[Spouter]

This post was written for another thread, but the subject deserves its own discussion.

Here is my position in general: Sometimes, it is better for the tree to bend, rather than break. I think that there are important exceptions, examples from history, which illustrate quite clearly that the unregulated self-interest of private parties does not always lead to the best result. In these cases, I believe that a responsible government should act, in the interest of a free market. If we strictly adhere to orthodox libertarianism in these cases, then the market actually becomes less free (more restricted).

Eran, for his part, is interested in understanding the difference between speech and commerce. All ideological differences aside, that would be a useful end.

Public theaters actually have owners, and those owners are perfectly within their rights to stipulate rules of conduct under which people may attend performances. One of those rules prohibits unnecessarily disrupting performances.

No, no , no! Not everything can be boiled down to property rights! Falsely yelling fire is in a crowded theater is not illegal because it violates some rule of conduct stipulated by the theater's owner. It is illegal, because doing this can cause people to be hurt or killed. It would be just as illegal, I think, to cause a public panic on false pretexts in any enclosed area, whether it was privately owned, whether any "codes" had been stipulated by the owner or not. All of that is quite immaterial. Falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater endangers the people in the theater (the rights of the property owner are secondary).

This often-cited example is not (or need not be) a limit on free speech.

Of course, it is. It is a reasonable limit that we all can agree on. It can be just as dangerous to falsely yell fire as it is to actually set a fire. The laws against arson limit my freedom to set fires where ever I choose, also. All such laws limit the freedom of the individual--or to be more precise, they set limits, and then the state imposes penalties on those who cross the line.

Like you, I am reluctant to impose any limitations on our citizenry, except those that are absolutely necessary. However, I think you will agree that some limitations are necessary. For example, the right to assembly only refers to public space, I think. You cannot just assemble a mob in some guy's house, if he doesn't want you there. Your right to assembly does not trump this guy's right to peace and privacy in his own domicile. You can stand on a public street, and as long as you offer no significant obstruction, you can hand out fliers, solicit signatures, donations, and preach whatever you want to whoever you want (or you should be able to). But you can't necessarily do this in some guy's tavern or theater, without his consent. In some cases, property rights do trump individual freedoms, like the right to free speech.

There are further limitations on speech that are quite reasonable. Your right to free speech protects your right to lie, to a certain extent, but there are penalties for slander and libel, and there should be. Plagiarism is another limitation, although this last example has less to do with speech rights, and more to do with business practices (you cannot profit from intellectual material that you fraudulently claim as your own).

...do you support European-style prohibition on certain types of expression?

Not at all. But, there are reasonable limitations that we can impose. I have outlined some of these above. It is my belief that society is complex, and there will always be conflicts between the rights of one individual against another, one business against another, one class against another, and so on. As an orderly society, we must resolve these conflicts on a case by case basis. We must be careful, because in all cases, the rights of one party will have have to be affirmed, and the rights of another party will be negated. There is no way to dodge responsibility here. In order to affirm one thing, you have negate another.

Thankfully, there are general rules of thumb that can be helpful when deliberating over these conflicts. In cases of speech, that rule of thumb is the first amendment. It is not absolute, but it holds good 99 times out of a 100. In cases involving property and commerce, I am willing to admit that libertarian principles can provide a good rule of thumb. But there are important exceptions, and orthodox libertarians seem completely blind to these exceptions.

Each party has a right to control its own property. Prior to the transaction, the buyer owns his money, the seller owns some merchandise. Neither party has a right to force the other to transact. Rather, a transaction takes place when both sides agree. Absent agreement from either side, the transaction doesn't take place.

You are trying to resolve the conflict by pretending that there is no conflict. I agree, a proprietor has a right to refuse his services to anyone, based on nothing more than his own personal whims. And, the guy with money has a right to exchange that money for goods on the free market. The money is useless to him unless he can exchange it for goods, otherwise it has no value. There is a conflict here, even if you would like to assert otherwise.

Say our buyer lives in a sparsely populated area, and he needs some item from the local store, but the racist proprietor refuses to sell to him, and now he must spend all kinds of money and time to go to a store in the next county. Basically, the proprietor enforces a kind of miniature inflation on the seller. An item that once cost $1 now costs $2, because he must shell out for gas, take an hour off of work, or whatever. To hell with that! He is an American citizen, by God. And it says right on the bill: "Good for all debts public and private." This is legal tender, backed by the central bank of the federal government. If our proprietor takes this currency from one person, he is participating in the system, so he should have to take the money from everyone. That is how the system works: consistency. When you back the right of the seller to discriminate, you implicitly attack, not just the rights of the buyer, you also attack the value of his money--you attack the whole idea of money.

And the buyer shouldn't have to cringe and scrounge for a bag of groceries to feed his family, when he has legal money to spend; he shouldn't have to beg someone else to buy his groceries, like a little kid hanging around outside the Quickemart, trying to get booze. Not as an adult citizen of a free republic! We should trample on this man's rights, make him servile and dependent, and impede the flow of commerce, just to satisfy the racist whims of some redneck proprietor? No right is absolute.

I believe there should be no limits on voluntary market transactions. By forcing a restaurant owner to serve people he doesn't wish to serve, the transaction is no longer voluntary. In effect, the state is assuming partial control over the restaurant.

Do you think that the negro, frozen out of the local market by the discrimination of racist proprietors, makes a voluntary decision to expend time and money to purchase his goods from a distant market? These cases will be rare--maybe not so rare in 1964, but definitely rare in 2012. These cases may be exceptional, but no matter how rare, they potentially constitute an exceptional imposition on the buyer (no one should have to go thirty miles, just to purchase a commodity that the buyer could get one mile away, if it wasn't for some racist local proprietor). On the other hand, the imposition made on independent proprietors by title II of the Civil Rights Act is relatively minor. That's why I am willing to support title II. It is a trade off--one party's rights must be affirmed, another's rights must be denied. If you affirm the rights of the buyer, you save him potentially major costs and inconvenience, but you have to deny the rights of the seller. However, title II imposes no extra costs on the proprietor, and it causes him only minor inconvenience.

