orathaic, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. I don't think the concept of rights apply to nonsentient creature... Are you seriously asking why can't humans co-operate in the same way that ants and cells do?

Jack, the way you've set up the dichotomy it seems like you'd have to be crazy (or just religious) to accept natural law as you've defined it. I'm not even sure that TGM is arguing that. Anyway, this debate was brought up because of the claim that taxation was a violation of the property right. I can't see that positivism and that stance are mutually exclusive.

As someone who has just spent the last month persuading Conservative MPs, and some Liberal Democrats to vote for the Government's measures, I've come a bit late to this thread, but it's very interesting to see some of the arguments raised.

A few thoughts to stimulate discussion, and to point out the current context we are in:

1.) The university sector in the UK is underfunded.

2.) We are in a troubling economic climate. Government debt is rising every day and will take five years to bring under control under the Coalition's plans.

3.) If the Government has to cut funding, the money has to come from somewhere else

4.) Why is a university education a right for everyone? 50% or fewer school leavers go to university. Education in the United Kingdom is only a right up to 18.

5.) You don't have to go to University - 50% of people go and get a job immediately on leaving school.

6.) Is it not unfair, therefore, for those 50% who don't go to university to pay taxes to support subsidised education for the 50% that do?

7.) Therefore, should students not be asked to contribute to their education, given that they, on average, earn £100,000 more over a lifetime compared to someone who didn't go to university?

A few 'mythbusters' about the 9k fees as well:

No one going to uni will have to pay anything up front with the new plans. You’ll only have to pay money back after you graduate - and then only if you earn over £21,000 a year.

You don’t have to pay anything back until you start to make over £21,000 a year – and even then, the monthly payments will be linked to how much you’re earning to ensure they’re affordable. If you lose your job, or your earnings drop below £21,000, you won’t have to make any repayments until you start earning over £21,000 again. This is an increase from the £15,000 that you start repayments from on the current system.

Any outstanding debt will be written off after thirty years, regardless of how much you’ve paid back by that point. The new system is designed so that graduates on lower wages will have at least some of their debt written off, with the poorest quarter actually paying back less in total than they do currently.

A graduate tax would mean poorer graduates paying more and richer graduates paying less - which is neither fair nor progressive. With the Coalition plans, you don’t pay anything until you start earning over £21,000; but under a graduate tax, you would start paying when you earn just £6,475 – so even those earning minimum wage would have to pay.

One final note on the Liberal Democrats. It is understandable, if simplistic, to claim that they have broken a promise. Their pledge on tuition fees was made as part of a manifesto to form a Government before the election. They did not form a single-party Government, however, and in a coalition all policies have to be judged through a two party prism. This, coupled with the economic situation, meant that a new system had to be devised. The Browne Review, set up by Labour, suggested that the Coalition policies were the best, and rejected a graduate tax. That is the situtation that we are in.

If you accept that you must pay for your education, which I think most people would think fair and reasonable, then this system is the fairest on offer, which also helps to fund universities. It is not good enough to stick your head in the sand and hope it all goes away.

Crips:

No, you get Neo-Platonists that become advocates of natural law. Platonists however do annoy me almost as much as religious nuts... but usually the average neo-Platonists is better educated. :P (not saying all religious nuts aren't educated, but the unwashed masses yank down the average)

"Are you seriously asking why can't humans co-operate in the same way that ants and cells do?" - in a way yes. I'm seriously asking why it would be immoral to do so.

What fundamental human trait distinguishes us from ants and cells. And what is it about humans which supports this concept of a inherent 'natural' property right (though i think the conversation may have gone to another thread...)

cgwhite, nice of you to get us back on topic and in such a comprehensive way. That's a good compromise, it maintains societal sponsorship in the training of people who contribute generously to the society with their work (teachers, nurses and other civil servants). Also, not holding a candidate to his promises when he joins a coalition is a no-brainer. Still, Nick should be giving a detailed explanation to his voters, if he hasn't already.

Now back off topic to the natural rights vs. positivism... I noticed there is a new thread on property rights, but it has gone a very different direction, and Ghost isn't defending his ideas over there, so...

+3 Jack, obviously we agree down the line. Several times during this conversation, we responded simultaneously and found I was just repeating what you had already posted. Good succinct arguments.

To fill in gaps a little,
@chrispy: It might seem like semantics, but the difference is significant. It's not for nothing that the argument has been going on for centuries. Much is at stake.

