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In an earlier post I addressed the matter of whether taxes are theft or not. In the course of the discussion, I considered that if the citizens consented to the taxes, then they would not be theft. After all, part of what makes theft wrong is that it involves a lack of free consent on the part of the victims. As such, if those taxed voted for the taxes (or voted for representatives who voted for the taxes) then they would have given their consent and such taxes would not, on the face of it, be theft.
This, of course, could be seen as trying to settle one issue by making use of one that is at least as subject to debate. After all, to say that taxes are not theft when they have been properly voted into effect requires assuming that voting provides this consent in a meaningful way.
Obviously enough, if the voting is directly for a tax and everyone votes in favor, then this would be a clear case of consent. Likewise if everyone votes for someone who is clear that they will support a tax, then that would also seem to provide indisputable consent. As everyone knows, such unanimous voting is all but unheard of. This raises the matter of whether those who voted against the tax (or the tax supporter) have given their consent or not.
Intuitively, it would seem that by participating in the voting process, they have thus agreed to abide by the outcome-whether they win or lose. As such, those who vote against a tax (or tax supporter) would have given their consent to the outcome. Those who chose not to vote would also seem to consent as well-by electing not to vote, they have simply set aside their role in the process and not their consent to the process.
This does assume that there are not factors in play that would make the voting questionable, such as the use of fraud and force. It is easy enough to imagine circumstances in which a vote would clearly not count as a matter of consent. However, the discussion is focused on legitimate voting scenarios.
At this point, it might be objected that if voting is based on consent, whenever people vote against something they are showing their lack of consent. Hence, those who voted for a tax or anything (directly or indirectly) have given their consent while those who voted against it have not. As such, if I vote against a tax, when I am forced to pay I am being robbed. If I had voted for it, then I would not be a victim of theft. To use an analogy, suppose I am in a group and people start to decide what they want for dinner. After a vote, most people decide they want to go to Chez Expensive and have the Costly Quiche. I, however, decided I would rather just go home and make some spaghetti and salad. If these other folks decide to take my money to fund their Quiche, then it would certainly seem that they would be endeavoring to rob me.
Since this is an obvious problem, it is hardly surprising that past thinkers addressed this matter. Locke’s approach is to contend that the consent given when forming a community extends to voting. He argues for this by noting that the political body must move one way (we either have a tax or we do not) and it must move ”the way the greater force carries it, which is the consent of the majority.” If it did not, then the body would be split and the original agreement would be broken.
Naturally, some might contend that the body should split when people disagree. Going back to the quiche example, if some folks want the quiche and I do not, we can simply go our separate ways.
The obvious reply is that while this is sensible in matters involving such minor things as dinner, it would be destructive to society to have the political body break apart over matters of law and policy. This, Locke claims, would be irrational. So, as Locke sees it, the original consent extends to voting and there is also the practical matter of going along with the majority so as to avoid shattering society.
This does lead to a rather serious concern that was perhaps most ably discussed by Mill, namely the tyranny of the majority. The majority (or those who try to pass as the majority) might decide to oppress some of their fellows or do other wicked things. As such, there is clearly a need to place limits on the power of the majority. Mill, being a utilitarian, advocates a utilitarian approach to this matter. As he sees it, the greater good is served by limiting the extent to which the majority can impose on the minority. While Mill does not focus on taxes, he does accept that citizens can be held obligated for “bearing a fair share of common defense or work necessary to the interest of society.”
In regards to the specific matter of taxes, it would seem that if the tax is within the limits of a “fair share”, then it would not be theft to tax someone even if they voted against the tax. However, a tax that went beyond this or had some sort of moral defect could be regarded as theft.
The above discussion does, obviously enough, assume that voting is legitimate. However, this is an assumption that is easy enough to question. Thoreau, for example, claimed that (in his essay on civil disobedience) “voting for the right does nothing for it-it is a feeble expression of the desire that it should prevail. The wise will not leave right to chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”
Thoreau also addresses the matter of taxes and argues that people should be allowed to decide to not pay their taxes if they decide to withdraw from the political system. He does, however, make a point of saying that people should pay for what they use, such as paying the highway tax if one uses the highway.
This does seem to be consistent approach in the context of the consent theory. After all, if someone completely removes themselves from the political system, they remove their consent. To claim that they consent to the results of the votes made by others would thus seem to be an error. To use an analogy, if I do not join a club, they have no right to expect me to pay their membership fees-no matter how they vote on the matter. Likewise, if I am not part of a state, then the state would have no right to assume my consent merely because other people voted on something they want to impose on me.
This is not to say that the state would have no legitimate power over me. After all, if I tried to commit murder or theft within its borders, then the police would seem to be quite right to stop me.
Thoreau’s approach would require actually leaving the political body and not merely bailing after a particular vote. To use an analogy, if I agree to go out to dinner and pay my share, I have no right to bail out when they check arrives. However, if I have left a group or never joined, they would have no right to expect me to pay if they decide to go out to dinner.
As such, if a person did withdraw from society and agreed not to avail themselves of any of its goods or services without paying for them, then imposed taxes beyond this would be theft on the part of the state. After all, the state would be taking without consent and would be taking what it was, in fact, not truly owed.
The guarantee against the tyranny of the mayority is international human rights legislation. If the majority votes to do anything to violate that legislation, for example, institute slavery, then it loses its legitimacy. Although I may dislike certain
majority decisions (which do not violate human rights), those decisions are not exactly tyrannical: for example, the expenses of the national football team paid for from general tax revenue.
What you mean by “withdraw from society” is not clear. If I decide to live by myself in the mountains, I still benefit from the fact that police exist (they protect me even if I don’t use their services directly), from the fact that there are fire-fighters and public hospitals, etc, etc. Such services are there for my use, even if I never use them and in any case, I use them indirectly: for example, the public health service vaccinates people against certain diseases, thus protecting me against those diseases even if I refuse to be vaccinated myself.