Outlawing discrimination by private parties enjoys no similar line of reasoning. It is much more akin to outlawing racist speech.

Wrong. It is more akin to my example above, of the guy handed out pamphlets on a public street. Remember the critical exception: if he is not an obstruction. For example, you are not allowed to set up shop directly in front of the entrance to some business. He is allowed to get his message out there, but he is not allowed to impede the flow of business into and out of this local shop. There will be local ordinances that dictate how far away he must be from the entrance of a business, and there should be. These ordinances are a minor imposition on the street agitator--he will be able to set up shop a few feet down the road, in a spot that is just as public. He just can't be an obstruction. For the shopkeeper, however, if some agitator is allowed to set up directly in front of this other guy's shop, harassing all of his customers, this can be a major imposition.

This is another general rule of thumb, I think. In cases where there is a conflict between the rights of two parties, you should tend to support the rights of the party who are most imposed on in the conflict, versus those that are least imposed on. It is a minor imposition to force a proprietor to sell his wares to all legitimate buyers, regardless of race. But the discrimination of one single proprietor, well positioned in the local market, can cause a major imposition on many of his buyers.

Similarly, it is a minor imposition to ask me not to cause a dangerous commotion in a public enclosure, not to start a fire where ever I feel like, not to a assemble a mob on private property without permission, not to start preaching and agitating in a public business absent the owner's consent, and so on. These are small and reasonable limitations on my freedom. I will trade these off, in order to live in an orderly and democratic society.

[Eran]

No, no , no! Not everything can be boiled down to property rights!

For example?

It is illegal, because doing this can cause people to be hurt or killed.

Fair enough. In either case, the issue is violation of other people's property rights, either those of the theatre owner, or those of other people in the theatre. I am not an absolutist on freedom of speech. I believe other people's property rights clearly describe the boundary of legitimate action, whether that action takes the form of speech or not.

For example, the right to assembly only refers to public space, I think. You cannot just assemble a mob in some guy's house,

Agreed. Again - property rights.

In some cases, property rights do trump individual freedoms, like the right to free speech.

In what cases don't they?

Your right to free speech protects your right to lie, to a certain extent, but there are penalties for slander and libel, and there should be. Plagiarism is another limitation, although this last example has less to do with speech rights, and more to do with business practices (you cannot profit from intellectual material that you fraudulently claim as your own).

I don't accept slander or libel as legitimate limitations on freedom of speech unless, under the circumstances, they could reasonably be expected to (and actually do) result in violations of property rights. For example, inciting a mob to murder a person by telling lies (or, for that matter, truths).

I also reject intellectual property, but I don't think this dispute is very pertinent to this topic.

there will always be conflicts between the rights of one individual against another, one business against another, one class against another, and so on.

Whenever you see something that looks like conflict between rights, you can take that as a sure sign that what's involved isn't really "rights". A right is an enforceable claim. A conflict between rights suggests a legitimate violent clash, inconsistent with a peaceful society.

The term "right" has been abused beyond recognition. People routinely confuse it with "legitimate interest". I may have a legitimate interest in being provided public assistance, but that doesn't mean I have a right to such assistance. If I did, I could legitimately use force (or sue in court) to obtain that assistance.

There is no way to dodge responsibility here. In order to affirm one thing, you have negate another.

The issue doesn't rise if rights are properly defined. Properly-defined rights precisely delineate which claims are enforceable and which are not, with conflicting claims never being simultaneously enforceable.

The simplest way to define such right structure is through property. The physical world is divided into domains, each of which belongs to an identifiable person or group (plus unowned resources). Within each domain, the owner may do as she pleases. Invading another person's domain without their permission is illegal and constitutes a violation of the other person's property rights.

Please note that I haven't yet made a libertarian claim. Everybody can agree to use property as the only relevant framework for discussing rights. Statists (i.e. non-libertarians) will tend to assign vast property rights in the state. Libertarians allow private parties to retain substantive rights in their property, as well as define clear (non-violent, objective) rules for acquisition and exchange of property.

There is a conflict here, even if you would like to assert otherwise.

There is a conflict of interests, but not a conflict of rights. Each side has absolute right over their property (merchandise on one side, money on the other). IF they both agree, they may legitimately exchange their respective property titles. Otherwise, neither side may rightly force the other.

Say I walk down the street, notice your tie and fancy it. I offer you $100 for your tie - more than a fair price. You refuse to sell it to me. We now have a conflict of interest, but not of rights. I want your tie, but I have no right to it. Arguing that yesterday you sold a tie to somebody else doesn't help.

Similarly, if you fancy a girl and want to have sex with her but she declines, you have a conflict of interests, but not of rights. You cannot legitimately argue that this girl regularly agrees to sleep with other people as a reason to give you a right to rape her.

If our proprietor takes this currency from one person, he is participating in the system, so he should have to take the money from everyone.

Why? Legal tender indeed stipulates that it is good for all debts. But no debt has arisen if no transaction took place in the first place. See my tie example above - just because the proprietor sold some merchandise to another person doesn't automatically obligates him to sell to everybody else.

There are circumstances in which this may not be the case. If the proprietor advertised his wares without specifying any limitations ("no red-heads"), a refusal to sell may constitute fraud. But that's not our case.

We should trample on this man's rights, make him servile and dependent, and impede the flow of commerce, just to satisfy the racist whims of some redneck proprietor?

What rights? Does this man have a right to buy groceries? If so, does that mean that the proprietor may not retire and close his store?

Your argument seems to boil down to a conflict of rights, with the African American buyer having a right to purchase food. Could you please explain why you believe he has that right?

[Spouter]

Eran, Thank you for responding.

It doesn't surprise me that you have difficulty with these concepts, when you seem to have such a linear and compartmentalized style of thought. These ideas of Property and Rights sound simple at first, but history teaches us that they are almost infinitely subtle. Surely, if you pause to reflect on your own comments for a moment, you will realize that your categories are too abstract.