Ghost is saying that the right is prior to the government, and that this priority gives a “right” the status of a moral imperative which the government must be (ought to be) subject to. Any government, according to G-man which violates those rights of individuals is to that extent immoral.

The concept of natural rights goes one step further (with Draug), appealing to a Creator who by creating us as sentient deciding beings granted unto us these inalienable rights. This “innovation” has the advantage of lending to the presumed (but not demonstrated) moral imperative of the rights a certain authority (ie over a government) which is otherwise lacking, but also saddles it with an overt metaphysics that in a philosophical conversation is as seaworthy as a sponge . But without the metaphysics, this conception of rights is just a hand-full of desires, some wistful "ought nots" that are no more moral imperatives for any subsequent formation of government than "thou ought not pick your nose in public".

So what's the prize of trying to sell this inalienable rights idea? Well, if it's accepted and people get fired up about it, it can spawn a revolution or pressure a government (with a higher authority) to conform to a certain ideology to which the proponents usually prescribe, namely that of the tyranny of the individual and the absolute right of a few to accumulate unimaginable riches at the expense of the many.

Then, with the "rights" enshrined in the State's Constitution, it is a simple matter to keep the children droning recitations about "certain inalienable rights" until these rights finally appear to everyone as obvious and as solid and as beyond doubt as the very noses on their faces. This is otherwise known as The Greatest Scam Ever Perpetrated Upon the Many by the Few.

Look at Ghost's argument about taxation and how it's a violation of the property right. I started from there to trace back the origins of that right and discovered that for Ghost, the only legitimate expenses of a government are Military, Police and Justice, precisely and only those institutions which are necessary for the protection of the property of the few from the desiring glances of the many. None of the more frequently cited communal rights, like access to food, shelter, health care or education.

For Ghost, all rights proceed from the right to own yourself, which (according to him) is the root of all other rights. As rights go, it's hard to argue with, but it could be phrased differently: it could be a right to live and act freely without interfering with others' rights to do the same. It could be a simple prohibition of slavery. But no, he (and many others before him) worded it explicitly as to insinuate the concept of property. You OWN your body. And if you can own your body, according to Ghost with no further explanation, you can own anything other than someone else''s body. If no-one else has claimed it and registered their claim, it's yours if you want it, and once you make your claim, no-one will be able to deny it, not even the government. If you ask him what is so morally imperative about the right to own or how owning your body necessitates owning anything beyond your body he squeals “you're changing the definitions, creating a strawman, making circular arguments”, but that's nothing more than a distraction.

Now look for a second at what happens when you throw the concept of pre-existing rights in the garbage can. Well, if the society agrees, nothing happens. The property right continues to be recognized by the law as before. But it is not immutable or inalienable, it is not the basis and sum of morality. If the society so desires, it can choose another basis for it's concept of morality, something more egalitarian, perhaps, which provides an equal opportunity for everyone in the society to make of their lives what they will. Which of course is a much fuller and meaningful definition of liberty than that which Ghost derived from his mother-of-all-lies, the property right.

@CgWhite – it is always good to hear from the insider’s perspective.

You are right that on average uni-educated people earn more than non-uni-educated people over their working life. We could debate figures but it is somewhere between £100k and £150k. But that means they also pay more taxes already, probably between £20k and £30k and they already pay back nearly £10k in tuition fees.

The central argument is how much should students pay and how much should government contribute. At present it is 40% student and 60% government and this is set to change to 60/40% the other way round. If all the people going through uni just spend their time getting drunk and taking drugs, and then take high paying jobs in banking, then it could be argued that the rest of the population shouldn’t be supporting them. However, look at the advances that have happened in the last 20 years, the internet, medicine, climate sciences, etc. They don’t happen by accident, progress is driven by having a breadth of well educated people. I didn’t go to uni but I will happily pay my taxes for others to go and to try and advance humankind’s knowledge. If we crack the global warming problem or develop a cure for cancer, I think it will be money well spent.

With regards the Lib-Dem broken pledge, it is incorrect to suggest that their pledge to vote against any increase in fees was their program if they had won the election. If they had won (which was never going to happen) there wouldn’t have been a bill to vote against. Their pledge was for not winning the election.

I don’t think that politicians have grasped how damaging breaking clear and unequivocal pledges are. In my lifetime I might get to vote 15 times at a general election, it is important that the wishes of the electorate are respected, democracy demands it. If people think that democracy doesn’t work, that people say one thing and then do another, they will become disengaged from the political process and that is very bad for democracy.

