Using political action to achieve your goals when financial action fai

Questions about Objectivism
1

If I value a forest as one of my top values (e.g. I have very happy childhood memories of it, I also like taking picnics in it, etc.), then when a logging company comes to log the trees then I will become very unhappy. One solution, would be to band together with other local people and protest the logging, with the long term aim of having the forest become public property so that it may always be enjoyed and will never be felled.

However, this solution is not compatible with Objectivism. The best solution that an Objectivist would recommend is to raise enough cash to buy the land from the logging company before any trees are felled. Suppose that I try this solution but the local people do not raise enough funds. Am I to lie down and accept the loss of one of my top values?

2

Am I to lie down and accept the loss of one of my top values?

Why was the forest not logged all these years? Who owned it? Why did you and your neighbours wait till someone else wanted to use it and thus raised it’s price beyond your reach?

Regardless, you can covet your neighbour’s forest, but you do not have the right to take a gun and force your neighbour to allow you to use it. That’s all really.

3

Lets say that it was owned by a wealthy neighbor who died and left it to his son who did not value the forest at all. This was a mistake on his part as he thought he knew his son but he did not.

Remember that this forest is a top value, and that everyone in the community including the father expected the son to preserve it, and everyone was shocked when they realised that they did not know the son at all.

4

One solution, would be to band together with other local people and protest the logging, with the long term aim of having the forest become public property so that it may always be enjoyed and will never be felled.

I don’t understand, what is public property? Do you mean the owners would abandon the property so that it falls back into the state of being unowned, and then you just sit around hoping that nobody else recognises the value of those trees and claims the land for themself? What would local people have to do with it?

5

Why do you have something that is not yours as one of your top values?

6

Well, if this forest is a ‘top’ value, to both yourself and the other locals, then you should do everything you legally can to preserve it. My best suggestion is that you all sell your houses and businesses and use the money to set up a commune in your newly-acquired forest. Happy hunting/fishing/grubbing-in-the-soil, etc.

7

Why do you have something that is not yours as one of your top values?

I already said. - “it was owned by a wealthy neighbor who died and left it to his son who did not value the forest at all.”

My best suggestion is that you all sell your houses and businesses and use the money to set up a commune in your newly-acquired forest.

This is exactly the same as when I said:

“The best solution that an Objectivist would recommend is to raise enough cash to buy the land from the logging company before any trees are felled.”

However:

“Suppose that I try this solution but the local people do not raise enough funds. Am I to lie down and accept the loss of one of my top values?”

I don’t think my question has been answered yet.

8

I don’t think my question has been answered yet.

I believe I answered it: you may not steal your neighbour’s land, nor his son’s land.

9

Am I to lie down and accept the loss of one of my top values?

You’re simply mistaken: you are not losing a top value since you didn’t have it to lose in the first place; you can stand up or lie down, accept it or fume and fuss, but you still don’t get to claim someone else’s property just because you have an irrational emotional attachment to it.

10

I believe I answered it: you may not steal your neighbour’s land, nor his son’s land.

I understand why I can’t “steal” the land according to Objectivism, but do you not think it would be in my interest to “steal” it considering it is my top value? (I put steal in quotes because I would prefer to use the term ‘political action’ but I know you guys would think of that as theft so I’ll just say “steal”.)

You’re simply mistaken: you are not losing a top value since you didn’t have it to lose in the first place; you can stand up or lie down, accept it or fume and fuss, but you still don’t get to claim someone else’s property just because you have an irrational emotional attachment to it.

You don’t have to own something to value it, you could lend it temporarily and often, as in this case with the grandfather permitting everyone to enjoy the forest.

How can you argue that the neighbours should just watch the forest being felled? I think you might call this an example of the prudent predator principle? However in my eyes the neighbors have nothing to lose by declaring the forest public property. Everyone trusts each other in the town to use common sense in not voting other property out of people’s hands. They have nothing to lose by “stealing” the land.

11

You don’t have to own something to value it, you could lend it temporarily and often, as in this case with the grandfather permitting everyone to enjoy the forest.

You are entirely missing the point. You didn’t “have” this value whereby you lost it. You can’t lose something you don’t have. What is it that you supposedly “lost” – did you have it to begin with?

How can you argue that the neighbours should just watch the forest being felled?

I don’t know what the neighbprs have to do with this, I thought this was about you. But okay, supposing that you and your neighbors both feel this way, I never argued that you should watch. You can turn your head, or you can buy the land.

However in my eyes the neighbors have nothing to lose by declaring the forest public property.

Well, you can declare it to be a vat of cheese, that does not change the fact that it is private property. As I pointed out earlier, there is no such thing as public property.

12

You are entirely missing the point. You didn’t “have” this value whereby you lost it. You can’t lose something you don’t have. What is it that you supposedly “lost” – did you have it to begin with?