The simplest way to define such right structure is through property. The physical world is divided into domains, each of which belongs to an identifiable person or group (plus unowned resources). Within each domain, the owner may do as she pleases. Invading another person's domain without their permission is illegal and constitutes a violation of the other person's property rights.

I have underlined the part that I find overly abstract. This just does not fit the concrete reality of life on Earth. I am talking about the physical Earth--not some imaginary abstraction that is neatly divided up into self-enclosed "domains," like the squares on a chessboard. In the real world, the "domains" bleed into each other, they are confusedly intertwined, and the borders are often regions of dispute and chaos.

Do you know what an easement is? Wikipedia defines it as "a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it." It is a long established concept in our system of common law. It proves that property is not a simple concept, and that the property rights of different parties are often in conflict.

But you exclude conflict from the outset in your beginning definitions.

A conflict between rights suggests a legitimate violent clash, inconsistent with a peaceful society.

If there are violent conflicts in a society, then it is not a peaceful society. Wow... that is quite a revelation.

Your ideology is extremely confusing to me. In complete abstraction, I can agree that when the state forces a racist proprietor to sell to negroes, that is an imposition on the proprietor and his rights. In an ideal and perfect universe, this should never happen. But in the real world, we must sometimes make compromises.

[Phred]

In complete abstraction, I can agree that when the state forces a racist proprietor to sell to negroes, that is an imposition on the proprietor and his rights.

Not just in abstraction, in reality as well. The proprietors rights are being actually violated, not just abstractly violated.

Now, you can attempt to argue that in this case it is acceptable to violate his rights. But you can't argue his rights aren't being violated. Clearly they are.

But in the real world, we must sometimes make compromises.

Why? What is your rationale for elevating the "right" of a negro to buy clothes - not just from a clothing shop, but from a clothing shop owned by a racist - over the right of a proprietor to choose those with whom he wishes to exchange goods? Lay out your argument from first principles, following the rules of logic, and let's see if it is convincing.


Phred

[Eran]

These ideas of Property and Rights sound simple at first, but history teaches us that they are almost infinitely subtle. Surely, if you pause to reflect on your own comments for a moment, you will realize that your categories are too abstract.

I agree. I find it useful to start with basic principles. Those principles still apply, but their uses can indeed become very involved. A game of Chess (or, even more so, Go) is played by very simple rules, yet hides virtually-infinite complications and subtleties. Still, we must start with the basic rules.

In the real world, the "domains" bleed into each other, they are confusedly intertwined, and the borders are often regions of dispute and chaos.

True - there is some "bleeding". It can be achieved through contractual agreements as well as respect for prior-use (easements). The situation can become arbitrarily complex, as when thick contracts govern, say, a corporate merger.

But you exclude conflict from the outset in your beginning definitions.

I simplified. I do recognize the concept of "easement". In fact, I believe most libertarian writers under-emphasis easements.

As for conflicts, I made a distinction between conflict of interests (which obviously can and does regularly occur) and a conflict of rights which, if rights are correctly understood, cannot take place.

But in the real world, we must sometimes make compromises.

Indeed. One such compromise is to live with the occasional racist proprietor. Economic theory clearly demonstrates that such racists are at a disadvantage, even without the moral indignation of racist-hating society.

In theory such proprietors can make life very difficult for minorities. In practice, given current attitudes within society, that is extremely unlikely.

[Spouter]

I find it useful to start with basic principles.

Indeed. Before we can have a meaningful argument, it would be helpful to set the terms of debate--basic definitions that we both can agree on. Perhaps I was hasty in attacking your definitions as overly simple and abstract. They are simple and abstract, true, but perhaps not overly so, at this preliminary opening stage. We can flesh them out as we go along.

I can also agree with your distinction between a right and an interest. In fact, it sounds useful. Just because you have an interest in doing something, does not mean you have a right to do it. And just because you have a right to do something, does not compel you to do it, unless you have an interest in doing so.

We can both agree that the negro is seeking a legitimate interest, in purchasing commodities freely. I would put it in stronger terms--he has a pressing need. Without food and shelter, he will die, and these things must be payed for. Unless he is paid for his labor directly with commodities, which would be highly inconvenient, then it is likely that he will receive his wages in money. What use is a medium of exchange, if you are not allowed to exchange it freely for goods and services? Man lives by commerce, more today than ever before. If you are denied access to the market, the quality and even the fact of your very existence may be threatened. Survival is not just one of our instincts--one interest among many. It is perhaps the primary one.

We seem to be in agreement here. Where we disagree is not on the question of interests, but on the question of rights. Does a person have the right to purchase goods and services regardless of "race, color, religion or national origin"?

If I were to be completely literal, I would say, "Of course they have that right. It is granted to them by title II of the Civil Rights Act."

But, your question runs deeper than that. You aren't referring to a formal act of Congress--the legal fact that people have been granted this right by the government. You seem to be more concerned with what the philosophers have called natural rights. Abstractions of the second order: Is it right for people to have such a right? Is the formal right in accordance with the natural right? A higher level discussion which I definitely have an interest in, but first we must address the more concrete question of constitutionality.

Is title II constitutional, in your estimation? I believe it is, but I am not a strict constructionist. I can tell you right off, I am dissatisfied with the justification offered by the Court, "on the grounds that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the States" (wiki). The prime abuse that this legislation was intended to correct was discrimination by local proprietors: "hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce." But I don't see how a restaurant or a theater is engaging in any significant level of interstate commerce. In fact, the transaction that this law is meant to regulate--a small purchase from a local proprietor--that seems like a pure example of an intrastate transaction.

But, just because I might disagree with the rationale offered by the Court does not mean that I think the law should have been struck down. I just wish they could have found a better rationale to uphold it. I don't know what that would be; I am not a lawyer. I would have to read the ruling, break out my Federalist, maybe take a look at the Congressional debate from 1964.

