just turned out to be a beneificial side effect. And yes, I have been acused of being a racist for saying what is quoted above.
For those of you wondering, if asked in class or work what my race is I refuse to answer untill they can explain why their label of my biological history makes any diffrence on the value of my work or mind. I have never had anyone come up with an answer. On the census I put down Mutt, everywhere else I refuse to answer. I will mention bits and pieces, like above, but this is mainly to force the real bigots of the world to attack me on basis of my ideas and knowledge (fights they never win in a class room setting) instead of blanket claims of bigotry against me (and as many of you know a claim is all it takes to destroy a career).
I think that the reason quotes like that above are labeled racist is because there is a larger number of white home owners than other races. The fact that over 70% of the nation is white and the next highest group is around 12% makes no diffrence. There is no reasoning with the irrational.
Well, I was going to make a post about the fluidity afforded by emminent domain, but I can’t stomach it. There is no reason why people would refuse to participate in capitalism or that those who would could somehow do more damage than the government does with it’s emminent domain laws.
So it really boils down to the question: does economic power in a system like ours require any checks and balances other than a government protecting rights? That, as I understand it, is a completely different discussion group in this section.
So, I’m convinced that emminent domain could be repealed TODAY and it might get a little rough in places but it would be much better for our economy and the system of protecting individual life that is its foundation.
So it really boils down to the question: does economic power in a system like ours require any checks
Are economic “power” and political “power” related things?
Economic “power” is based in production and reason. Political “power” comes from the barrel of a gun. Why in hell, much less on earth, would one propose to use the latter to curb the former??
Let’s say a Bill Gates type of character buys a ring around a small city to get back at an offending lover living inside. He builds a wall and severely limits traffic. So now, everyone has to move away from this area or fly just because the guy is upset and wants to get back at his wife? That is economic power and it is definitely possible. Someone wrote before that noone would sell land without thinking of making sure there will be a right of way first. Let’s say they just don’t care or didn’t think of it. That is plausible, especially if the city is surrounded by cheap land.
And I understand the converse to be: What if a polititian condemns a town as a potential sandhill crane habitat? He can be fired by the voters is what.
I hope I’m not being arbitrary here. I think this is a legitimate example