Conscription

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Oh that's right...we're not allowed to talk about individual successes. It's the "whole group" that matters.

I have no idea how successfull you are. And one point you tell me you are successfull, and at another point you tell me you aren't. I think you just give me unvarifiable information when it suits your needs. Whether it's true or not it doesn't mean crap. What matters is that most people work hard while some one else gets rich, usually people who are already rich.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Kramerman
what fairy tales? All sides of my family were poor immigrants to America at some point. Within one generation all sides of my family had themselves established.

There was a lot of tough luck with my mother, and her socio-economic status fell terriblly, after trying to raise two young boys on her own. After a decade she was firmly reestablished in the middle class, on her OWN merit. Thats the key word right there. We are a society based ideally on MERIT (tho it doesnt always turn out this way), not handouts. That is why we are so succesful.

Oh christ not the poor immigrants turn into the next Bill Gates stories again. It's unvarifiable. A thousand immigrants come to the US and work just as hard, and they end up poor in the end and worked hard the whole way.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Kramerman
hmm... Templar... if you did not have to worry about making that buck, my friend, you WOULD NOT WORK NEARLY AS HARD! its that necessity of making a buck that drives people to work HARD.

I've never really had to worry about making a buck. I've always made enough to live OK. My goal is mastery of what I do and to help the community at large while doing so. If you gave me a million dollars a month to sit on my ass or living wage to do something I love, I'll take the living wage. I'll be having too much fun to notice. I haven't had to take a job I didn't love since working summers in undergrad.

its called incentive, without it, you, me, Vel, Kid, and most everyone except fantically passionate people for the state would slack off as much as possible.

Its called status. In our society, money = status. If expertise = status, there would be your incentive to excel. Sure, I do what I do because I want to be the best and help my community, but I can feel the societal pull of money = status in the mainstream of society.

this would make the system terriblly inefficient, thus you have the crap states of vietnam, NK, cuba, and the collapse of the soviet union. Even china, with an ever increasing bastard system of communism is not nearly anywhere as efficient as your Germany ( very socialist, granted), Japan, USA, etc

I'd put Scandinavia above the US any day in many categories. The most important being quality of life of the average person. Who cares if I have the opportunity to make shitloads of money, if my quality of life sucks. They are also better in terms of medical care, and to some extent penetration of technology in society in general. As for Germany, well a mandatory six month vacation would probably be a very welcome improvement in the US once introduced. Even workaholics like me need to be pushed out the door from time to time to stay fresh.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Velociryx
There is tons of research to be done and discoveries to be made. Capitalism just doesn't foster the right motivations to emphasize doing this.

The problem here is evidence is not on your side.

Capitalist-oriented nations have been innovating relentlessly. 'bout the only innovation we've seen in communist utopias came by pointing a gun at the researcher or his family and mandating that he create, and, while that IS a perfectly valid motivational tool, I hardly think it better than the system we operate under here.

-=Vel=-

History is always moving. Feudalism didn't last forever, nor did merchantalism, nor will capitalism. Things change. The problem is capitalism will eventually make demands that run contrary to innovation. RCA stifling the development of television is a good example, as is the lack of private investment in vaccines. NASA, the National Institute of Health, the military, and the Universities using federal funds are responsible for most of our modern technology. These have of course been seized upon by private industry, but the thing to remember is that private industry is driven by profit and risk.

Now given that the Soviet Union required only decades to achieve what took us centuries (and excelled us at space technology for quite some time), I have to be a bit suspicious that capitalism hasn't slowed our progress. Now I'm not so naive as to think playing catch-up is as difficult as innovating, but the history of the cold war leads me to believe that much of the "capitalism is ideal for innovation" canard is merely dogma. Again, capitalism seeks to achieve innovation only as a byproduct of the profit motive. An indirect approach seems to me to be non-optimal.

Which is not to say that the Soviet Union model would be optimal. In fact, history has show that it was not. What I am advocating is some new system designed to directly achieve innovation across all worthwhile human endeavors - therby optimizing innovation by seeking inovation directly.

[Berzerker]

Templar - 1) Labor and first come first serve are not separable when determining moral authority. In your gold ore/statue scenario, the miner's labor cannot be separated from his "first come first serve" status. So we know who had the moral claim to the ore and the labor to extract it even after it was stolen and given to a third party. Maybe Locke did realize this (I certainly do) and the confusion is on your end...