Perhaps I should explain my general position on constitutional law. If it is a good law, if it is necessary and proper, then a suitable pretext can be found for its justification. All it would take is an attorney with some real talent. The Constitution is full of all kinds of ambivalent phrases like "general welfare" and "necessary and proper." If we allowed only the strict interpretation of federal powers, then our government would be paralyzed (I know some of you ancap's out there would like that).

A paralyzed government is not necessarily a good thing. For example, Livingston and Monroe would have been unable to sign the Louisiana Purchase. The terms of this contract went well beyond what an American agent is explicitly authorized to sign, according to a strict construction of the Constitution. Jefferson and his Democratic/Republican party (which held the majority in both chambers) were supposed to be the champions of limited powers through strict construction, but that didn't stop the Senate from ratifying it post haste.

Perhaps as a Brit, you see these things differently. In my eyes, the Louisiana Purchase enhanced the power and prestige of my country tremendously. All of that land ceded to the Union with a few strokes of the pen--good land, which we would have had to forcibly conquer otherwise. And the price was a true bargain; it didn't even upset the Treasury that bad. Jefferson and his people would have been stupid not to get behind something like this. I don't care what your strict reading of the Constitution authorizes. You can find a suitable pretext afterwards.

If you feel competent to engage the constitutional question, I will certainly give it a fair reading. But, know this in advance: like our current Chief Justice, I am willing to give the government a lot of leeway. Because I think Title II is a good law, I will seize on any pretext, any ambivalent phrase, that I think will justify it. I believe the founding fathers of my national government were wise enough to abstain from stating some things too explicitly, and they knew in advance that their ambivalent and succinct clauses would become the subject of future debate and struggle. The framers of the Constitution did not know what would be "necessary and proper" in 1830, any more than we know what will define "the general welfare" in 2040. Therefore, they left cut us some slack--they left things short and sweet; they were resigned to the fact that future generations would have to settle these issues, so they kept things ambivalent.

All I am saying is that I leave the decision up to you. If you want to pursue the legal arguments, that's fine. If you want to work on a more abstract and philosophical level, that's fine too. That would be even better, in fact.

If you decide on the latter course, here are my requests.

Please try to further define the relation between these abstract concepts: property, interests, and rights (natural and legal).

And, if you can, please throw the concept of obligation into the mix. I believe that the concept of rights must be connected to the concept of obligation, in some way.

One last request: please expound on the idea of easement rights, and how this relates to the idea of property rights in general. Are rights of "prior usage" by non-owners inherent to the very idea of property itself? Or is this a secondary characteristic?

[Eran]

Without food and shelter, he will die.

Agreed. And I try hard to remember to always qualify the legal supremacy of property rights in words along the lines of "under normal circumstances", "excluding emergencies", etc.

If life is genuinely at risk, property right rules may take a back-seat. We can both agree on that.

I know of no evidence to suggest that, absent title II, African Americans would genuinely find themselves at a risk to their lives. In fact, such claim is highly dubious, given that those same people have survived for decades under Jim Crow, and were at all times free to immigrate north (as many did).

Before we proceed, we should draw a clear distinction between the positive and the normative dimensions. In this context, a positive conversation can be held over whether title II is constitutional, for example. A normative discussion will ask whether it is just. A positive conversation can ask whether certain people are recognized as having certain rights under current American jurisprudence. A normative statement will deal with whether people actually have those rights (whether recognized or not, respected or violated) or, equivalently, whether others ought to respect those rights.


On the constitutional question, I believe title II is a clear violation of the enumerated powers restrictions on Congress in the Federal constitution. The founding fathers created a document in which spheres of sovereignty are clearly delineated and separated between State and Federal levels. The "default" is for State sovereignty, with Federal sovereignty restricted to those powers explicitly granted the Federal government. None of those powers (as I think you might agree) extends to govern the local exchange of services most often falling under the domain of title II.

This limitation indeed "paralyzes" the Federal government in its ability to deal with certain issues. Purposefully and rightly so. The EU and the UN are similarly paralyzed in their ability to deal with many issues. The Federal government itself is paralyzed in its ability to promote religion and limit speech. Again, this is purposefully and rightly so. The American Constitution, as originally ratified and since un-amended, gives the States exclusive responsibility over their internal affairs, subject mainly to the 14th amendment.

Properly understood, the 14th amendment could (and should) have been used to strike all Jim Crow laws as unconstitutional. It is unfortunate that it wasn't. It doesn't extend to the point of title II, however.



I would much rather, though, concentrate on normative issues. Specifically, the question of whether title II is either just or necessary. I contend it is neither.

Gladly following your lead, I will focus the rest of this post on carefully defining some basic concepts, including force and aggression, scarce resources and property, rights and easements, interests and obligations.

Interests I view subjectively. A person has an interest in X if that person views actions relating to X as having an effect on X's well-being (broadly understood).

A conflict of interest with respect to X arises when at least two people each have an interest in X, with the interests not being simultaneously satisfiable.

Scarce resources are physical objects and locations which people can potentially use to advance their interests, and for which a conflict of interest between different people may potentially arise. Note that (under normal circumstances) air is not scarce, and neither are ideas.

The fundamental principle of libertarian normative theory is the Non Aggression Principle (NAP). I would like to define it as "It is wrong for people to physically interfere with the ongoing (peaceful) projects of others". Note that NAP is normally defined in terms of aggression, itself defined as initiation of force. What constitutes initiation of force depends on how property rights are allocated, making NAP in this normal formulation insufficient. I will derive libertarian property principles from the formulation above.

The call not to physically interfere with the ongoing peaceful project of others must be converted to more specific rules before it can be consistently and reliably complied with. Property rights form an indispensable concept in this regard.

Property is a physical resource over which a person (or group of people) have rightly acquired exclusive normative control. In other words, property is a physical resource into which it is wrong for other (non-owners) to physically interfere. At the same time it is permissible for the owner(s) to use (or authorise others to use) force to (reasonably) protect property from unwanted physical invasion by others.