Is it possible to withdraw from society?
It may not be possible to withdraw from society, but it is possible for society to withdraw from people. India for example, still has a problem with the rejection of the Untouchable class. Every place has some class distinction – real or fabricated.
I think the discussion of taxes above has focused on the justified or unjustified taking of property, and has not focused on whether or not the property is legitimate to begin with. In other words, it seems like you’re interested in talking about the process of taxation, and not the content of that which is taxed.
But I think this leaves out a major part of the picture. If a person neither needs their possessions, nor thinks they have any responsibilities towards those possessions, then it is not clear how they have any legitimate moral claim to those possessions. So if a corporation abandons a factory, then the workers have every right to take it for themselves. And if I take a pen from your pen warehouse, and I have harmed no-one in doing so, then I have not committed theft.
s. wallerstein,
As you point out, leaving society seems to be a challenging task. It would require evading all the aspects of the state-something that folks in authority generally try to prevent. A person could do it (as some have tried) by living in places where states have no jurisdiction (like on a re-purposed oil well in international waters). However, this generally does not seem like a practical or viable option.
Thoreau hoped that the state would someday allow people to opt out and while being good neighbors, not be citizens of the state.
Benjamin,
I have some sympathy for the view that recent discussions about ‘theft’ and taxation have not substantially touched on questions about what is supposed to legitimise ownership of ‘property’ beyond the possession that is said to make up “9/10ths of the law.” I also have share some your concerns about the rather unfair distribution of resources within and across nations. Still, I rather feel the burden here is on those who would suggest that private individuals can legitimately take what is possessed by another against their wishes and not commit theft.
You suggest you can rightfully take away one of Mike’s pens on the grounds that he does not ‘need’ it or make good use of it. And you make the further claim that, on account of this, it would not be an act of theft. Personally, much as I respect the man as a philosopher, I do find his pen hoarding habits somewhat odious given there are so very many people desperately in need of a biro (and I can’t help but wonder if he is not connected to the disappearance of so many of my own). But it seems to me you can employ that line of thinking even if Mike had not the vast warehouse of pens that he has so greedily accumulated, but merely a drawer full. It is more than he ‘needs’ or can use: so you can just take what you need and it isn’t theft. Everybody in the office agrees with your logic, and so it comes to pass that ‘from each according to his ability to accumulate pens to each according to his biro needs.’ The general ‘if they don’t need it – it isn’t theft’ idea sweeps across society in what is later referred to as ‘The Ballpoint Revolution’. Eventually we no longer have an unfair distribution of pens but complete equality and no pens that work.
Interesting, but though consent is covered as best as a shaky concept can be, the issue is usage. Therein lies theft.
Consent itself is a nebulous thing, all programs being unknown to any one voter. If you can’t grasp the extent and nature of the array of programs, nor how the funds will be used, or how the problem of both wastage and/or corruption weighs on function, then consent becomes something like a blind stab in the dark. What are you in fact then consenting to?
That’s for those obtuse enough to vote for the tax hiker, doubtless a noble and concerned fellow.
For those of the other two classes mentioned, you do not consent, or if you wish to construe it more favorably, you consent to a process. More accurately, you abide, & you abide in the name and sake of comity, or order, or peace, or avoidance of an embryonic Hobbsian condition.
That is, if you think about it at all, which it seems, most don’t.
Maybe that’s what makes the mess called modern democracy work?
Jim, I agree that the burden of proof is on the people who make claims that are unconventional. But I am unsure if I am making an unconventional suggestion, since I’m implicitly skirting on both the Lockean Proviso and arguing against the “tragedy of the commons” thought-experiment.
It’s not clear that Mike needs all the pens in his desk in order to continue doing his work in the office. But you can reasonably expect that a person needs to have at least three pens: a pen (for present use), a replacement (under the assumption that all pens must die some day), and an emergency backup pen (under the assumption of Murphy’s Law). He may have moral property to many other pens besides this normal minimum, since Murphy’s Law is unsatisfiable, and everybody has the right to be risk-averse. The point is just that at the point of four pens, it is no longer clear that he needs any more of them to go about his day to day business.
So how do you find out if he has moral property? Well, it depends on whether or not he thinks he is responsible to the upkeep of the pens. If he merely hordes the pens, however, and does not show any stewardship over them, then we might begin the redistribution of pens. The hope is that these events will rekindle Mike’s sense of stewardship, connecting him back to the use value of the things in his life.
Ben:
What if I hate shopping for pens (actually, I do hate to shop), and I decide to stock up on enough pens for the rest of my estimated life, say, 20 years?
I also stock up on socks and toilet paper for said period of time, saying to myself with great relief, “never again will I have to face a sock purchase!”
Don’t I have every right in the world to stock up on pens, socks and toilet paper?
On the other hand, if I begin to stock up on houses, the picture changes a bit. What about the homeless? What about families which live crowded in one room apartments? What about victims of earthquakes whose homes were destroyed, etc.?
Necessity is the mother of value. You’d have to somehow argue that your hoarding of pens was a function of your needs as a person — i.e., it is required for your personal survival that you should have this many pens. (So in the office example, the background idea is that everyone needs pens in order to survive in their role as office-workers.)
Also you have to ask whether it’s even possible for you to have stewardship over so many pens. If a pen breaks, you probably wouldn’t even notice.
Of course, you can imagine a thought-experiment that satisfies the above. So: suppose I am allowed out of the building once every year, and I do not get to borrow pens from anyone, and so I have to stock up on pens or else I will be unable to do my work. In that case, you do seem to have a moral right to the hoarding of legal property. By force of reason, everyone must recognize that you have certain powers, rights, freedoms, and responsibilities with respect to your pens.