2) Now, why did you mention efficiency? Are we debating all the options or are we dealing with what is and what is not moral?

3) The principle being debated is moral authority wrt to labor, and the key is property. I said labor has to be tied to property when determining moral authority, that's when you introduced stolen property into the debate and then acted as if this new factor destroyed my position. But you keep ignoring my response...

But the statue apart from the gold is the property of the sculptor (the fact the the sculptor was ignorant obviates arguments that the sculptor admixed his labor in bad faith. Now if you have a way to separate the statue from the gold, let's hear it.

The sculptor cannot lose his interest in the statue considered apart from the gold. That's the whole point.

The statue and the gold are ontologically distinct. (If you don't think the two are separable consider the following. (1) you can destroy the statue by melting the gold but the gold remains. (2) You can create an image of the statue without creating an image of the gold). The miner has no claim on the statue - yet his claim to the gold interferes with the sculptor's labor claim. I don't care about the sculptor's interest in the gold - only the statue.

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread (you know, the argument you claimed to have shot down )

If the statue maker wants to, he has the moral authority to melt the statue down before the rightful owner takes possession. But he doesn't have the moral authority to keep the statue because he'd be keeping the ore used to make it.

But you are also saying that labor + property = moral claim? I thought labor was the grounds for making a moral claim to property.

Just adding labor to something doesn't create moral authority, property is part of the equation. When labor is added to property, i.e., legitimate ownership as in the miner and the ore, the gold belongs to the miner, not the statue maker.

Are you now saying two ingredients, labor and property, are required for the moral claim? So now you have to ground property without recourse to labor. You're just making a circular argument.

Labor + property = moral authority. Labor = effort. Property = material owned by the person making the effort. Combining these tells us who has the moral authority to the end product. How is that circular?

It will depend on case law (common law states) and statutes. But it won't be based purely on labor + first-come.

"Purely"? Are there other legitimate factors that negate labor and property claims?

Labor + first-come is underdeterminative of property. See above. An exploded theory.

"Underdeterminative" doesn't tell me anything. And ignoring what I've been saying by dragging someone else's "labor theory" into this to debate is getting us no where.

This started because Vel again appealed to labor theory, and I am tired of repeating these arguments over an over.

This started in a previous thread when we were debating labor, property, and moral authority. You said you shot down my arguments and now it is quite obvious you don't even know what I said.

You can keep arguing labor theory, but nobody in law or philosophy is going to take you seriously.

YOU keep arguing labor theory, I didn't bring it up.

(Even Nozick - the formost libertarian thinker - says Locke's labor theory is fundamentally flawed).

That's nice, but I could care less. Can you deal with what I've said instead of repeatedly dragging others into it? You didn't enter this thread to announce how you shot down Locke's arguments, you said you shot down mine and I'm still waiting for the proof.

[David Floyd]

Vel,

And DF....the crux of your argument seems to be that people are....people.

No, my argument that "I don't want stupid people in charge" is my argument against democracy, not the crux of my argument in general. Although people are, for the most part, stupid.

To that...all I can say is...D'uh! Yes, people are flawed. They make mistakes. Sometimes our elected officials serve their own interests and to hell with the people who got them elected. It should be noted, however, that unless they keep the voting public happy, they'll likely NOT get re-elected, which rather short-circuits your argument.

Since when have I advocated elected officials putting laws into place just because the majority wants those laws? Actually, haven't I been supporting the opposite position?

Besides that, how would adherance to YOUR (rather unique, actually) political ideology magically make people more than they are?

"Make people more than they are"? Eh?

And you STILL haven't adequately addressed any of my specific points. For starters, my point about Conscientious Objectors. Got an answer to that one, yet?

[Kramerman]

I've never really had to worry about making a buck. I've always made enough to live OK. My goal is mastery of what I do and to help the community at large while doing so. If you gave me a million dollars a month to sit on my ass or living wage to do something I love, I'll take the living wage. I'll be having too much fun to notice. I haven't had to take a job I didn't love since working summers in undergrad.

and that is an admirable quality. It is people like you our system depends on for when the social aspects of our society fail, which is all to often.