I lost the ability to use the forest! I don’t understand where you are coming from here??

I’m trying to figure out whether you are being overly pedantic on purpose or whether we have a genuine misunderstanding here.

13

Simon,

If there is a misunderstanding, it is probably about what principle you’re drawing from this. Is this just about forests or does it apply to other things? For instance…

Suppose your neighbor has a swing-set in his yard and he let’s your kids use it. Not just your kids, the other neighbors kids do so too. Say he sells his house and the new family that moves in plans to remove the swing-set. Are you advocating that they must be forced to keep it, because their neighbors have lost a value? What if they do not remove the set but ask the neighbors to keep off it? Are you advocating that they should be forced to allow people on their set?

If your answer is that “yes, they should be forced to do whatever the previous owner did”, then it’ll be clear that we should be discussing property and rights at a pretty fundamental level. However, if you say “no, they ought not to be forced”, then we’ll be perplexed about why a forest is any different.

14

I lost the ability to use the forest! I don’t understand where you are coming from here??

I’m trying to figure out whether you are being overly pedantic on purpose or whether we have a genuine misunderstanding here.

I’d suggest another possibility, that the problem lies in your failure to really understand the concepts of value and loss. I might also point out that if you’re going to try to understand a general principle from a particular example, then you need to get your story straight about the example from the very start.

Now then, I can’t tell whether your use of the property was a crime in the first place or not. It’s not clear from your first post, but it seems that you were trespassing. The fact that you were not arrested is immaterial. Your second post doesn’t really change that – you’ve mentioned a rich man and an inheritance, but still I do’t see the evidence that you ever had permission to trespass. In post 10 you changed it to a grandfather who gave permission, though of course we have no idea what the form of that permission is and assuming the man was not a complete idiot, he probably knows the law regarding adverse possession and therefore did not in fact give the land away. Anyhow, you knew very well that that was not your land and that the grandfather could rescind permission at any time. Now if this had really been a value to you, you would have acted to keep this land: you would have negotiated with the grandfather to either purchase the land from him or put some appropriate condition in the will, if we are to assume that the grandfather has the same view of the forest as you seem to. But you did not, and that I take to be sufficient evidence that this was not really a top value for you. You did nothing to keep this land, neither with the grandfather nor the gransdon who seems to have sold it to the loggers.

Now as to your abilities: I assume that your legs, arms, and eyes still function (if they don’t, blame the NHS) so you have not lost your ability to enjoy the forest. You never had the right to enjoy the forest, and so that pretty much completes it. You may have in fact enjoyed the forest on specific instances, without the right to do so, and you have not lost those experiences. When you claim that you “lost the ability” to enjoy the forest, you are implicitly claiming that you lost a right that you had. But you did not have that right. If you would like to change the scenario again, whereby you leased the forest for your enjoyment for a period from 1995-2000, then again you were able to enjoy that right as long as it existed, and you did not lose that right. Of course if you are going to now tell us that you purchased a 20 year lease, then perhaps you have a cause of action having to do with breach (but check the wording in the lease).

In other words, you did not lose anything. You may have hoped, for no known rational reason, that you would be permitted the effortless enjoyment of the forest in perpetuity – you may have thought that it was something that you did not in fact have to act to keep – but a belief that you lost something does not actually constitute a loss. It is, simply, reality smacking you in the face, saying “I told you you should have bought that land 10 years ago”.

Also, don’t assume I’m being pedantic and I won’t assume you’re being a moron. Fair trade?

15

If your answer is that “yes, they should be forced to do whatever the previous owner did”, then it’ll be clear that we should be discussing property and rights at a pretty fundamental level. However, if you say “no, they ought not to be forced”, then we’ll be perplexed about why a forest is any different.

No they ought not to be forced to give up their swing set. The forest is different than the swing set because I can buy another swing set but I cannot buy another forest. The forest is unique and cannot be replaced.

16

So, your thesis is that people should not have title to land, and anyone should be free to camp on your lawn?

17

No they ought not to be forced to give up their swing set. The forest is different than the swing set because I can buy another swing set but I cannot buy another forest. The forest is unique and cannot be replaced.

How is the Grandpa’s forest different? The forest is PROPERTY…the forest is just like Grandma’s wedding ring, Grandpa’s forest, or their swingset. YES! You can get another ring, swingset, or forest…No, it won’t be the same ring Grandma wore on her wedding day, the same swingset Baby Bobby swang on when he was 2, or the same forest you squatted on in your youth… but the fact is it belongs/belonged to someone else besides you. As it has been previously said, if you valued it that much, sell your house, your car, your first-born kid, whatever it takes until you value the forest as much as the grandson is willing to sell it for… It’s still belongs to someone else. Are your neighbors “trusts” in writing?