A right is an enforceable interest. A person has a right to do X if no other person may physically interfere with the first person doing X. Property is initially associated with a bundle of rights, including the right to make use of, transform, exclude others and transfer title to the underlying physical resource (with an important exception in one's ability to transfer rights associated with self-ownership).

So property rights are the rights associated with property. Since every conflict of interest is always associated with a scarce resource, most conflicts of interests can be peacefully resolved by following the dictates of the owner of the resource in question.



We can now move on to discuss libertarian theory as to the just acquisition of property rights. Recall that property rights are an instrumental concept designed to allow the application of the NAP. That instrumental purpose implies certain broad outlines as to the legitimate ways of acquiring property rights.

First, and most basic, each person has self-ownership rights - rights akin to ownership of one's physical body. Thus no other person may kill, assault, rape, imprison or otherwise physically invade another person's body (subject, of course, to the first person himself engaging only in peaceful activities). We can already note that virtually every government, as a matter of practice (if not necessarily principle) violates this self-ownership right. Prohibitions against drug consumption and organ sales, conscription and compulsory jury duty are some examples of such violations.

Second, putting to use "virgin land", land that has never been used by any other person is clearly permissible (as it doesn't physically interfere with the ongoing projects of any other person). If such use is of a nature that requires the exclusion of others (e.g. clearing and planting a field), the calling for others not to physically interfere with the use translates to the first user having acquired property rights in the resource in question. The process of transforming unused land to use is called "homesteading".

For homesteading to be consistent with the NAP, the scope of resources being converted to property is very limited. One cannot, for example, acquire property by a mere declaration. Nor does one acquire the right to exclude others from use of the resource which doesn't reasonably interfere with the ongoing use made by the property owner. Thus homesteading a field will reasonably give a person property rights in the field. Such rights will reasonably extend to exclude others from passing through the field, or polluting it. It doesn't reasonably extend to prohibiting others from flying over the field, or diagonally exploring the ground deep under the field for oil.

Another requirement relates to homesteading resources already in use. If the prior use of a resource is already of the kind which reasonably requires exclusive access, the prior user is already a homesteader and thus the right owner of the resource. If, on the other hand, the use is of a non-exclusive nature (e.g. using the field to walk from one's home to a nearby stream), the new user may acquire property rights only subject to respecting the kind of use previously made of the resource.

Easement is the right of non-exclusive use of a resource. Homesteading must respect easement rights. I can clear and plant a field you use for walking to a stream provided I leave a path for you to use.

Rights of prior use by non-owners, as we can see, are inherent to the very idea of property. Only through respecting such rights can the acquisition of property be made consistent with its normative justification - the NAP.

In addition to easements, property holders must also respect any contractual commitments they made to others. Such commitments, together with easements, are all that is necessary to convert the strict structure of full formal property rights to the complex web of mutual dependence required for a modern society.

Obligation can be understood as either a moral obligation or a legal obligation. The former is simply an act one ought to do (or refrain from doing). For example, I am obligated to help a friend in trouble. Legal obligation, on the other hand, is an act I can forcibly be compelled to doing. More common, a legal negative obligation is an act I may be forcibly stopped from doing. We can see that property (and easement) rights immediately translate to negative obligations on others, namely the obligation not to violate those rights.

Positive obligations can arise through voluntary contractual agreements. Libertarians don't generally believe in non-contractual positive obligations.

I'll stop here. Please review and discuss. I'll be happy to move on from those basic principles to title II.

[Spouter]

I would much rather, though, concentrate on normative issues. Specifically, the question of whether title II is either just or necessary.

Me too. But I must offer a few words in response to your comments on the "positive" question, concerning the formal constitutionality of title II.

We can both agree that the government should be "paralyzed" to a certain degree. That is the whole idea behind Federalism--the States are supposed to counterbalance Federal power, and that power is further divided against itself in three different branches. But, never forget the passionate arguments of the original Federalists that the greatest threat to liberty and peace in America originated from the States, and therefore a great deal of autonomous power must be invested in the Federal government to counterbalance that threat. Hamilton himself argued at the Constitutional Convention that the office of presidency should be retained for life. That's how seriously he took the threat. He was not a stupid man.

Also, never forget the weakness and disorganization of the national government in the first two decades if the 19th century. The most glaring example of this is the War of 1812, my country's most incompetent declared war from over two hundred years of history. Bickering in the legislature consistently deprived the executive of the funds necessary for the prosecution of this war. That was driven by local interests on the State level. New England was really openly treasonous--they were actually plotting with the British to some degree! The invading troops on the northern front were sustained throughout the war by American beef (from New England again, not surprisingly).

For reasons similar to those of Hamilton, I am not a strict constructionist. The enumerated powers are all ambivalent enough to cover a wide field of action--just look at the extension of Federal power under the Commerce Clause. I don't necessarily agree with all of this expansion, but I do believe the government should be allowed a wide field of action, what Hamilton called "energy," in order to most effectively administer our critical national interests. Certainly in times of war, but also in times of peace. State interests are too local and selfish, when it comes to the big questions of national importance.

But I do agree that we should focus on the "normative" question. The "positive" question is not as interesting to me. We shouldn't lose sight of it completely, though (by the way, I dislike your terminology. I would prefer to call it the concrete question, when we are discussing the legal issue of the formal constitutionality of title II; the abstract question, when we are dealing with the more philosophical side of things. But, this is just nitpicking. I understand your distinction perfectly, so the exact label is unimportant. And besides, I am more interested in the abstract question anyway, to which I will immediately proceed).

* * *

The question of title II was always a means to an end. I am more interested in the abstract propositions of anarcho-capitalism, and how these differ from the axioms of my own ideology. However, my method when it comes to understanding an abstraction is to see how it applies in the concrete. Because I believe that title II is a just law, the propositions that underline the libertarian argument against it must be wrong. Of course, this is the basic assumption I have made, which you have been arguing against so persistently, with logical reasoning and precise definitions. I do not always agree with these reasonings and definitions, but they are always logical and precise. In any case, we have here a concrete instance where two intelligent people have a difference of opinion, which we can exploit to our mutual advantage, by bringing to the surface the assumptions and beliefs upon which our thoughts are constructed.