Its called status. In our society, money = status. If expertise = status, there would be your incentive to excel. Sure, I do what I do because I want to be the best and help my community, but I can feel the societal pull of money = status in the mainstream of society.

so, call it what you will. I say its greed, but whatever. The want of more is what drives our system, and we often depend on regulations and laws to keep people from cheating the system so they can get EVEN more. so what. most other people see its not worth the risk, and try and get more the honost way. IN the end it is very productive. This system often fails, but often succeds as well. In the end however, it must work well, or else te US wouldnt be here at least how we know it today.

I'd put Scandinavia above the US any day in many categories. The most important being quality of life of the average person. Who cares if I have the opportunity to make shitloads of money, if my quality of life sucks. They are also better in terms of medical care, and to some extent penetration of technology in society in general. As for Germany, well a mandatory six month vacation would probably be a very welcome improvement in the US once introduced. Even workaholics like me need to be pushed out the door from time to time to stay fresh.

I dont care. this isnt anything relevent to the point i was trying to make. norway is very socialist, but none the less, it isnt anywhere in the catagory of Vietnam or North Korea. I was just trying to show the relative contrast in the success of capitalism/socialism (sometime a little heavier on the socialism) and with communism

[Velociryx]

Templar:

Think it through all the way down the chain. Yes, a great many of our innovations have come from government-funded labs and such (NASA, to name but one).

....and the money the government used to fund those projects came from where? (taxation of market-driven innovation)

....which led to the discovery of? (more product ideas that were injected to the market, generating more taxable wealth, and creating a bigger base to fund additional long-term research).

So yes. Government plays a role in long-range research in this country, but the ability to perform such research stems *directly* from the capitalist system. Without the tax monies recieved from the profitable use of existing technology, and the relentless drive to enhance and change it via continuing innovation, there would be no funds for NASA at all, unless other government programs (the ones that help pay medical costs for the poor, or provide food and low-cost housing, for example) were cut to the bone to free up sufficient funds.

DF, I've answered your CO question repeatedly. In short, it works against your argument. The draft (our version of conscription) IS on the books in this country. It has a built-in out in the form of CO. We do not punish, hunt down, or mistreat CO's. If you don't want to go, claim so on the grounds of CO, and stay home. Our society allows for that, just as it allows for the draft in the first place. But IF you turn in your draft card, then don't b*itch about it if/when you get called to serve. And IF society decided to pursue punishments for those who buck the system, vote against it if you like, but if you lose....well, we're back to those four choices mentioned previously.

As to the "people are stupid" comment....I disagree, but even supposing you are right...my what a nation all those "stupid" people have built for you to enjoy....

To Kid: I'll give you any sort of verification you desire. No, I'm not Gates-wealthy, but I'm heads and shoulders above where I was, and 100% of that progress came about from hard, smart work. Personal effort, not a government handout. What's so hard to fathom about that?

-=Vel=-

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Templar - 1) Labor and first come first serve are not separable when determining moral authority. In your gold ore/statue scenario, the miner's labor cannot be separated from his "first come first serve" status. So we know who had the moral claim to the ore and the labor to extract it even after it was stolen and given to a third party. Maybe Locke did realize this (I certainly do) and the confusion is on your end...

This is a purely conclusory statement. Moral Authority (or right) is the position you are trying to prove. You have two legs for this moral authority to stand on: labor and first come. Labor is a fairly strong leg, and I, you and most reasonable people grant it creates a moral interest in the fruits of the labor. Fine. First come, however is not at all straightforward.

Hypothetical: lets assume you come into possession of the world's oil supply via labor. There are two things oil is really good for (or says a chemical engineer friend of mine): production of advanced polymers and fuel. You decide to burn all of the oil for fuel. This is your desire. My friend points out that there are alternative fuels to oil but no readily available alternatives for polymer production. Suppose the community at large demands both energy and polymers. Under first come, you can frustrate the community's desire for both, and inefficiently burn the oil. On the other hand, the community might impose a system whereby the community calculates the amount of energy your oil will generate, gives you an equal energy share in natural gas, and takes your oil for polymers (ignore transaction costs for the example). You might even be religiously opposed to polymers (it will bring about the rapture!). but the community extinguishes your interest in the oil while, by giving you the equivalent energy in natural gas, respects your labor claim in terms of reparation.