Heh, feel like I'm blowing in the wind. Now I agree with Maniac.

@Maniac - so how many of those advances do you think actually came from grads of Britain's uni system? The same could be argued of the US, but our state sponsored schools are literally sponsored by a state (i.e. Ohio, Kentucky, California, New Yors, etc.) and out of state students pay a much higher bill. But, while we offer a break to in state students, their share is still so high that we use scholarships from various organizations (athletics, academics, and even legacy) to cover the students cost. It's a way for those who wish to see to our future to contribute financially at the level they see best.

@draug - you can very easily claim that the US has the best colleges because they are elite, serve only those who can afford them or are good enough to get a scholarship or the the US bussiness based R&D sector produces much more marketable intellectual property than the EU or UK systems.

And while i don't know practically how to measure these things and hence can't refute any of those points, that doesn't mean they are right.

it seems really harsh to charge extra to out-of-sate students, as they are citizens of the United States, not of Ohio, or Kentucky...

Also, i'd prefer if my government funded the best students rather than just the Irish/EU ones (i mean those PhD candidates who are american but now have to pay because the grants are no longer availabe to them due to cuts... who decided it's better to fund Irish people than the best people???)

"What fundamental human trait distinguishes us from ants and cells. And what is it about humans which supports this concept of a inherent 'natural' property right (though i think the conversation may have gone to another thread...)"

That's a funny way to word it. I would say that all fundamental human traits distinguish us from ants and cells, hence their being human traits. =P

That said, you have to consider the very nature of morality, because I don't think it applies to ants or cells. Morality is meaningless if you're the last person on Earth, it is only once you introduce a second person that you have to extend consideration to their interests as well if you want to cooperate with them. The reason humans can't live like ants is because most humans don't want to live like ants, and it would be immoral to squash their interests and force them to. If a group of humans agreed to live like ants and form a community, then there's nothing unethical about it, it's just that this would probably never happen due to human nature. Ants and cells have entirely different natures due to their reproductive strategies and the evolution that guided them. As I know you know, every ant besides the queen is a sterile sister and they propagate their genes by working as a unit to increase the reproduction of their queen, who births new sisters. It is not the ant that is the reproductive unit, but more the entire colony.

If you want to take the argument to nature, there is precedent for property right all around us. Most higher organisms recognize some sort of possessor's right. If a zookeeper gives a bunch of bananas to one monkey, you see that the other monkeys don't just come over and violently take the bananas, rather they hold their hands out like panhandlers. There's a respect for possession. Every territorial animal has a respect for a sort of land ownership, where the first to stake their territory are by default considered the owner. If another male wanders into the territory, they know that they are intruding and will adopt specific behaviours. The resident will typically defend their territory if provoked.

mcbry, I understand the distinction between the two. It's just that it seems to me that for practical purposes it doesn't have much bearing, which I think we agree upon. You seem to look upon property right with a lot of contempt, which I find strange. I wouldn't argue that property right is some platonic handed-down-from-above concept, I think it's a pretty basic tenet that necessarily exists for the prosperity of any society. I would disagree with Adam Smith (though I admire the man) if he says property rights exist to defend the rich against the poor, because I think that the property right is quite meaningless for the powerful who already have the means to defend their property. Property rights gain their real significance in the context of protecting the property of those who lack the means to defend it themselves. It's just as much protecting the poor from the rich, since the rich are the ones with the means to continue to exploit the poor.

Property rights don't exist simply to justify one person hoarding capital and yelling "property rights!" every time someone tries to take something from them. More than anything, property rights is a simple social guarantee that the one is entitled to the product of one's own labour. I don't think you can reliably cooperate with anyone if you cannot respect each others property rights. What incentive does anyone have to produce beyond subsistence if they cannot be sure that they can reap the benefits of their work. There would be no progress.

Yes, it is a consequence of property rights that some will accumulate more than others, but I don't see that this is necessarily a bad thing. I think there is a fundamental human revulsion to inequality and it often violates our sense of fairness. However, I feel this is an evolutionary holdover. Humans have a folk understanding of physics that is fairly well ingrained within them and it works perfectly well in the practical sphere of day to day life, generally heavier objects seem to fall faster than lighter objects, and friction is ubiquitous. However, our folk physics does not hold up under more rigorous physical scrutiny, and as a result most high school physics tries to dispel our folk physics and replace it with a more accurate model.