Ben:
I’d notice.
I don’t believe you. It is a fundamental law of existence that you will never know whether a pen is broken until you try to use it.
Anyway, even if you did know (set up a science fiction scenario, involving robots testing pens in your basement), then there’s still the question of needs. Would you, as a person, in some way cease to exist if you had x-1 number of pens? Would your body be disintegrated, your life projects fundamentally altered (e.g., you’re fired), or your mind become unhinged? If so, then it seems to me that you have a prime facie case to having a moral right to that property. If not, then it’s not so clear.
Ben:
I have an obsessive-compulsive personality, and my mind would become unhinged if I were to lose a pen (or a sock).
Assuming that were true, then you would have a pro tanto moral claim to the pens. You’d also be a nuisance, but such is life.
Nevertheless, if your needs come at the cost of the needs of others, then at minimum we’ll have to start thinking about whether or not it’s justifiable to override your claim. If the circumstances are dire enough, then we might start wondering whether your pro tanto claim is a moral right at all.
Ben:
Since you recognize my right to my pens, let me assure that if you need a pen, while I will not let you touch one of mine, I will
instantly give you the money necessary to buy your own.
No questions asked.
We obsessive-compulsives are not miserly.
I don’t see us obsessive-compulsives as a nuisance, by the way. It is a genetic condition, such as autism or being gay, although we are not organized to defend ourselves against politically incorrect comments about our way of life.
Perhaps in the future we should
form a group to defend our reputation and promote our public image.
We have our virtues and our defects like any other personality type. For example, if you share a living space with an obsessive compulsive, you need never worry about running out of toothpaste or toilet paper or soap late at night when all the stores are closed.
By the way, what’s your take on books? Most philosophers (and other intellectuals) have lots of books in their libraries, many of which they will never read again, if they read them in the first place. Would it be justified to remove a book from your personal library if it is not available elsewhere and if you have no further use for it?
Re Benjamin and S Wallerstein:-
I saw a pen in the road today. A car had obviously run over it and thus it was unusable. I was not looking for a pen or trying to use one but I nevertheless knew it was broken and useless This seems to be a contradicting instance of the fundamental Law of existence.
You can save money on socks and the inconvenience of changing them and washing them and having them constrict the tissues of your legs. Do not wear them, I don’t.
Suppose I need a pen urgently to send off a cheque to my poor old mother. No time to go out to buy one, the post is collected from the box outside your door any minute. Do you still refuse to let me use one of yours? Perhaps you would sell me one of yours. Suppose I said “don’t be ridiculous” and picked up one of yours and started using it. What then?
Looks like I would be OK at night for toilet paper soap and toothpaste. If I visit should I bring my own toilet paper? I mostly need that during the day?
I am very reluctant to part with books for any reason which is why I am almost submerged in them. I might possibly lend one to a person if I were sure it would really benefit them, more than it would currently benefit me. I might even give it to them.
Don:
In my house, you (Don) are in your house, and my pens are your
pens.
Benjamin,
‘A private individual can rightfully help himself to the possessions of another on the grounds that the latter party does not ‘need’ and make ‘good use’ of those possessions and in so doing the former does not commit theft’. I think this proclamation by the ‘Ballpoint Radicals’ can reasonably be classed as ‘unconventional’ – certainly it is against the social and legal conventions that obtain in any functioning society that I am aware of. And I don’t think the fact that this claim may have some philosophical precedent changes this at all.
“By force of reason, everyone must recognize that you have certain powers, rights, freedoms, and responsibilities with respect to your pens!” (I hope you don’t mind the addition of the exclamation mark). “By force of reason” you “must” recognize nothing of the sort. I appreciate that in this context you are actually ‘granting’ some limited right to Comrade Amos to hoard pens in very exceptional circumstances. But you have already talked about the ‘responsibilities’ possessors are supposed to have ‘towards those possessions.’ Of course, the supposed “responsibilities” ‘to your pens’ are no such thing – you do not have responsibilities to pens. What you assert, reasonably enough, is that those who possess pens, when pens are scarce, have some moral responsibility to those lacking pens. Certainly we may be entitled to think badly of Mike or Amos for not sharing their pens in times of severe writing implement shortage. And – perhaps – in a time of crisis the government might legitimately force Mike or Amos to give up their stockpiles of ballpoints in return for some form of compensation – for the greater good of the country you understand.
But the claim that a private individual has the right to help himself to what he ‘needs’ from the ‘surplus’ pens in Mike’s or Amos’ possession and is not committing theft when he does so is quite a different type of claim. And if it is granted and instituted all would collapse. If you can only rightfully possess as much as you ‘need’ and can rightfully take what you ‘need’ from those who have worked to accumulate pens, there would be no economy of pens. Why work to accumulate biros? Why manufacture biros at all? And what ugly body of ‘pen pushers’ will draw up regulations on who needs how many biros and what constitutes ‘proper use’ of pens? I can only hope in such circumstances that the pens of Amos and Mike might prove mightier than your Radical sword.
S.Wally, I need my books if I’m to survive as the person I am, yes. Also I take care of them.
Don, the strength of your claim depends on how your circumstances involve personal needs. How many pens do I have? Is your mother about to die?
Jim, perhaps not, but you have to admit that it’s not entirely disconnected either. For one thing, Locke was interested in philosophy of law with his Proviso, which is pretty big game and it involves a bunch of conflicting claims — whereas I take it we are having a different discussion, because we’re talking about morals and the philosophy of society. While the Lockean Proviso hardly fits as a general theory of law, it may be sufficient for a theory of moral property, if amended suitably. Or at least that’s what I’m arguing here. Also: we have to remind ourselves that there really are people out there who have argued, like Proudhon, that property *is* theft. This is all quite unconventional, perhaps, but it is also in harmony with certain strands in the literature.