Clearly, if you do not want the oil used for polymers this is a violation of your moral interest in the oil based on labor and first come. However, I also think this is the right outcome - even though it does not respect first come. See? First come is not at all obvious.

2) Now, why did you mention efficiency? Are we debating all the options or are we dealing with what is and what is not moral?

I brought up efficiency to show that labor theory is separable from first come first serve. Since they are separable they require independent justification as moral principles.

3) The principle being debated is moral authority wrt to labor, and the key is property. I said labor has to be tied to property when determining moral authority, that's when you introduced stolen property into the debate and then acted as if this new factor destroyed my position. But you keep ignoring my response...

The stolen property is the gold, not the statue.

If the statue maker wants to, he has the moral authority to melt the statue down before the rightful owner takes possession. But he doesn't have the moral authority to keep the statue because he'd be keeping the ore used to make it.

Under the labor theory + first come, the miner has no right to the statue considered apart from the gold. And that is the problem. The miner, under ONLY labor + first come has no right to the statue in itself and this creates a problem vis-a-vis the miner's rights with respect to the gold. You are not keeping the statue and gold distinct. The fact that one entity (the statue) depends entirely on another entity (the gold) creates the problem - it does not solve the problem (as you seem to argue). (This sort of problem -where does one thing end and another begin - rears its ugly head all the time in intellectual property, BTW.) If you think the gold and the statue are not separate entities argue that point. But once you do, you will be adding a third principle besides labor and first come to your moral theory of property.

Contemporary property theory recognizes that property is a creature of the community (or state or nation or whatever). In fact, as lawyers often point out, property is really a sort of bundle of rights that a person has with respect to a thing (property is not the thing itself). Just property systems take into account competing moral interests like labor, efficiency, first come, and so forth and try to balance these various interests into a fair and stable system.

Labor + property = moral authority. Labor = effort. Property = material owned by the person making the effort. Combining these tells us who has the moral authority to the end product. How is that circular?

First, see above. Property is not a material thing, it is a relationship between a person and a thing.

Second, this is circular. What you want to say is that property itself is moral authority over a thing. Fine. You're in good company so far. But that means you are looking for an argument that jumps from labor and material (incl. intellectual "material" I presume) to moral authority of a person over that admixture of labor and material. Again, fine. That's is exactly what you should be thinking about. However, to immediately say that the material labor is being mixed with is property (i.e. "Property = material owned by the person making the effort.") is to assume that the laborer has a proprietary interest to the material before any labor is admixed with the material. But admixture, you say, is the key to the moral authority that constitutes property. Thus you assume proprietary interest in the material as a starting point, and add labor to to prove that there is a proprietary interest in the material. That's circular.

"Underdeterminative" doesn't tell me anything. And ignoring what I've been saying by dragging someone else's "labor theory" into this to debate is getting us no where.

Underdetermination means that labor and first come alone are insufficient to determine all conflicts that will arise under a property system. Ergo, you need more than these principles to fully explain any comprehensive property system.

That's nice, but I could care less. Can you deal with what I've said instead of repeatedly dragging others into it? You didn't enter this thread to announce how you shot down Locke's arguments, you said you shot down mine and I'm still waiting for the proof.

Your argument is essentially Locke's, whether you are aware of this or not. Thus all of the standard objections to Locke apply. The proof here is in all of my posts. The proof in the world is that property theory has moved beyond Locke, and your own Lockean reasoning.

[David Floyd]

DF, I've answered your CO question repeatedly.

You did no such thing. My point was that if conscription is a duty, a social contract built into the country, and if people's individual moral beliefs on the subject don't matter, then why do we let COs get out of it?

You replied with, basically, "that's how our draft system works", but that ignores the point that allowing for COs is inconsistent with the assertion that it is our duty and a fulfillment of our social contract to serve in the military when the government says so. It also is inconsistent with the argument that individual morality doesn't matter when society's interests are at stake.

[Velociryx]

Sure it does. Your individual rights and beliefs do matter. In many cases, your individual rights and beliefs matter more than the societal ones....at least in THIS particular society, because we value the individual.

There are, however, some times and conditions where the state demands its due. Doesn't mean that your rights and beliefs are no longer important, it just means that there may be conditions under which they are no longer held as high as they usually are.