In the same sense, I believe that we have a sort of folk economics that was built for the relatively small tribal life that dominated most of our hominid history. In that situation, wealth is a lot more zero sum, in that if one member of the tribe has more, it is often an indication that other members have been deprived. It would make sense to harbor resentment or outright anger at such a selfish member of the tribe. However, with the advent of major trade, surplus, and accumulation of capital, the game changed. Productivity and wealth are no longer zero sum games, and one needs not deprive another in order to accumulate wealth. Of course, I'm sure many people do become rich by exploiting others, but it is not necessary to do so, and is not a consequence of property rights. Our outdated economic sense creates a natural emotional reaction of disgust that is perhaps as unavoidable a feeling as fighter pilots sensing upward pitch as they decelerate. Our old models, where gravity is the only constant acceleration and where production is relatively zerosum, are not applicable to modern times, and we must resist the urge to pull our nose down, lest we crash into the ocean.

@orathaic - "it seems really harsh to charge extra to out-of-sate students, as they are citizens of the United States, not of Ohio, or Kentucky..."

What's so harsh about it? Those states fund those students from tax dollars paid by their parents and other citizens in those states. The families of out of state students haven't contributed to the state's economic growth or stability, so why should they get the benefit of it. Remember, states have their own governments and taxing entities. They even have a house, senate, and executive branch (Governor and LT. Governor). In short, if fed dollars pay for it, it should be share and hsare alike, but colleges are funded by state dollars, so preference is and should be given to those who have contributed.

I didn't realize there was a new thread. I'll repost there, so you can reply there.

@chrispminis: first i think the other thread got confused and started talking about property, as in buildings instead of rights being something inherent to the human being (which is where this conversation started.... kinda... after ghost said taxation was a violation of the inherent right of humans to own stuff...)

"every ant besides the queen is a sterile sister and they propagate their genes by working as a unit to increase the reproduction of their queen, who births new sisters. It is not the ant that is the reproductive unit, but more the entire colony."

i believe however that the 'sterile sisters' are capable of reproducing if they are given the correct hormone treatment (ie if the queen dies and they consume the correct royal jelly... Though this may only be during a certain stage of development so i may be wrong on this point AND i'm extrapolating from what i know about adult female 'worker' bees, which are able to reproduce, but in the rare circumstances where they do the other females kill them and the offspring...)

"If another male wanders into the territory, they know that they are intruding and will adopt specific behaviours. The resident will typically defend their territory if provoked." - yes some creatures have naturally evolved to protect their territory, does that mean evolved traits amount to 'natural rights'?

That's a fine arguement, but it is not the one my opponents (those who claim natural rights exist) are making.

my question really is about 'fundamental human trait' is which of these leads to the definition of 'fundamental human property rights' - as defined by the right to own your body (say) and by extension the right to own other things... (the examples of slavery being a violation of this right, implying that a 'prosperous' society can exist without equality, and that this morality was not necessarily absolute/inherent.)

"but colleges are funded by state dollars, so preference is and should be given to those who have contributed."

Well i don't think that federal level decision making is best for local universities, but it is possible to pay all your 'education tax' to the federal government and for them to then dole these dollars out to each state based on (say) popualation - then each state can choose how to invest it's education budget, and gets to choose from ALL the citizens of the states to learn in these institutions - so if one state specializes in (say) micro-marine biology - all students who really want to study that can go there...

And it's all paid for with their parents federal tax bill...

My point is that while i approve of direct decision making, closer to home, i don't see the point in limiting your institutions choice... if all states formed an education union, where they all agreed to make places equally available to all citizens you'd be able to 'get away' with the same advantages without resorting to federal level at all. (well except that the education union would be on the same level as the federal government, it would just be independent of it...)

@Draugnar - an oxford grad is credited with inventing the web, but that is besides the point. I really don't care if Brits or Americans or Chinese students help progress humankind as long as we all benefit. I just feel that we have a better chance of finding the next pioneers if higher education is vroad accessible to the many rather than just the few.

@chrisp: "mcbry, I understand the distinction between the two. It's just that it seems to me that for practical purposes it doesn't have much bearing, which I think we agree upon."