For the most part, I agree with your definitions. They seem to be consistent among themselves, anyway. I can agree to define a right as an enforceable interest. I can agree that "[e]asement is the right of non-exclusive use of a resource," and that this is "inherent to the very idea of property." In other words, property rights by their very nature place certain obligations on the owner. It doesn't seem to require a formal contract to create these obligations--the simple fact that people have been using a path that runs through your land, before you acquired ownership, puts on the owner an obligation not to restrain people from the use of this path, in a kind of implied contract. He is subject to this obligation, even though it might be in his own interest to plow up the entire field and destroy the path. But he cannot do this (legally), because it conflicts with the interest of other people in using this path. It is important to note that a owner of property has certain legal obligations with respect to the rights of non-owners.

But, despite your precise definitions, I am having some trouble grasping your exact political beliefs. How anarchistic exactly are you? Do you recognize any government at all as legitimate? Some of your comments lead me to believe you are extremely anarchistic.

We can already note that virtually every government, as a matter of practice (if not necessarily principle) violates this self-ownership right. Prohibitions against drug consumption and organ sales, conscription and compulsory jury duty are some examples of such violations.

First of all, I do not recognize drug-prohibitions as legitimate. This is an exception--not a just or necessary use of government powers. The thing about organ sales is even more exceptional--a tangential controversy that it would be better to avoid, for the purposes of this debate. But, conscription and compulsory jury-duty, these are indeed legitimate and normal government functions. Conscription may be improper at times of peace, but I think it should be almost mandatory when we are in a declared war. And compulsory jury-duty is necessary for a well regulated system of justice.

Are you really against these things? If your country is under attack, you would prefer to be defeated rather than violate some abstract libertarian principle? Conscripts may be necessary for your national defense! And when it comes to all these property rights and legal obligations you describe, don't you want a system of public justice to defend and enforce these things?

I would prefer to get a more complete picture of your political ideology before I proceed to the defense of title II, but I can already see how your definitions, with slight modifications, can be used in such a defense, and I am anxious to run these up the flag pole and see what you have to say.

First of all, I would like to add a category: Money. It is true that money is a type of property, but it has special characteristics that force us to distinguish it from other types of property. These other types of property can also be called forms of wealth. I define wealth in terms of value. A fertile field is valuable because it can produce crops. Let's say that person A has X amount of land, and person B has Y. If X is higher than Y, then A is wealthier than B. Furthermore, if A and B each own the same amount of land, but A's field is more fertile, such that it produces twice as many crops as that harvested by B, then A is twice as wealthy as B.

Money, strictly speaking, is not wealth. It is potential wealth--for example, you can trade it for valuable goods. But in itself, it is not wealth. It is a means to wealth, a claim on wealth, so to speak; it could even be called a kind of anti-wealth, like debt. Think of the ideal abstraction that economists sometimes use to illustrate the origins of money: a man with a pig would like to buy a chicken, but a pig is worth, let's say, 4 chickens. So he creates a symbolic marker that is worth 1/4th of a pig. Basically, the pig farmer has put himself in the chicken farmer's debt; over the course of their yearly transactions, when the chicken farmer has collected 4 of these symbolic markers, then the pig farmer will have to pay off his accumulated debt: one pig.

Just like the pig farmer, the Federal Reserve issues its own little symbolic markers, and this is the source of our national currency. Just like the pig farmer, they issue these markers based on the assets they own. For the pig farmer, it is a pig; for the Federal Reserve, it long term government bonds. It used to be gold. But it doesn't matter what it is exactly. The point is that the chicken farmer does not own the pig; he actually owns a symbolic marker that represents a debt, and until he collects 4 more, the pig farmer will continue to own the pig. Just the same, the assets upon which American currency is issued are owned by the stock holders of the Federal Reserve, not by the people who actually use the currency (please tell me if I have made a mistake in describing the exact financial mechanism).

The independent proprietor has to have money to transact his daily business. He doesn't have enough assets to issue his own money. He needs some type of bank note. And if we are to have a well regulated economy, integrated on a national scale, then you probably would like these notes to be issued by one central bank, chartered by the Federal Government. Everybody benefits from this system (ideally): now the independent proprietor can make transactions on distant markets, because his currency will be recognized throughout the nation. For example, it might be difficult for a proprietor to order his stock from another state, if all his profits are in the form of a regional currency issued by some small, local bank.

If the independent proprietor does all of his business by bartering, then I say leave him alone, he can discriminate against whoever he wants. But, if he uses the national currency, then I believe this brings along with it certain obligations. After all, the wealth that is used to generate this currency does not belong to him. He owns a small symbolic claim on this wealth, but so do millions of others. By using the private holdings of a central bank, we can create a national currency, and that is good in many ways, but it involves a lose of freedom, I think, for everyone who goes along with the system. The independent proprietor uses money, and it makes his life easier, but I repeat once more, the assets that generate the currency belong to someone else. In effect, he is using someone else's property.

And so when we enforce an obligation for proprietors to sell their goods regardless of the race of the customer, if they use the national currency, then I see this as fundamentally no different than other obligations we enforce on people who use the property of others. In other words, I see some parallel with easement rights. For example, a non-owner might have the right to use a path that cuts through a field, but he has an obligation not to litter this path with his beer cans and cigarette butts. It would be improper and onerous to obligate him to walk the path on his hands. But title II places no such extreme obligation on the proprietor. It is a very small and modest obligation, you have to admit.

I have tried this argument before, but I have fleshed it out a little bit with your own precise terminology. Your comments will be gladly welcome.

One last note: I think that resources are much more scarce than you suggest. It is not an exceptional deviation from the norm; for most of human history, it is the norm. Starvation is a sign of scarce resources, a common affliction of man through almost ages of history. If anything, the exception is the relative material abundance we find in modern western nations. The last hundred or two hundred years, what does that compare to the millennia of starvation that preceded it? Scarcity is the norm, in all of human history, and it is probably the norm today on most of the planet.