The draft is one of those times.

You're a member of a really big club. It's called the United States of America.

There are membership dues and responsibilities to being a member of the club.

If you don't like the club rules, you can either seek to have them changed, or you can join a different club that IS more to your liking.

To answer your question (again) regarding CO's.....we don't punish them because we, as a democratic society have decided to give those who do not wish to fulfill their duties to this country an easy out. We decided that using the same process that we decided to make the draft a possibility. That's why they both exist.

-=Vel=-

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
To Kid: I'll give you any sort of verification you desire. No, I'm not Gates-wealthy, but I'm heads and shoulders above where I was, and 100% of that progress came about from hard, smart work. Personal effort, not a government handout. What's so hard to fathom about that?

-=Vel=-

You've already told me that you recieved govt subsidies. You must have made a mistake there and told me something about you that didn't argue your case.

I don't know your story Vel, and I never will, even if I tried. I'm not interested anyway, because as I've already stated, it doesn't mean squat.

[David Floyd]

Sure it does. Your individual rights and beliefs do matter. In many cases, your individual rights and beliefs matter more than the societal ones....at least in THIS particular society, because we value the individual.

Then I guess you weren't trying to make that argument. Sorry, got you mixed up with someone else.

There are, however, some times and conditions where the state demands its due.

But this you still have to back up. Why is military service "the state's due"? Why would I owe that to the state? Where in our society is a social contract or duty set out?

The draft is one of those times.

You're a member of a really big club. It's called the United States of America.

There are membership dues and responsibilities to being a member of the club.

If you don't like the club rules, you can either seek to have them changed, or you can join a different club that IS more to your liking.

None of this justifies a social contract, it just states that there IS one.

To answer your question (again) regarding CO's.....we don't punish them because we, as a democratic society have decided to give those who do not wish to fulfill their duties to this country an easy out. We decided that using the same process that we decided to make the draft a possibility. That's why they both exist.

OK, that's fine - I take issue with the argument of "duty", but since you didn't originally make the argument that society's interests always outweigh individual rights and morality.

A question, though, would be whether or not you think COs are violating what you believe is their duty/social contract.

[DinoDoc]

Are we still talking about conscription? If we are, I'd like to point out that a person who volunteers generally makes a better soldier than a person who was drafted.

[Velociryx]

That's just exactly right, Kid...if it stands counter to what you're arguing for, it obviously means squat, doesn't it? Cos we can't have arguments that run counter to the communist ideal....that just wouldn't do!

You're a fun one...I'll give you that....determined to stay with the sinking ship till the bitter end, no matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary might be. You have to admire that level of stick-with-it-ness! Now, if you'd apply that single-minded determination to something that mattered, you'd really go places!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

DF: I don't have to back up or justify anything. The fact is that in this country we DO have a social contract. Right now. That's not a matter of conjecture, it's there. Part of that contract says that we will pay taxes. Another part says that we will send in our draft cards. You can buck both systems if you want to, tho if you buck the tax thing, there ARE punishments which will land you some jail time. We go easier on CO's with the whole draft thing tho.

The only justification such a social contract needs is that we, the people, through our elected representatives have chosen to make it so.

That is not to say that because it IS so, it should remain so for all time, but the fact of the matter is that in the here and now, that's the rules of the club. If they bother you....one valid response is to attempt to change them.

-=Vel=-

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Now, if you'd apply that single-minded determination to something that mattered, you'd really go places!

-=Vel=-

Hey we each have our goals. You are about as determined as I am. You want to be rich, and I want a better world. In my opinion a better world does matter. It really doesn't matter if you think so. I'm not going to bother with your goal. I have my own, and no I'm not going to quit fighting for it.

btw, If you really want to show me that you can become rich all by yourself give all your wealth up and move to isolation. If you can become rich there then I will stop figthing for a better world. You see no one does it all by themselves. Society does more for individuals than idividuals could ever do for themselves.

[David Floyd]

DF: I don't have to back up or justify anything.

Well, humor me, then. Tell me why you think a social contract exists.

The fact is that in this country we DO have a social contract. Right now. That's not a matter of conjecture, it's there. Part of that contract says that we will pay taxes. Another part says that we will send in our draft cards.