_________evidently, we don't agree. I believe it is of the utmost importance how we arrive at property rights, because if we go there from some concept of preexisting rights that impose themselves upon the governments, then it is invariable from a moral standpoint. IT CANNOT BE INCREASED OR LESSENED. If it is agreed upon in the formation of government, or discussed as a community which has decided to make do without a government, then it can be modified toward any extreme you (the people) prefer. I'm not particularly interested in to what precise degree Government should be reduced to the protector of property, as ghost would have it, though I will say I disagree with you across the board in terms of preference for where society should ideally be located on the property spectrum and your analysis of what and who property rights are good for. I am simply suggesting here that property is not primal or essential to society. Imagine arriving to a birthday party and saying " OK everyone, the first order of business is deciding how we're going to divide up that cake." When we get to property, in its proper place, we could decide that the State could be the only "owner", or it could be changed in its essence in favor of a concept in terms of USE rather than OWNERSHIP, a concept which is transitive, fluctuating and temporal, rather than rigid, permanent and regulated.

@Maniac - I agree, but I don't think every schmuck who wants to go should get to go. I'm sorry, but it is a waste of society's time and money to send an unmotivated lazy bum to uni. If you want to find a way to make it affordable to the masses, you need strict entrance requirements to keep all the masses from using a very limited resource.

@Maniac - who would that be form Oxford who "invented the internet"? And if you say Tim Berners-Lee, I will bonk you on the head from way over here. He did *not* invent the internet. He worked with a student at CERN to develop the Web, but not the internet. You may say "semantics", but I have heard this line of crap about a brit inventing the internet, something actually done by the US long before there was a World Wide Web.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

@dragnar - i did say TimBL is credited with inventing the Web (not the internet)

@Maniac - You're right. I misread that. Sorry for going off on you.

"evidently, we don't agree. I believe it is of the utmost importance how we arrive at property rights, because if we go there from some concept of preexisting rights that impose themselves upon the governments, then it is invariable from a moral standpoint. IT CANNOT BE INCREASED OR LESSENED. If it is agreed upon in the formation of government, or discussed as a community which has decided to make do without a government, then it can be modified toward any extreme you (the people) prefer."

Wait, what? The philosophical argument can't change reality, it can only try to best describe it. Whether or not you believe rights come from God, nature, or social consensus doesn't affect the substance of rights. I can say that the right to life from God or from social consensus, but that won't save me from the tiger. The only difference is that where a positivist might say that no such right exists, a natural rightist might say that yes it does, it's just being violated. You say that government and society can change whether a right is a right, while a natural rightist would say that government and society can change whether or not a right is enforced or violated, but not whether it exists. For practical purposes, it doesn't make a difference what language or philosophy you're using.

"I will say I disagree with you across the board in terms of preference for where society should ideally be located on the property spectrum and your analysis of what and who property rights are good for."

Well, I gathered that much. I thought that was what we were discussing. Anyway, in what sense is property a spectrum?

"I am simply suggesting here that property is not primal or essential to society. Imagine arriving to a birthday party and saying " OK everyone, the first order of business is deciding how we're going to divide up that cake.""

Well that example is hardly an argument. Being an advocate of property rights doesn't mean I go around explicitly dealing in terms of ownership. To me, property rights represents a more general respect for each others possessions and only need take on explicit consequences in conflict, say if a guy busted into your birthday party and took your cake saying that you had no real right to it.

"it could be changed in its essence in favor of a concept in terms of USE rather than OWNERSHIP, a concept which is transitive, fluctuating and temporal, rather than rigid, permanent and regulated."

That's a pretty heavy handed view of ownership. There's such a thing as trade, which makes ownership very much transitive and temporal. Economics operates under the assumption that people often trade their property based on their "use", or "need", "want" whatever you want to call it. The problem I have with a system based on "use" or whatever, is that there is little incentive to produce beyond subsistence nor is there any reliable indication of the relative value of goods. I don't think such a system would sit well with human nature, nor would it be conducive to progress or social prosperity.

Anyway, for me personally, I view equity as more important than equality.

"The problem I have with a system based on "use" or whatever, is that there is little incentive to produce beyond subsistence" - except the incentive to challenge yourself (which, lets accuse kestas of using when he came to program this website)

i mean siting around doing nothing isn't fun - entertainment has become an industry because people don't get to have fun at work - but some people find it fun to program, and thus do so, either because they think they'd like to have the end product, or they'd like to share it with other people (like designing a new game, for example)

but whatever you do with yourself, you should challenge yourself every day... imho

So imagine two people and separately each finds a wallet left in the street. One turns the wallet in to the police because he wants the owner to have his wallet back and the other turns the wallet in to the police because he wanted to look good in front of his girlfriend who happened to be with him. Are the two acts the same?

