What, exactly, is socialism? Again this discussion seems necessary.

You just said the landholder would prevent LS using land. Make up your mind.

 

No. I have answered that question from you many times. You are a waste of time and electricity.

 

Yes. I have answered that question from you many times. You are a waste of time and electricity.

 

I find it amusing that you talk about being able to use the land that nature has provided while you propose a system that would prevent me from freely using the land that nature has provided. It just cracks me up.

 

Why are you pretending that only an owner can hold land in exclusive tenure? You know the fact that landholders in Hong Kong hold land in exclusive tenure but do not own it. Why are you pretending that you do not know it?

 

And all you've done is propose a system pretty much exactly the same as the one which exists, called by another name.

Changing the title of the land 'owners', and the name of the transactions involved in acquiring rights to land, changes nothing. It's still the exchange of land rights for money.

 

They prevent other people from accessing what nature has provided?

 

Hong Kong has people living in literal cages, and people living in gilded hillside mansions. You could not possibly have picked a worse example of your Grand Idea.

 

No, your claims continue to be false and disingenuous. As you know, and have already stipulated, it is not my system that prevents you from freely using the land nature provided. It is the landholder, under ANY system. My system is only unlike other ones in that the equal individual rights of all to use land are secured and reconciled to achieve liberty and justice.

 

Yes. I have answered that question from you many times. You are a waste of time and electricity.

 

So, to sum up, you are proposing a system in which I would be prevented by other people from freely accessing the land that nature has provided.

 

In exactly the same way they are now. Buy 'buying and selling' land.

 

Both Hong Kong. How's that Noble Plan coming along?

 

They are all coercive, duh. You're just too stupid and lack the moral superiority of the righteous socialist.

I wonder, do you think they do a little church lady dance after saying something like "I wonder....could it be....capitalism???"

 

<snore>Your appealing to your own authority? <sneeze, blow nose at you> Tell me, did you imagine your own infallibility when they handed you a slip of paper that said "Super-Duper Philosopher" on it?

So if I grow corn, a natural plant, it's the alleged right of anyone else to pick that corn and eat it?

I'm curious, do you support land trusts? It's a means by which entities can protect swaths of pristine land from development or other uses. By your reckoning, I ought to be able to trample and destroy pristine land, as that is my liberty. I just can't claim ownership of it.

You mean, like exchange their labor for a wage?

From where comes the alleged right to liberty? Your body is a natural resource, what gives you the right to control it and not everyone else who would put it to better use?

How do I get that right?

From where does "society", a conceptual label for an aggregate of individuals, get rights that "it" can extend? I say those are no different than legal rights and, therefore, just as uninteresting. They are made up privileges "philosophers" use to justify whatever morals you to force others to conform to.

You accuse me of not understanding the difference between tautologies and reason, and then you throw that excessively circular argument at me?

It's really not that subtle.

With fallacies?

So we can all utilize pristine land however we want?

Why do your subjective values, that you call "incentives" define justice for all?

Break this down logically. Your rhetoric is muddled.

So, rights come from evolution, not societies? And, you argue that interfering in what you deem to be universal incentives is objectively wrong. Wrong to whom? Does nature command that humans behave a certain, like some angry deity?

You still haven't given me an objective source of rights or legitimate authority of "society" (or it's representative government") to control the use of property. Perhaps, as a self-claimed, proclaimed philosopher, you've written a thesis on this? Perhaps I'll read it. It certainly can't be as muddled and circular as what you are giving me here.

 

You ARE the 'landowner'. As long as you have the legal right and potential to own land, then you are no different. What an individual chooses to do with his/her legal right and potential to own land is entirely irrelevant.

Even lifelong refusal to participate in the system won't exempt you. Because you'll only be free to choose that refusal IN such a system.

 

<yawn> You are evidently now at the inevitable stage where you will do, say, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to avoid knowing the indisputable facts of objective physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil.

No, that is just more absurd and disingenuous nonsense from you, like claiming that because people have the legal right and potential to be doctors, they are no different from people who ARE doctors.

So, anyone can practice medicine...?

Sorry, your claims are just ridiculous and disingenuous garbage.

Try to find a willingness to know facts: it is not merely a CHOICE to become a landowner, like choosing to study Spanish. You have to PAY a landowner for PERMISSION to become a landowner. You just have to contrive some way to prevent yourself from knowing that fact.

Right, because my liberty rights have already been forcibly stripped from me and given to landowners as their private property.

<yawn> Like you can only choose not to own slaves in a system where it is legal to own slaves...?