Notice, if for whatever reason you lack a moral claim to some bit of property, you might still have a legal claim to that property. It’s just that, for the sake of argument, we have to adopt the standpoint of political anarchists who are morally apathetic towards pre-existing law. If it turns out that legal claims to property have moral weight (for instance, because legal norms are required to ensure stability in a complex society), then things will turn out very differently. But if we are interested in talking about “moral property”, as if it were distinct from legal property, then we’re all radicals — we have to be, or else the concept of “moral property” makes no sense and should be eliminated. But that would be unfairly dismissive of Mike’s posts, I think, predicated as they have been on the concept of moral property.
Just a restatement of the ballpoint radical’s thesis: as far as we’re talking about your moral claim to property, you do have rights and responsibilities with respect to your pens, just in case a) you are willing to meet your responsibilities of stewardship with respect to the pens (e.g., the upkeep of your pens so that they function), and b) you have a need for them. By (a), I mean that you have a duty to perform an action that involves your pen. If “duty to your pen” sounds absurd, then it is only because I’ve phrased things in a silly way.
You say that the ballpoint radical’s claim about the force of reason is nonsense. Perhaps. But the question, then, is: what is your theory of moral property? If ballpoint radicalism is wrong, then surely you must have a better account. e.g., you might adopt Nozick’s view, which is roughly that moral property involves non-coercive acquisition and inheritance. I think that’s a dangerously solipsistic view, but it’s certainly an alternative.
I’m actually not sure whether or not the issue of moral property is distinct from the issue of duties of beneficence. You can make a distinction in general, of course, because there are cases where needs will shift overnight. For instance, you might buy all the pens in the world, and people might sort of want to have some pens around without really needing them. In that case, you might have a duty of beneficence, while also holding the pens as moral property. But I think we’re talking about different sorts of cases, where there is a conflict of needs with needs. In these cases, it seems to me that your moral responsibility to others might be sufficient to alter your claim to moral property.
Greetings Ben,
If “duty to your pen” sounds absurd, then it is only because I’ve phrased things in a silly way.
Given the pen-focused nature of our discussion, I think our phrasings are rather bound to appear silly. I don’t think you or your ideas are silly though. Perhaps talk of pens is not necessarily the best way to get across serious points. It is somewhat hard to talk about the notion that you have “responsibilities of stewardship with respect to pens” with an entirely straight face. Of course, I have to take some responsibility for getting the ballpoint rolling.
To claim that I must look after an object properly and make active use of it for it to remain my property does seem a somewhat stringent condition for ownership. And the suggestion that another individual can, in such circumstances, freely take possession of that object if he needs it is, to say the least, somewhat counter-intuitive. Morally speaking, if other agents have genuine and urgent need for an object I neither need nor use, it certainly seems reasonable to assert that I should seriously consider parting with that object. But I am somewhat inclined towards maintaining that it remains my property to give away and that anybody who takes it without my permission is a thief. I rather feel I should decide how I dispose of my possessions. .
Moral responsibility to others should be sufficient to cause me to freely give away surplus moral property to those in need and deserving of my assistance. I am inclined to think in terms of duties of beneficence. Of course, as we are both well aware, these duties don’t seem to be taken so seriously that the needy and deserving are actually taken care of. I am not opposed to the idea that democratically elected governments should, through measures of taxation redistribute some material goods and in so doing, distribute some much needed social justice. In some limited circumstances I would also grant that such a government might also have the right to enforce a compulsory purchase upon land or natural resources to that end. In such cases the criteria about stewardship, use and need would indeed be very relevant. Probably our differences are more conceptual and linguistic. I suspect the ends we wish to see achieved are probably not so very far apart.
Mike,
The solution to taxes, voting and theft seem rather simple to me. That said, Curious has accused me of ambitious Macbethian madness. What can I say? Madness may by a sign of demise or perhaps just the omens of some profound revelation. In this case it doesn’t stem form me, only from someone else’s infectious virus: tax not the income but the use and flatly the transaction. The former (usage) you have already addressed through Thoureau. And the latter is really just a special case of the former. The state could amply fill its coffers with the smallest of transactional fees. Contemporary currency is only possible through fiat of the state. They are the ones who (electronically) print money and guarantee redemption. It is only fare that they receive a share to maintain the structures that allow a fluid economy.
And if someone really wants to join Walden Three, then they should return to bartering beaver furs and printing their own coupon currency.
I want to come to Mike’s defense. He is, unlike Amos, not afflicted by a mental disorder causing unnecessary pen hoarding. He is, as any great philosopher, ambidextrous and can write with both hands simultaneously. This truly entitles him to his 6 pens (2x used, 2x backup 2x Murphy’s). He claims he needs 12 because he can also simultaneously write with both his feet. But we of the Politburo have our doubts and have only granted him an exception for twice the standard quota.
The gods have yet to make you mad Andreas. For hubris they will first destroy me. I should take refuge in silence and learn to chop wood.
Andreas:
It’s a personality disorder, not a mental disorder, according to the official classification.
However, as I say, we’re not disordered (far from it), only different.
The diagnostic power-that-be would deem everybody to ‘suffer’ from some ‘disorder’ or other.
If my thoughts and manners were as ‘obsessively’ and ‘compulsively’ ordered as yours I would welcome the difference.
If somebody can’t keep their sticky little fingers off Mike’s pen, then Mike should give them the Texas “cure”.
A very interesting post Mike.