Of course the paradigm you choose to build your philosophy on matters. If everyone accepts the that the system is inflexible, then effectively the system is inflexible. Look at the Tea Party, they claim to believe in radical property rights and many want to do away with social security, welfare, and all forms of public education. They say that the government that infringes on their right to property is immoral, and they base the idea on natural rights, their right to property is prior to any codification regarding property in the law, they say. And that is an appealing notion even to folks who are actually hurt by instituting such a policy (the majority of tea-party supporters). Because they've been reciting the phrase "inalienable rights" since they learned how to talk. Ideology matters, chris. Rhetoric matters.

"Well that example is hardly an argument." It's a damn good argument, thank you very much. There are more important things than property, namely how we get along socially. but for ghost and for anyone that claims rights as natural, property is typically the only consideration and everything else is derived from that.

A property spectrum is the range of possibilities between a government which exists solely to protect property rights and a society in which property doesn't exist.

Of course my argument sounds radical for someone whose entire world is owned and who is probably accustomed to plenty of comfort in his life. It's not easy to see outside of that condition.

I produce all the time without any incentive at all. I produce because I'm interested or curious or I want to improve my own life or the lives of the people around me or I want to make a contribution to the community. In fact, I would say the farther I go in liberating myself of property, the more productive I become. The absence of possessions does not mean people will sit around on their asses all day, particularly when the community is dependent on the contribution of each member. There is a social pressure to be productive too.

There is no equity without some measure of equality, especially in terms of property.

"So imagine two people and separately each finds a wallet left in the street. One turns the wallet in to the police because he wants the owner to have his wallet back and the other turns the wallet in to the police because he wanted to look good in front of his girlfriend who happened to be with him. Are the two acts the same?"

Same in what sense? They're the same in that they have the same consequences, but different in that they have different motivations. Are you asking me if they're morally equivalent? I would say no.

"Of course the paradigm you choose to build your philosophy on matters. If everyone accepts the that the system is inflexible, then effectively the system is inflexible. Look at the Tea Party, they claim to believe in radical property rights and many want to do away with social security, welfare, and all forms of public education. They say that the government that infringes on their right to property is immoral, and they base the idea on natural rights, their right to property is prior to any codification regarding property in the law, they say. And that is an appealing notion even to folks who are actually hurt by instituting such a policy (the majority of tea-party supporters). Because they've been reciting the phrase "inalienable rights" since they learned how to talk. Ideology matters, chris. Rhetoric matters."

Look, I never said that philosophy, ideology, and rhetoric don't matter. You're completely blowing what I said out of proportion. I was commenting by saying that positivism vs. natural rights has very little practical consequence. I think that a positivist could just as well demand property rights. They just disagree on where rights come from, which I didn't think was entirely relevant to the original discussion, which was regarding the morality of taxation. Tea partiers aren't the simple result of their belief in the Constitution, and consequently natural rights. You're taking the most extreme example of rigidity. The Tea Party movement is a recent uprising and is just as much the consequence of media, economic and political climates as it is philosophical affiliation.

"It's a damn good argument, thank you very much. There are more important things than property, namely how we get along socially. but for ghost and for anyone that claims rights as natural, property is typically the only consideration and everything else is derived from that."

No actually, it's a pretty terrible argument, my apologies. Look, stop arguing with me as if I'm TGM, because I'm not (though I'm sure he could argue against you in his own way). I'm not a natural rightist, nor do I view property rights as a moral imperative. If you've seen my previous writings on this site, you might know that I only even view morality as a practical evolutionary development to lubricate social interaction. Just because I believe that society requires property rights to prosper does not mean I believe that we should always be thinking in terms of ownership. It seems to be you're arguing more against greed and materialism than property rights, and they're not at all the same thing, and can very much exist independently of each other.

I've been arguing that how we get along socially is very much important, and that property rights are a large part of how we get along. It's well enough to say that you get along so well with your friends and family that you share freely with them without any thought to reciprocation, and I would say, good, that's exactly how it ought to be and how it usually is. However, the greater part of society involves cooperation between strangers, and it's important that they can interact with each other on a solid basis of mutual respect.

"Of course my argument sounds radical for someone whose entire world is owned and who is probably accustomed to plenty of comfort in his life. It's not easy to see outside of that condition."

I have yet to see you engage in a debate here without resorting to ad hominem or condescension, so you'll forgive me if I don't take this seriously. I would point out that most of my peers who have enjoyed the same comfortable upbringing (for which I consider myself very lucky) are bleeding heart socialist/communists who just wonder why we can't all just get along.