Disgraceful.

 

No, merely informing you that your confidence will soon be shown to be unfounded. Watch:

Corn you grow is by definition not a natural plant. See how you immediately have to resort to the most transparent fallacies?? I am so far above your league, you can't even see that high.

No.

Land doesn't need protection. What you really mean is that some people can stop others from exercising their liberty rights to use that land without making just compensation to them for depriving them of the opportunity they would otherwise have had.

"Destroy" land? What nonsense. See how you immediately have to resort to more silly garbage? One man's productive use is another man's -- actually a fool's -- "destruction."

Because that means owning others' liberty rights to use it.

Sure. That's something people would otherwise be at liberty to do.

Ultimately, from our biological identity as social animals who have evolved to make and use tools.

Nope. That's just you makin' $#!+ up again. Natural resources by definition exclude people and all the products of their labor.

I am immutably in control of it. That's not a right, it's an irreducible physical fact.

From your biological identity as a human being, and by respecting others' rights.

It does not "get" or have the rights that it extends to its individual members because it is not an individual human being. It creates those rights by extending them to its individual members as a matter of evolutionary advantage -- i.e., ultimately, self-preservation.

But you are just factually incorrect about that because if there were no difference, there could never have been any justification for making slavery illegal, for extending the franchise to women, etc.

No. Your belief has been refuted. See above.

No. Our human capacity for morality and recognition of others' rights must be founded in biology -- i.e., in reproductive success (unless you assume divine creation).

It's not circular in the least. It is founded in the facts of biology, in evolution.

See above. It is obviously far too subtle for you to understand.

See above. I have identified and demolished your fallacies.

That's the natural condition: everyone is at liberty to use all land non-exclusively, which is how our remote ancestors survived for millions of years. Perhaps by exercising a little effort, you could find a willingness to know that fact. Once the economy gets above the hunter-gather and nomadic herding stages, though, and there are significant fixed improvements to land, there has to be a reconciliation between the right to liberty and the right to property in the fruits of one's labor. The quick and dirty solution was property in land. But now we have better solutions.

Such claims are just silly and disingenuous. There is nothing subjective about the indisputable fact of objective physical reality that people create products IN ORDER to own, use, and trade them, and that products come into existence in their creators' possession.

Because that is what justice IS: rewards commensurate with contributions and costs commensurate with deprivations. There is no reward more commensurate with contribution than ownership of what one produces.

No, it is not. It is perfectly clear and even self-evident. Even monkeys are able to perceive and resent injustice.

No, you are -- predictably -- just being obtuse and disingenuous. Rights come from societies BECAUSE OF how we have evolved.

Society and its members, who have a vested interest in successful genetic survival and reproduction.

Yes: respect others' rights or get out of the gene pool.

I most certainly have: the facts of human biology and how we survive and thrive.

No. Theses are for students. Practicing philosophers write arguments, like the ones I have provided to you (though rarely as clear and logical as mine).

There is nothing muddled or circular in anything I wrote. You just have to refuse to know the self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

 

I can't get behind your idea that any person may use any land he wishes. It seems like such a system would lead to chaos.

 

HK was never perfect by any means, and has become noticeably worse since China took over. But it has been doing something very right for over 160 years, and proves beyond doubt that public ownership of all land is very, very compatible with liberty, the freest markets on earth, and thus prosperity.

 

Public ownership of land? Land can't be owned. It has been provided by nature and anyone who tries to keep me from using it is violating my right to liberty.

 

That's not my idea, as you know. You are just makin' $#!+ up again. My idea is that people are naturally at liberty to use any land they wish non-exclusively, as our remote ancestors did to survive for millions of years, so when someone holds land in exclusive tenure, just compensation is owed BY the landholder and TO those thus excluded. You just have to find some way to avoid addressing what I have actually said so very many times. That's why you choose to put on your disgraceful and despicable feigned ignorance act.

 

So under your plan I can exercise my right to liberty and use any piece of land that has been provided by nature?

 

All true. I didn't say HK was perfect. Just that it has done very, very well for its citizens for over 160 years with secure private property in the fruits of labor but NO private ownership of land. According to your beliefs, that is impossible. According to mine it is inevitable. The facts of objective physical reality therefore prove me right and you wrong. You just have to contrive some way to prevent yourself from knowing those facts, because you have already realized that they prove your beliefs are false and evil.

 

Right. Nobody can violate my right to liberty. I can use any piece of land I choose, because it was provided by nature and not created by anyone.