However, we need to consider that tax money is primarily used to pay for public goods. Public goods are defined as good that are indivisible and non-exclusive: Public defense for example. By nature everyone within in the social contract benefits from public defense; so they should pay for it. I think Rousseau’s idea of a social contract can further help understand the issue.
We live together in a society because we believe that it will be better of us than living in a state of nature. When forming a society we join a social contract. Everyone gives up their individual freedom and rights and puts it in the hand of society. Everyone’s in this social contract has equal say in the actions taken by society: as a result we do not loose any freedom (Let’s suppose a society consisting of 100 people. We give up our individual freedom but gain 1/100 freedom over 100 people. 100*1/100=1). By living in a social contract it is our duty to conform to its decisions. The only way to rightfully escape the social contract would be to escape civilization by returning to a life in the state of nature. I claim that this is impossible.
.
Jim, I’m not sure that ballpoint socialism is counter-intuitive. The fact is, when I am in need, I take peoples’ pens all the time — without remorse. I am a Bic Psychopath. Under the Proviso-style of circumstances mentioned above, I simply will take your pen if I have a need. (Assuming, of course, the pen is not special in any way. I wouldn’t steal an engraved pen, or one of those fat multi-colored pens.) And I would wager that I’m not alone in my attitude towards pen ownership. People take pens all the time and barely even think about it, so long as the conditions are right. In the exceptional case, if somebody whines about the loss of their pen, it is a cause for amusement and pre-cooked banter about the technicalities of legal property rights.
And going beyond intuitions, I rather think the people who hold the reverse opinion — the ballpoint liberals — have got a lot of explaining to do. They are sticklers and nuisances who have no sense of proportion, and who have a coercive (or altogether nonexistent) sense of where property gains its legitimacy.
Original acquisition matters, of course, all other things equal. If the original acquirer is as fit to own the pen than anyone else, then they might as well have it.
But suppose we were talking, not about pens, but a sword planted in the rock. Suppose further that no-one except King Arthur can remove the sword from the rock and use it as a sword. But let’s suppose that before King Arthur arrives on the scene, Bubba cordons off the sword and says, “Newp, it’s mine, I saw it first”. Bubba cannot use the sword in any way — he has just decided it is His, because… well… finder’s keepers. Should we say that the sword is Bubba’s moral property? I think not. I think we should say that he’s just a pretentious fool who ought to be brushed aside.
How does Bubba know King Arthur can pull out the sword? Are there many swords and Bubba has seen King Arthur do it many times? Is he really just a miser or just a skeptic?
Does that mean anyone can walk in and take my youngest son’s bike since he doesn’t yet know how to properly balance on it?
‘People take pens all the time and barely even think about it’.
Yes people steal all the time and think nothing of it. This is very true. And yet it is theft.
Bubba likes having a sword in a rock. He doesnt want a sword, he wants a sword in a rock – specially that sword in that rock. Let Arthur find his own sword.
Marx speaks about socializing the means of production, not about socializing pens or children’s bicycles. The Allende government, here in Chile, the only Marxist democratically government that I know of (and unfortunately, overthrown by less than democratic means), was concerned about socializing strategic and big industries and large landholdings.
Since most of us, even those of us who sympathize with socialized healthcare, public transportation, basic housing and higher education, like to have their own pens, books, socks and bicycles for their children, couldn’t it be that socializing pens, books, socks and bicycles (and tricyles) is carrying socialization a few steps too far for selfish human nature?
Andreas, suppose that the sword has a note attached that says, “Can only be pulled out by King Arthur”. (I feel like I’m narrating a game of Dungeons and Dragons at this point. I suppose it’s my own fault for making up these examples.)
Jim, not much I can say except that the position you’re endorsing is the one I’m arguing against.
But here’s one other consideration that’s worth noting in defence of ballpoint socialism: it maps onto survival situations in a parsimonious way. e.g., if everyone is on a life-raft, and one member is hoarding fresh water, then there is absolutely no sense in which the single member owns the fresh water. This is reflected in the fact that if anyone asks him for water, he has absolutely no right to refuse. It is not just that there are conflicting obligations in his case — rather, in that situation his obligations to others are beyond dispute.
S.Wally, true, the illustrations are self-consciously silly. But there is a qualitative difference between means of production and possessions, in that most medium-value possessions cannot be contested on the grounds of personal needs. (For instance, it is hard to say that anyone needs a television.) And even possessions were contested on those grounds, there’s still the matter of stewardship. Books and pens are easy to take care of. But unlike books and pens, factories and mines do not take care of themselves.
How do we know the note tells the truth? Perhaps it’s misinformation spread by Arthur to steal Bubba’s property. Is he colluding with the Knights of the Round Table to make himself king? Wait a minute. Was the note there before Bubba put his perimeter up? Did Bubba actually steal Arthur’s sword?
I hope we are playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and not one of those silly boardgames.
So what are you trying to say Benjamin? That property is not sacrosanct? As far as I know it isn’t in the modern republic. The state can through eminent domain claim property, as long as they fairly compensate the owner monetarily. And if we find ourselves on a so called “life raft” the state can conscript us to military and public service.
To be sure, Bubba had a claim to moral property. Original acquisition, or the rule of “finders keepers”, has some initial weight. However, his claim is dissolved by the changing landscape of the situation.
Summary: I’m saying that need and stewardship are individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for anyone who wishes to make a persuasive claim to moral property.
For the purposes of discussion, the legal status of property is irrelevant, and the interesting opinions of the modern republic are bracketed into insignificance. If we really want to talk about moral property, we have to temporarily ignore what the state has got to say about property.
“when I am in need, I take peoples’ pens all the time — without remorse.”