"I produce all the time without any incentive at all. I produce because I'm interested or curious or I want to improve my own life or the lives of the people around me or I want to make a contribution to the community. In fact, I would say the farther I go in liberating myself of property, the more productive I become. The absence of possessions does not mean people will sit around on their asses all day, particularly when the community is dependent on the contribution of each member. There is a social pressure to be productive too."

This will serve as my response to orathaic as well. It's great that you often produce without external incentive. I don't discount the power of internal motivation, and my understanding is that for creative and tasks requiring high levels of cognition, internal motivation is more powerful than external motivation, though these tasks make up the minority of production.

I would argue however that society largely runs on external motivation (which includes such things as peer approval and improving your own life), rather than internal motivation. Being an advocate of property rights does not mean that you believe that wealth is an ends in and of itself, rather, improving your own life or that of your family and friends very much requires that you can trust that the fruits of your labour will not be taken from you by force.

The simple fact is that not everyone can do what they want to do, or what internally motivates them, society would simply not function if everyone was a chef or a palentologist or what have you, and we had no garbage men. The majority of people would not do their jobs if they were not paid, and even in a communal society I think the majority of people would be greatly disincentivized if they did not believe their rewards were a function of their labour. The fact that today we are often free to pursue projects that do internally motivate us is an indication of the great productivity we have achieved, and is a luxury that has become more and more available through history as we've accumulated capital and increased productivity. If we could not be sure that the fruits of our productive labour were secured, I doubt we would have any time to pursue such ambitions.

"There is no equity without some measure of equality, especially in terms of property."

Please elaborate upon that assertion.

I don't use ad hominem attacks and I don't "resort" to condescension. If I express condescension, it's because I'm superior. That's a joke, sort of, the fact is it wasn't the case in what I wrote to you. I am acknowledging the fact that my views on property ARE fairly radical, probably much more so than your bleeding-heart friends. They are so radical that most people reject them because they are so foreign to what they know, not because they don't make sense, as you are in some way acknowledging when you say "That's a pretty heavy handed view of ownership." It is very difficult to get a fair hearing for a radical idea, and here I'm talking about possibly throwing out what many in this thread and forum consider to be the very foundation of civilization. Ghost is one of those, and it has been against him that I spent most of my contribution to this thread arguing. Even when I addressed a comment to you, I was really still addressing Ghost. Here's what happened:

You said (to Jack): the way you've set up the dichotomy it seems like you'd have to be crazy (or just religious) to accept natural law as you've defined it. I'm not even sure that TGM is arguing that. Anyway, this debate was brought up because of the claim that taxation was a violation of the property right. I can't see that positivism and that stance are mutually exclusive.

I understood (correctly or incorrectly) what you said to be a claim that the difference between natural rights and positivism was semantic. So I started my response addressing it to you: "It might seem like semantics, but the difference is significant." And I proceeded to outline why I think the difference is important. I was, of course, still arguing against Ghost's natural rights (which is, it turns out, exactly the logic the teaparty uses to justify it's stance) and trying to show why even if you want property rights it's important to arrive at them philosophically via a positivist analysis rather than a natural rights analysis.

To which you responded with this gem: "Wait what? The philosophical argument can't change reality, it can only try to best describe it." In my opinion, Philosophy aims to be both descriptive and prescriptive. I certainly studied philosophy in part for my interest in its transformative power, because I believe it clearly makes a difference whether you believe property rights are natural or are simply created by a government. And so I responded to you again with another attempt to help you see just why it is important. To no avail, apparently. But apart from the basic fact of disagreement, did I smell some condescension in that "Wait. What?"? A subtext of "what a stupid idea to think change can be effected through philosophy"?