No, those are laws, not contracts. If you want to argue that whatever law happens to be on the books is the same as a social contract, then you've also gotta argue that slaves should have obeyed their masters and Japanese-Americans should have contritely submitted to detention camps. Do you make those claims?

You are also taking the moral element out of government - if government can create any contract it wants by simply passing a law, then the government isn't really limited, is it? At least, certainly not limited by any moral consideration.

You can buck both systems if you want to, tho if you buck the tax thing, there ARE punishments which will land you some jail time. We go easier on CO's with the whole draft thing tho.

Again, those are laws. You do understand the difference between a law and the theory of a social contract, right? Social contract isn't whatever the government happens to say it is at the moment - that definition fails.

Now, you could also argue that the social contract is to follow the law, but again, you are simply making an argument for authoritarianism. If you want to make that argument, fine, but let's be up front about it.

The only justification such a social contract needs is that we, the people, through our elected representatives have chosen to make it so.

Ah, so now social contract should be decided by majority vote?

But I am assuming that you think social contract and law are synonymous. Am I correct?

That is not to say that because it IS so, it should remain so for all time, but the fact of the matter is that in the here and now, that's the rules of the club. If they bother you....one valid response is to attempt to change them.

[Velociryx]

Kid - a better world is a good and worthy goal. No denying it, and it's something I'd like to see myself, however, your methodology is what distrubs me, not the goal itself.

I utterly reject the notion that you can have a better world if your every move, thought, and action is dictated to you by the state. That's absurd. Only YOU can decide what would make your little part of the world better, and only by making those decisions for yourself will the world as a whole improve.

If you like having every aspect of your life dictated to you, come on over and I'll boss you around. Doesn't sound too attractive, does it? And yet, that's essentially what you want to see imposed on the whole world (well, except for you, cos you envision yourself, no doubt, as one of the party bosses, so no one will get to sass you, right?).

I will not be dictated to. Not by you, not by your croonies, not by anyone. So, I reject your version of utopia.

As to becoming wealthy on a deserted island. Too easy. Wealth is defined by the society you're in, and in that case, wealth is whatever I choose to make it.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Nope....social contract =! law, but laws are made in support OF said social contract. As to why it exists....because we wish it to exist. It certainly doesn't exist in nature, on its own, and without us.

Governments are not human beings, therefore, governments have no morals (no more than my cat does). That the government is made up of human beings to serve society as a whole gives it a moral element, but the government itself is not capable of morality.

-=Vel=-

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx
If you like having every aspect of your life dictated to you, come on over and I'll boss you around. Doesn't sound too attractive, does it? And yet, that's essentially what you want to see imposed on the whole world (well, except for you, cos you envision yourself, no doubt, as one of the party bosses, so no one will get to sass you, right?).

You know damn well I'm a democrat with a little "d" as DF puts it. Stop with this crap making me out to be a tyrant. I believe in relative equality in outcomes not totalitarian govt. Come with a real argument, not this crap.

[Velociryx]

Kid....if only it were so. You have said repeatedly that when the glorious revolution begins, it will begin with the deaths of all the capitalist pigdogs who resist. That those who do not resist will be put in your own private little gulag to torment and torture...erm...no, "re-educate" as you see fit.

But this does not smack of tyranny to you? Oooooohkay then....

-=Vel=-

[David Floyd]

Nope....social contract =! law, but laws are made in support OF said social contract.

No, laws are made to protect the rights of individuals - or at least, that's why laws SHOULD be made, and that's the only logical reason for having a law, if you believe in the concept of freedom.

As to why it exists....because we wish it to exist. It certainly doesn't exist in nature, on its own, and without us.

We "wished" a social contract into existence?

No, the only way a social contract could be in any way valid is if the formation of the nation was predicated on a certain social contract - that is, if it has been here from the beginning. Now, you can argue however you want, either way, on that topic, but you CANNOT argue that conscription could have been part of the original social contract in 1776 OR 1783.

If you are arguing that social contract can change, then it isn't really a social contract, and really just law. If it looks, walks, talks like a duck...

Governments are not human beings, therefore, governments have no morals (no more than my cat does). That the government is made up of human beings to serve society as a whole gives it a moral element, but the government itself is not capable of morality.