[Eran]

That's how seriously he took the threat. He was not a stupid man.

Nor was he a popular man, in the sense that his views were a minority at the time. Most relevantly, those ratifying the Constitution were much more concerned about concentration of power at the Federal level. The State level was the devil they knew, and each state had its own constitution variably limiting government power.

Also, never forget the weakness and disorganization of the national government in the first two decades if the 19th century. The most glaring example of this is the War of 1812, my country's most incompetent declared war from over two hundred years of history. Bickering in the legislature consistently deprived the executive of the funds necessary for the prosecution of this war. That was driven by local interests on the State level. New England was really openly treasonous--they were actually plotting with the British to some degree! The invading troops on the northern front were sustained throughout the war by American beef (from New England again, not surprisingly).

You say it like it is a bad thing. Since the War of 1812 wasn't an essential defensive war, any impediment to its prosecution must be viewed as a positive, don't you think? Any war which runs contrary to the interests of significant parts of the union is probably not an essential one. Any non-essential war is wrong.

The enumerated powers are all ambivalent enough to cover a wide field of action--just look at the extension of Federal power under the Commerce Clause.

The issue isn't with the enumerated power being ambivalent, but with 20th century justices being infinitely flexible in their reading. Some parts of the constitution aren't ambivalent in the least bit ("Congress shall make no law..."), yet supreme courts invariably found ways to ignore them (to be fair, wrt 1st amendment, the worst was probably early on with the Alien and Sedition Act).

I do believe the government should be allowed a wide field of action, what Hamilton called "energy," in order to most effectively administer our critical national interests. Certainly in times of war, but also in times of peace. State interests are too local and selfish, when it comes to the big questions of national importance.

What gives you any confidence that "energetic" administration will indeed be in the national interest (let alone "critical" national interests)? As to state interests, those are still manifested through the Federal government. If anything, the local and petty interest of each and every senator and congressman (Ron Paul excluded ) is shining through Federal legislative acts. At the unified, executive level, the petty interests of states are only replaced with the even-pettier interests of the Commander in Chief and his armies of bureaucrats.

It is an all-too-common mistake to assume that, given power, government will use its authority for good (as government officials repeatedly promise). Absent effective controls, government officials should be assumed to behave selfishly, just as do members of the private sector.

Because I believe that title II is a just law, the propositions that underline the libertarian argument against it must be wrong.

This is very important, and I'd like us to be very careful here.

Consider an equivalent law which prohibits racist speech. You and I can both agree that racism (narrowly defined) is bad/wrong/evil/undesirable. We can even both agree that eradicating (or, realistically, reducing) racism is a worthy goal. Under appropriate circumstances, for example, I'd be happy to donate money towards organisations whose goal it is do educate against racism. In light of that shared view, we could both feel good about the goal of both title II and the suggested anti-racist-speech law.

But I suspect you, like I, object to the anti-racist-speech law. True, that law would be unconstitutional in the US. But setting that aside, I am assuming (correct me if I am wrong) that you would object to such law even if it was constitutional (e.g. in European countries).

Why is that? How can you object to a law that only harms bad people and promotes a positive goal? Wouldn't an anti-speech law as "just" as title II? If not, please explain why, in terms of justice, the two are different.

Keep in mind, btw, that speech hurts. It hurts people emotionally, but it can also harm them by affecting public opinion and individuals' views. A racist essay can be read by people who would find it persuasive and adopt (or strengthen) racist tendencies.

In other words, property rights by their very nature place certain obligations on the owner.

To be clear, some property rights may place certain obligations on the owner. Obligations to respect pre-existing use-rights are inherent to the concept of property as encapsulator of the Non Aggression Principle.

How anarchistic exactly are you? Do you recognize any government at all as legitimate? Some of your comments lead me to believe you are extremely anarchistic.

I didn't realise there were shades of anarchism. I am as anarchist as I am atheist. I believe any government is, by definition, unjust (i.e. guilty of illegitimate aggression). I also believe that a society which adopts NAP as its "constitution" would be more peaceful and prosperous than an otherwise-identical society which adopts a government-based constitution. Setting aside best-case governments (which are still aggressive and thus unjust), real-world governments tend to be positively evil. Governments are guilty of countless crimes, from the obvious (WW I & II) to the hidden (countless victims of War on Drugs, or countless millions who have died due to trade restrictions in the third world).

Conscription may be improper at times of peace, but I think it should be almost mandatory when we are in a declared war. And compulsory jury-duty is necessary for a well regulated system of justice.

I think you are wrong on both the normative and consequential planes. As a normative matter, you have just sanctioned slavery, whether you call it thus or not. You are saying that under certain circumstances, it is permissible to force people to do your bidding against their will. This is wrong, regardless of how valuable your goal may be.

A nation that is worth saving will not find it difficult to recruit volunteers. Recall the American Revolutionary War. No conscription was necessary (nor would it have been possible). No conscription took place in the recent uprisings in the Arab world.

As for jury duty, most developed countries have no juries. Besides, what's wrong with paid juries? After all, judges and lawyers are all paid.

Are you really against these things? If your country is under attack, you would prefer to be defeated rather than violate some abstract libertarian principle?

You are presenting a false dichotomy. If my country was under external attack, I have no doubt that my fellow citizens would gladly volunteer to defeat the aggressors. Substituting a domestic aggressor (government) for a foreign one will only perpetuate life under aggression.

And when it comes to all these property rights and legal obligations you describe, don't you want a system of public justice to defend and enforce these things?

"Public" in the sense of open and available to all - yes. "Public" in the sense of government-run and coercion-based - no.

Money, strictly speaking, is not wealth. It is potential wealth--for example, you can trade it for valuable goods. But in itself, it is not wealth.

Money serves at least three distinct (but related) purposes:
1. Unit of accounting
2. Medium of exchange
3. Store of value.