You are in the University library. You need a pen. There’s one sitting on a desk beside a pile of books and a notepad. The owner isn’t presently there and there’s nobody watching. Do you just pocket it? I don’t imagine so. I’m sure you know what doing that amounts to. Even if it is a bog-standard biro, one of ten lying on a desk. We all know what taking one amounts to. It amounts to exactly the same thing as taking as taking the price of a biro – say a shekel – from a desk that has no pens but a pile of ten shekels and popping down to the shop to buy a pen. And it amounts to exactly the same thing as popping into the shop without bothering with the shekel and simply pocketing a pen off the shelf. I don’t imagine you’d do any of those things. Even if Canadian law didn’t allow for the prosecution of people that ‘only’ stole a biro or a shekel, and even if Canadians were so universally easy-going that they wouldn’t cause any fuss if they caught you at it, laughed off the matter and politely asked you for their property back, you wouldn’t do any of those things.
I presume you mean you only take pens without remorse within your communal graduate workspace (or some such). And I presume you mean to suggest that’s there an unwritten rule (you’d have written it down if your pen hadn’t gone missing) amongst you and your colleagues. And the rule is that you can help yourself to each other biros. And if that were the universally accepted social norm in your workplace that would be fine – you’d be acting within the norms of your community and you’d be committing no theft. Except apparently it isn’t because, as you say, ‘exceptionally’ somebody “whines” about the loss of their pen, exceptionally somebody “whines” about the fact you have ignored “the technicalities of legal property rights.” And in those ‘exceptional’ cases you are amused by the whining of the ‘sticklers and nuisances who have no sense of proportion.’
‘If you need a pen just pocket one and if the owner complains just laugh’ – is this the norm you want to promote? Do you want to insist that we have a “sense of proportion” about theft? Do you want people to agree that if it is ‘only’ a pen (or ‘only’ a ‘shekel’?) it is not ‘really’ theft (or only ‘technically’ so)? And, sorry, but why exactly is it that Arthur has the right to take the sword and Bubba has no right to keep his sword-in-a-rock? Why is Bubba’s claim by original acquisition “dissolved” by “the changing landscape of the situation”? I’m sure there’s more you can say than “the position you’re endorsing is the one I’m arguing against” before we get in the life-boat.
‘Our property is nothing but those goods, whose constant possession is establish’d by the laws of society” said Hume in the Treatise.
Are the laws of our society – codified or not – necessarily “irrelevant” here and has talk of ‘moral property’ been demonstrated to be useful or even meaningful?
Ben:
There’s a factor that you aren’t taking into account and which is essential to Marx’s account of private property: labor time.
If I have two pens and you have none, it is very probable (in contemporary society) that I went to the trouble to buy the two pens and you didn’t. That is, I dedicated time and energy to the purchase of the pens. You dedicated your time and energy to other things, including studying, which gives you a certain advantage over me, since while I was buying my pens, I could not study.
(I assume that we all have enough money to buy a Bic pen: that’s not the issue.)
So when you rob my Bic pen, current value in Santiago, 250 pesos, that is, 50 cents U.S., you are also robbing my time and energy and are exploiting me insofar as my labor that goes into buying pens allows you extra time to study and live the privileged life of a full-time scholar, while I lose scholar-time by buying pens for “us”.
Jim, you’re right, I probably wouldn’t do that in the situation you contrived. That’s because in this casual situation, I don’t actually need the pen.
Even if I did need it, I could use it (i.e., to write down a book number) and return it. And if I really did have a standing need for the pen — in the sense that it was necessary for my survival as a person, e.g., if I needed to drink ink or else I would die — then, assuming I did not have any interfering duties of beneficence, then I would legitimately take it and use it. But then the situation would be very different from the one you suggested, and (I trust) provoke completely different intuitions.
What is it that has changed about Bubba and the sword? The landscape of needs and responsibilities. Arthur needs the sword, Bubba doesn’t. Arthur can use the sword, Bubba can’t. Bubba doesn’t maintain the sword, Arthur does. Bubba is a miser, and has invested nothing — he has just been the first one to say, “This is mine!”.
Notice, I don’t want people to have a sense of proportion about theft. *Theft* is always wrong in some sense. But unlike you, I don’t think that there is a strong claim to moral theft in the cited case (except to the extent that we have moral duties to law). Rather, I want you to have a sense of proportion about property, in the following sense: property presupposes need and stewardship. And I think it seems pretty sensible to endorse that norm.
Hume is either absolutely right or besides the point in that quote, depending on how we interpret him. What are the “laws of society”? If he means voluntaristic self-imposed laws, then he is correct. If he means the law of the polis, he is saying that all property is legal property, which makes nonsense of our subject matter.
As I said earlier, the first attraction of this account is theoretical parsimony — it fits with survivalist situations in a simple (even elegant) way. Another attraction is that the ballpoint socialist really does have intuitions in their corner, once those intuitions are appropriately fitted to the claims. And there are pretty good reasons for those intuitions. If, like Hume, we think that justice is public utility, then one has to wonder how appeals to public utility could motivate our defence of a miser in desperate times. Perhaps there may be an argument you can make to this effect, but I doubt they have much to do with an in-principle claim about moral property.
At any rate, even if I’m wrong, I want to make one thing clear: moral property must have some robust connection with merit or value. I may be wrong in how I have cashed this out in the details (though I’m not sure how, just yet). But one thing is certain: Nozick’s conception is utterly vacuous, and simply has got to go.
SWally, I presume that investment and upkeep are both aspects of what it means to be a steward over your property. In that sense, Marx has been smuggled in. But not *just* Marx — for my formulation of moral property is compatible with capitalism.
Benjamin.
I’m quite certain your personal behavior is, unlike mine, beyond all reproach.