But governments must still "behave" morally, the same way that you or I must. Simply because the government, as a whole, isn't an individual, doesn't make it OK for the government, as a whole, to sanction murder.

[David Floyd]

ou know damn well I'm a democrat with a little "d" as DF puts it. Stop with this crap making me out to be a tyrant.

The irony is, Vel is the one arguing for conscription, which is probably the most tyrannical of all government actions.

[Kidicious]

Originally posted by Velociryx


Kid....if only it were so. You have said repeatedly that when the glorious revolution begins, it will begin with the deaths of all the capitalist pigdogs who resist. That those who do not resist will be put in your own private little gulag to torment and torture...erm...no, "re-educate" as you see fit.

But this does not smack of tyranny to you? Oooooohkay then....

-=Vel=-

If we took up arms against your govt you would do the same thing.

[Velociryx]

No, laws are made to protect the rights of individuals - or at least, that's why laws SHOULD be made, and that's the only logical reason for having a law, if you believe in the concept of freedom.

That's one good, valid reason that laws are made, yep. But it does not explain the existence of every law on the books, and some of those others are there in support of our social contract.

As to the existence of the social contract...yes, we created it. If that is difficult for you to swallow, then I would ask if you could show me an example of a social contract existing outside the bounds of a society? Perhaps find me one walking around in the woods outside?

No?

Because they do not exist until we create them, based on what we, as a societal group, believe.

Social contracts CAN and DO change as the societies themselves change.

We're not living in the same world we were living in a hundred years ago, or even twenty years ago. And as the nature of our society changes, so changes the social contract. Not a big mystery.

As to conscription being tyrannical...oh yes, letting CO's go without punishment...such harsh tyranny, eh?

And Kid....it'll be a great party, I'm sure....but you'll have to steal the guns initially, yes? I mean, we wouldn't want you to bruise your ego making guns at a big ol, mean exploitive gun factory, nor using YOUR hard earned dollars to actually purchase them.....just, you know, steal them from the pigdogs (who aren't really human anyway, true?)

-=Vel=-

[Kramerman]

No, those are laws, not contracts. If you want to argue that whatever law happens to be on the books is the same as a social contract, then you've also gotta argue that slaves should have obeyed their masters and Japanese-Americans should have contritely submitted to detention camps. Do you make those claims?

I do. Those are the laws. Laws are a reflectio of the contract. Does that make it right? I cannot say.

[Berzerker]

Templar -

Labor is a fairly strong leg, and I, you and most reasonable people grant it creates a moral interest in the fruits of the labor. Fine. First come, however is not at all straightforward.

First come, first serve was a phrase used in the prior thread in reference to a hypothetical Kid offered to identify a property owner - a man who gathered together seeds for planting in an unoccupied/unowned field. And it is quite straightforward when we don't introduce hypotheticals in the attempt to explore complicated scenarios where the property owner is in doubt.

Hypothetical: lets assume you come into possession of the world's oil supply via labor.

Can we deal with hypotheticals that can arise in the real world?

There are two things oil is really good for (or says a chemical engineer friend of mine): production of advanced polymers and fuel. You decide to burn all of the oil for fuel. This is your desire. My friend points out that there are alternative fuels to oil but no readily available alternatives for polymer production. Suppose the community at large demands both energy and polymers. Under first come, you can frustrate the community's desire for both, and inefficiently burn the oil. On the other hand, the community might impose a system whereby the community calculates the amount of energy your oil will generate, gives you an equal energy share in natural gas, and takes your oil for polymers (ignore transaction costs for the example). You might even be religiously opposed to polymers (it will bring about the rapture!). but the community extinguishes your interest in the oil while, by giving you the equivalent energy in natural gas, respects your labor claim in terms of reparation.

Clearly, if you do not want the oil used for polymers this is a violation of your moral interest in the oil based on labor and first come. However, I also think this is the right outcome - even though it does not respect first come. See? First come is not at all obvious.

You're arguing that other people have reason to ignore the owner's moral authority - so what?

I brought up efficiency to show that labor theory is separable from first come first serve. Since they are separable they require independent justification as moral principles.

They aren't separable wrt moral authority and they both rely on the same moral principle - ownership. You own your labor and first come is a statement of ownership as well.

The stolen property is the gold, not the statue.

The statue is made of the gold.