You continued: "Whether or not you believe rights come from God, nature, or social consensus doesn't affect the substance of rights." Exactly the opposite of what I'm arguing, but with no reason to back it up. In fact, it has generally been acknowledged in this thread by various people that much greater minds than us have staked their career on trying to settle this very question. Do you suppose they would do that if there wasn't an essential difference between the two POVs, if there wasn't something important at stake? Well, that difference is exactly what I outlined in the first response I addressed to you. It's not my own idea, but a distilled presentation of the state of the debate from a positivist POV at this point in the history of western thought. I also tried to make you see how this difference is still relevant in today's political panorama. Perhaps you don't agree with me that the tea party is a relevant development on the political scene in the US? It happens to be the same argument Ghost was presenting and precisely the argument I was arguing against and precisely relevant to the topic generally under discussion at this point in the thread.
You say: "I was commenting by saying that positivism vs. natural rights has very little practical consequence. I think that a positivist could just as well demand property rights. They just disagree on where rights come from, which I didn't think was entirely relevant to the original discussion, which was regarding the morality of taxation." I'm not blowing you're words out of proportion. Of course a positivist can just as well demand property rights, that's in fact one of the points I've made repeatedly. But the justification is important because of the teaparty and political theories like Ghost's, who seek to make a radical view of property rights a moral obligation and use that moral obligation as the point of attack on any feature of our government that is not specifically dedicated to the protection of property rights. As I've already said, this idea has a lot of resonance among a population that has been hearing about "inalienable rights" since they were tiny. If it were done from a positivist POV, it wouldn't have any of the MORAL baggage that makes it so attractive to so many people in the US. This is relevant and it is important. I'm sorry I can't seem to express myself well enough for you to see it.

"But apart from the basic fact of disagreement, did I smell some condescension in that "Wait. What?"? A subtext of "what a stupid idea to think change can be effected through philosophy"?"

No, that wasn't the subtext. It was more because I was surprised by your response because it seemed like you were disagreeing with a misinterpretation of my words, and I initially had difficulty even seeing the relevance. As I expressed initially, I thought we agreed on the topic, and you came out swinging saying that you didn't. I still think we're just at a misunderstanding and not really a disagreement, and that's probably because I haven't been clear in my definition of terms (I thought my posts were long enough already!). I'm not taking the issue where you think I am. When I say philosophy can't change reality, I mean it can't change physical reality, not that it can't change social climate. For example, if someone asserts that rights come from God, and another says they don't, it can't be both in physical reality. They can change social climate and people may disagree, but social climate doesn't change whether or not rights actually do come from God or they do not.

"If it were done from a positivist POV, it wouldn't have any of the MORAL baggage that makes it so attractive to so many people in the US."

No, that's exactly my point. I think that a positivist could just as well argue the value of property rights from a moralistic perspective. Morality need not be derived from nature or God or any other absolute source to have significance in the debate on property rights. I think a positivist could accept that rights are not derived from any natural source but are simply the product of social consensus, and that morality is not derived from any absolute source but is simply the product of social consensus, and then go on to argue that the violation of property rights is immoral. Positivists need not lack moral convictions. That's why I didn't see the positivism vs. natural right as relevant to the issue of whether or not taxation is immoral.

"It is very difficult to get a fair hearing for a radical idea, and here I'm talking about possibly throwing out what many in this thread and forum consider to be the very foundation of civilization."

In what sense do you think you're not getting a fair hearing? I think we've been debating on pretty equal terms, and while it's true that your ideas are radical in the sense that property right has a long historical predecent, they're not radical in the sense that they're novel. I've heard all these ideas before, argued both better and worse by others (perhaps to your credit, mostly worse; Sicarius comes to mind), albeit with some nuances. Doing away with property is a pretty common theme amongst my extreme left leaning peers, and I've even heard the resource-based use-centric economy that you tout in the other thread. I think that most people consider laissez-faire capitalism to be just as radical as communism, though this may be my perception living amongst a younger urban population in a generally leftist country.

It still seems to me that your enemy is materialism and dogmaticism more than anything, and I would say that being an advocate of property rights by no means leads us logically to either of those. Just because it can, doesn't mean it must or is even likely to.

"It still seems to me that your enemy is materialism and dogmaticism more than anything, and I would say that being an advocate of property rights by no means leads us logically to either of those. Just because it can, doesn't mean it must or is even likely to."

Well let's leave our little tête-a-tête at that then. I see clearly the importance of the detail of where the right originates. I agree that a positivist can argue from a moral POV, but I still don't think it has the same resonance as an natural rights based moral obligation, particularly in the US where natural rights are enshrined in the founding document. And beyond the social implications, philosophically, how you explain the origin of a phenomenon dramatically affects how you understand the phenomenon itself. At a certain time in history, there were competing theories to explain the movement of the sun moving through the sky. Both theories adequately explained the phenomena observed. But what a difference! I don't think this issue is much less significant in its implications, and it is tied to many other big issues that have long been debated in the history of human thought.
But we both agree, I think, that positivism is the way forward, or at least you consider the question irrelevant and are more interested in talking about the implications of more or less property rights. And once that is agreed you are quite right in identifying my concerns to be with materialism and dogmatism, and so I can comfortably leave our little tête-a-tête at that.