I am not put in a state of utter moral outrage by all instances of theft. I just think people should recognize that when they help themselves to the property of others, even if it is ‘only’ a pen or, say, office stationary from a large corporation, they make themselves a thief. Thus they are no different in kind from people who help themselves to unattended money or unguarded items in shops. That large numbers of people steal things in this unthinking fashion does not keep me awake at night. I’m just rather keen to have people recognize what they do for what it is.
I shall respond directly to your substantive points.
regards and best wishes
James
Ben:
Are you sure that your concept of
moral property is compatible with capitalism?
Capitalism is a lot more than just private property.
For Marx at least, capitalism involves, not only private property (a subject which does not concern Marx much), but also private ownership of the means of production and surplus-value.
Now, I think that your concept of moral property may not be consistent with surplus value, as Marx sees it.
Surplus value basically means that
a worker is not paid for his full-time worked: that unpaid time goes toward the capitalist’s profit.
For example, I work 10 hours producing i-phone and am paid for 5 hours of i-phones produced. Part of those 5 hours may pay expenses, but part of them goes into the capitalist’s pocket.
Otherwise, where does the capitalist’s profit come from?
So private property per se is not capitalism, and since Marx is so concerned about the worker being part for his full labor time, Marx seems to believe that each of us “owns” our labor-time, that it is ours, and a form of private property. That is, Marx is not against private property, but against capitalism.
Thus, is your concept of moral property consistent with the idea that under capitalism, a worker’s labor time is expropriated by the capitalist?
(I’m simplifying Marx’s theory, but I think that I have outlined it
faithfully. Corrections are welcome)
In the general circumstance of some random chap called Arthur being in need of a sword in a general sense – that is that is a thing he could rather make use of – however keen he is to maintain it or not, and regardless of the fact only he can retrieve it from a rock, no he has no right that dissolves Bubba’s right to a sword-in-a-rock which you suggested was initially valid by original acquisition. To my mind, and Bubba’s a sword-in-a-rock is a fine thing, aesthetically valuable, and really experience suggests the safest place for swords to be is stuck very firmly in rocks.
But, as far one account of the myth goes, pulling the sword out of the rock is the act that proves you are the true heir of Uther Pendragon. The myths are vague and contradictory but on the assumption the sword belonged to Uther Pendragon, and that he put it in the rock, the sword belongs to the heir of Pendragon and so nobody can claim ownership of the sword unless he pulls it out. So, not because only Arthur can use it as a sword, or because he will look after it, but because it is his rightful inheritance (as proved by pulling the bleeding thing out of a rock) yes its Arthur’s and Bubba had no claim by ‘original acquisition’. If we can never mention Arthur and the sword again that would be fine by me.
Benjamin: “Hume is either absolutely right or besides the point in that quote, depending on how we interpret him. What are the “laws of society”? If he means voluntaristic self-imposed laws, then he is correct. If he means the law of the polis, he is saying that all property is legal property, which makes nonsense of our subject matter.”
‘Our property is nothing but those goods, whose constant possession is establish’d by the laws of society; that is, by the laws of justice. Those, therefore, who make use of the words property, or right, or obligation, before they have explain’d the origin of justice, or even make use of them in that explication, are guilty of a very gross fallacy, and can never reason upon any solid foundation. A man’s property is some object related to him. This relation is not natural, but moral, and founded on justice. Tis very preposterous, therefore, to imagine, that we can have any idea of property, without fully comprehending the nature of justice, and shewing its origin in the artifice and contrivance of man. The origin of justice explains that of property. The same artifice gives rise to both.’” [Hume in the Treatise]
What Hume would make of our subject matter (your theory) you can judge for yourself.
Jim,
I’d agree with everything in the Hume quote. Justice is artificial, or social. But I don’t think we need to understand Hume as saying that we cannot make sense of moral property as distinct from legal property. For the sake of argument, at least, we might say that both moral property and legal property are social.
In fact, I think we can borrow even more from Hume in order to spell out the difference. At the start of Part 2 of the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, he asks us to consider what a man would think about justice if he were entirely ignorant of human nature. And it seems to me that a concept of moral property requires that we (like the anarchists) feign ignorance of human nature, under the (obviously false) assumption that people will be inclined to act fairly in the absence of the state. By contrast, when we speak of “legal property”, we are supposed to take off our rose-colored glasses.
When first question you might ask is, to what extent how are original acquisition and inheritance significant? If Bubba never needed the sword-in-the-rock, then why do we even bother saying that he owned it (and then his ownership was dissolved?)
Well, one idea is that nobody else made the claim before he did. I guess this matters, somehow.
But acquisition doesn’t come just because a person gets there first. I trust that we would all agree that, at this stage in the game, no single person can own whole celestial bodies. For instance, the Spaniard Angeles Duran put in a bid to own Sol, our sun. (http://www.mediaite.com/online/spanish-woman-claims-to-now-owns-sun-plans-to-charge-people-for-its-use/) We might say to Angeles, “Har har, nice try”, but at the end of the day she gets no sun to her name. But why not? She seems to be in the same position as Bubba: she declared ownership first, and in agreement with community standards. So if she doesn’t qualify as an initial acquirer, in what sense is Bubba any different?
I’ve been sneakily trying to smuggle in the backstory of King Arthur and Excalibur into the case of Bubba vs. Arthur. The idea is that it is, in some nebulous sense, Arthur’s destiny to have the sword. That’s the sense in which Arthur needs it — it’s a genuine need, in the sense that it has to do with personal survival, not mere usefulness. But as you noted, there are connotations of initial acquisition and inheritance to the story, which makes it a lousy illustration. It seems my imagination has failed, though hopefully the argument can survive anyway.