Under the labor theory + first come, the miner has no right to the statue considered apart from the gold. And that is the problem.

It isn't a problem, which is why I said the statue maker has the moral authority to melt down the statue before the miner takes possession.

The miner, under ONLY labor + first come has no right to the statue in itself and this creates a problem vis-a-vis the miner's rights with respect to the gold. You are not keeping the statue and gold distinct. The fact that one entity (the statue) depends entirely on another entity (the gold) creates the problem - it does not solve the problem (as you seem to argue). (This sort of problem -where does one thing end and another begin - rears its ugly head all the time in intellectual property, BTW.) If you think the gold and the statue are not separate entities argue that point. But once you do, you will be adding a third principle besides labor and first come to your moral theory of property.

Did you even read what I said? The statue maker's moral authority is limited only to melting down the statue, not keeping the statue. The miner's moral authority is limited only to the gold, not the statue.

Contemporary property theory recognizes that property is a creature of the community (or state or nation or whatever).

And that's why contemporary property theory is immoral. Just ask the victims looted by the Nazis...

Just property systems take into account competing moral interests like labor, efficiency, first come, and so forth and try to balance these various interests into a fair and stable system.

Where did you prove efficiency constitutes moral authority? To use your words, I shot that down. That leaves only labor and first come, so you'll have to identify the "and so forth".

First, see above. Property is not a material thing, it is a relationship between a person and a thing.

Is that not the context we are using?

Second, this is circular. What you want to say is that property itself is moral authority over a thing. Fine. You're in good company so far.

You keep saying "this is circular" without explaining why.

But that means you are looking for an argument that jumps from labor and material (incl. intellectual "material" I presume) to moral authority of a person over that admixture of labor and material. Again, fine. That's is exactly what you should be thinking about. However, to immediately say that the material labor is being mixed with is property (i.e. "Property = material owned by the person making the effort.") is to assume that the laborer has a proprietary interest to the material before any labor is admixed with the material.

Property = material owned by the person making the effort. How could you read that and conclude I meant property was a thing with no relationship to the owner?

But admixture, you say, is the key to the moral authority that constitutes property.

You've left out "first come", i.e., actual ownership of the material.

Thus you assume proprietary interest in the material as a starting point, and add labor to to prove that there is a proprietary interest in the material. That's circular.

Huh? The labor was not added to prove a proprietary interest in the material, first come proves that. The labor is merely what I've done after acquiring the material to make use of the resource.

Underdetermination means that labor and first come alone are insufficient to determine all conflicts that will arise under a property system. Ergo, you need more than these principles to fully explain any comprehensive property system.

You're restating an opinion, I'm waiting for the proof.

Your argument is essentially Locke's, whether you are aware of this or not.

I'm not aware and don't care. If you want to debate, then deal with what I'm saying, stop avoiding my arguments by replacing me with Locke and announcing how his theory has been invalidated (no proof of that assertion either ).

Thus all of the standard objections to Locke apply.

Which is meaningless to me. I'm not aware of Locke's "labor theory" nor have you actually shown these irrelevant objections (not that I care). Refute me, not Locke.

The proof here is in all of my posts. The proof in the world is that property theory has moved beyond Locke, and your own Lockean reasoning.

*sigh* You mentioned Nozick, that isn't proof. You mentioned Locke, that isn't proof I'm using his theory. If you can't respond to what I've said, then stop dragging others in to do your debating. You claimed you shot down my arguments, but all you keep doing is claiming Locke's arguments have been refuted.

[Velociryx]

With regards to the status made of gold:

As soon as it goes to the court for resolution, it's out of the hands of the folks participating, and in this case, if I was judging it, I'd order the statue maker to sell his statue, pay the man the value of his gold and keep the difference. The gold does nothing by itself, and is easily replaceable (he can just go buy himself another hunk of gold, if he wants).

If a third party stole the gold and gave it to the statue-maker...well, that's a separate issue between the thief and the statue maker....but at least the solution above begins to get to the bottom of things.

-=Vel=-

[Berzerker]

Vel, why do you have the moral authority to make such a decision? You don't own the gold, the miner does. Obviously this hypothetical removes any value other than money from the miner's perspective, but let's say the material stolen had sentimental value. Let's say the miner had some attachment to the gold that only he could understand. What then?