S.Wally,
Possibly not. “Capitalism” gets defined in every which way, which makes it hard to pin down in discussion. But to be sure the ownership of means of production by private hands seems like a plausible candidate as a necessary condition. As you say, there are other aspects — fetishizing exchange value and the generation of surplus value seem vital, too.
The thing is, these are all worldly concerns, while discussions of moral property are idealistic and fanciful (see my reply to Jim above, on Hume). The concept of moral property is weak — perhaps so weak that it can be consistent with a wide range of doctrines.
My point was really to say that a certain sort of libertarian capitalist might read everything I’ve said and say, “Oh, I’m fine with that”. That’s because some libertarian capitalists (call them “Alpha libertarians”) are working under the assumption that they really do earn what they make and make what they earn: people who are both stewards over their place in the economy, and/or who need capital to survive. But there is another strand who would read my words (call them “Beta libertarians”) and puff up like pigeons, since they know full well that they’re talking the talk of the Alphas without having the talent, energy, resources, or inclination to do justice to their holdings. And by any measure, the Beta libertarians are pompous misers and parasites — the wretched of the Earth.
“I don’t think we need to understand Hume as saying that we cannot make sense of moral property as distinct from legal property”
Benjamin,
Hume is making nonsense of the notion of ‘natural rights’ to property – which for Locke stood on theological stilts we have cast aside – and is asserting that property results from societal rules (and that we must think about the latter before we talk about the former). If your notion of ‘moral property’ does not rest upon some notion of ‘natural rights’ then yes, it seems perhaps you could indeed agree with Hume and consistently maintain your notion of ‘moral property’.
What it initially seems to me you could do is argue, on rather more naturalistic grounds than talk of ‘natural rights’, that conditions of ‘stewardship and need’ should be written into the societal rules about property relations on grounds of utility. You could look at how we are, and what our condition is and argue that ‘stewardship and need’ could be usefully written into the legal code which makes what you possess (or want to possess) into your property. But that is not the move you make.
To spell out what you mean by ‘moral property’ as opposed to property in the ordinary sense of the word you “borrow even more from Hume”. And suggest we should act like “a creature, possessed of reason, but unacquainted with human nature, [who] deliberates with himself what RULES of justice or property would best promote public interest, and establish peace and security among mankind.”
The value of doing this for Hume, is show how if you ignore human nature you can be led to a draw up a number of initially attractive ways of running society and dividing property that appear really quite rational and equitable (including communism of a sort). But, says Hume, the theories we draw up in such circumstances, were they ever actually implemented would prove “impracticable” or at least would “instead of preventing want and beggary in a few, render it unavoidable to the whole community.”
I see: so ‘moral property’ as you conceive of it – as presupposing stewardship and need – would be the type of thing you would only ever draw up if – against Hume’s advice – you completely ignored human nature and which, it were ever implemented into law would be the type of thing that would at least be “extremely pernicious to human society” if not having as an immediate consequence its “total dissolution.”
I was of that opinion already.
Ben:
It seems to me that to be consistent, the alpha libertarians might be for a free market in which individual producers exchange their goods, but not for capitalism, as we both say, with wage labor, surplus value and fetishized commodities.
That is, in theory a free market is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for capitalism.
I say “in theory” because in many areas of contemporary capitalist economies there is no free market.
Here the case presented was about the consciously moving away from the act of voting/being a part of the state or in other words consciously not consenting by not acting, but what about the ones who withdraw from this without knowledge? For instance I didnt go to vote not because I knew if I had to but because I didnt know about the voting itself. How that case would be dealt.
@Riddhima, March 31st,
What you are speaking of might be called “pseudo-democracy.” The media is induced to present a government that is supposed to be democratic, but the candidates are pre-selected, the votes are stacked, and the results are a forgone conclusion. In ancient Greece, citizenship was a privilege and not a right (as we know and use the word “right” today). Ancient Greece only permitted certain classes from participating in government. Most countries still have some measure of this. America is different in that anyone can become President.
Jim, to be clear, I’m not advocating anything like natural rights. Hume rightly noted that rights are artificial. Actually, in a sense, I’m advocating that we think about moral rights as being completely anti-natural. For if we assume that moral property means anything at all, it seems to presuppose that we should assume the best about human nature.
True, you are of a negative opinion already. But notice that that your negative view applies to moral property as such, regardless of the particular view one might take on it. So unless you have a different way of demarcating the legal and the moral, it seems to me that you’re making it impossible to talk about moral property in any distinctive way.
Frankly, I sympathize with your wider conviction, which is that we ought to be rooted in reality. The only difference is that, if push comes to shove, I’m happy to have a narrower idealistic discussion as well. And in that narrow discussion, I would rebuke competing positions on deontic grounds. (It is good to have an extensive philosophical toolkit in case of emergency.)
S.Wally, oh, no doubt. It’s an interesting line of thought to pursue. Still, I would imagine that only libertarian socialists would be willing to acknowledge need and stewardship as being core to a theory of value and property.
I would not be surprised if, after careful reflection upon the available options, the alpha-libertarians all leaned to the left.
It’s all pretty useful to keep these issues in mind when you’re talking to free market ideologues. The severest cases of free market fundamentalism (and some of the anarchist strains of libertarian thought) are predicated upon an extremely optimistic vision of human nature. The worst of them don’t seem to be terribly interested in whether or not we (at present) have anything like a free market economy, or if we ever did. But that’s all an aside I think.
Ben,
I think there is more of value in what you are saying than I had previously recognised. My thinking has not been very clear of late and I don’t think I have been expressing my thoughts very well or constructively.
I think I should maybe follow Thoreau’s advice and go spend some time in the open air chopping wood. My thinking about your ideas might prove a bit clearer after a rest.
Regards, James
Jim, I think you’re close to home in many of your criticisms, and have gained quite a bit from your challenges! Cheers.
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