When we say "X has a lot of money", we are being careless. What we really mean is "measured in terms of money (as a unit of accounting), X's wealth is large". We routinely use money as a medium of exchange, saving ourselves the hassle associated with barter.

But money is also a store of value, and as such is a type of property. In the past, gold was money. Gold was also property. Today, dollar bills are money, but they are also property.

It is true that dollar bills have no "intrinsic" value. But then nothing else does either. A diamond ring, a loaf of bread, an iPhone - all are considered valuable because (and to the extent) that people are willing to give up other valuable things in exchange for them. The very same holds for dollar bills.

And if we are to have a well regulated economy, integrated on a national scale, then you probably would like these notes to be issued by one central bank, chartered by the Federal Government.

Absolutely NOT. A central bank with a monopoly over the issuance of fiat money, backed by legal tender laws is a certain recipe for economic instability. A well-regulated economy needs nothing beyond tolerable defence of property rights. That holds for the banking and money sectors as well as for the rest of the economy.

For example, it might be difficult for a proprietor to order his stock from another state, if all his profits are in the form of a regional currency issued by some small, local bank.

You must have heard of traveller checks. And international credit cards. You don't need a central government to create very widely-accepted means of payment. If Mastercard issued gold-backed credit card, it could be accepted the world over - wider, in fact, than the US dollar.

The independent proprietor uses money, and it makes his life easier, but I repeat once more, the assets that generate the currency belong to someone else. In effect, he is using someone else's property.

I don't understand your logic. First, consider 19th century America (i.e. prior to the Federal Reserve). Many banks issued metal-backed currencies (either gold or silver). Most were only known and accepted locally, but some had nation-wide acceptance. A note represented a claim for a set amount of precious metal. Owning such a note was equivalent to owning the underlying metal. It was the property of the holder.

Today, no metal backs federal notes. But still, each such note represents wealth in the only relevant sense - it is an asset for which many people are willing to pay (i.e. to give up their ownership in other assets).

And so when we enforce an obligation for proprietors to sell their goods regardless of the race of the customer, if they use the national currency, then I see this as fundamentally no different than other obligations we enforce on people who use the property of others.

I can (just barely) see a world in which a bank issues notes with the stipulation that their use or acceptance implies a commitment not to discriminate in certain ways. I can easily see a world in which Mastercard, bowing to popular pressure, conditions merchants who want to subscribe to the system on a commitment to avoid racist discrimination. I would welcome such development, because it is voluntary.

The problem with your narrative is that it further underscores the injustice and coercion of the federal reserve system. It was bad enough that the government is forcing people to use paper notes as money whether they want to or not (legal tender laws). Now you are saying that that particular coercion is worse - it also obligates people to adopt the sensibilities of the federal government regarding whom they do business with!

I must add, btw, that the reading that associates title II with use of federal money is entirely yours. As far as I know, title II equally applies to proprietors who use barter, as it does to private clubs who charge no money.

I think that resources are much more scarce than you suggest. It is not an exceptional deviation from the norm; for most of human history, it is the norm. Starvation is a sign of scarce resources, a common affliction of man through almost ages of history. If anything, the exception is the relative material abundance we find in modern western nations. The last hundred or two hundred years, what does that compare to the millennia of starvation that preceded it? Scarcity is the norm, in all of human history, and it is probably the norm today on most of the planet.

Land resources may have been scarce (in the colloquial sense) in the past. Or perhaps they have merely been monopolised by force by certain elites. My statement regarding resource scarcity was expressly meant in the modern context. There is no starvation in the developed world. Further, the value of physical land continues to diminish as a fraction of the overall wealth of the economy. As we moved from agricultural to industrial economies, land lost its magic. As we move from industrial to information and service economies, other types of natural resources (e.g. energy, metals) also lose their relative value. We are quickly entering a world in which by far the most valuable resource is the human mind. And that is the most egalitarianly-distributed resource of all. We each have exactly one.

[oppose_obama]

Love reading erans responses, get smarter Everytime. Especially enjoyed how you broke down money. Jolly good show ole chap.

[Spouter]

You say it like it is a bad thing. Since the War of 1812 wasn't an essential defensive war, any impediment to its prosecution must be viewed as a positive, don't you think? Any war which runs contrary to the interests of significant parts of the union is probably not an essential one. Any non-essential war is wrong.

It sounds like you don't know what you are talking about. Have you read Henry Adams' history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations?

You are aware that British troops burned down the city of Washington, right? Any war in which the enemy destroys your capital, that is "an essential defensive war," by definition. We're not talking Vietnam here; this was a legally declared war in which the enemy directly threatened our home territory. If you are an American and you obstruct your nation's efforts in such a war, then you are at best a coward, and if you are actually conspiring with the enemy, like some of the people in New England were, then you are a traitor that deserves to be hanged.

Do you know anything about why this war was declared, and the conditions that created it, or are you just spouting off? I am starting to think the latter.

I am also disappointed that you continue to attack title II under the idea that it is somehow equivalent to passing a law against speech with racist content. I thought we dealt with this already, but still you persist.

Consider an equivalent law which prohibits racist speech.

Wouldn't an anti-speech law as "just" as title II? If not, please explain why, in terms of justice, the two are different.

The content of the speech is irrelevant. You can set up your little booth, hand out your pamphlets, rant, rave, preach, collect as many signatures or as much money as you can get your hands on. I don't care, as long as you don't set this booth up directly in front of somebody else's business, and obstruct the flow of customers through the entrance. If you are set up like that, and a cop comes along and asks you to move, is that cop a totalitarian agent trying to enforce unjust laws against racist speech? No. The street agitator, in this example, might as well be promulgating an anti-racist doctrine. It has nothing to do with the content of his speech; it has to do with property rights.

Similarly, the exact nature of the goods and services offered by a proprietor are irrelevant, when it comes to title II. But, if this proprietor discriminates by race, then he obstructs the flow of commerce. If he is engaged in primitive business practices, like barter, then I would leave him alone, if it was up to me. But, if he is using our national currency, that is a different matter. This currency is designed to facilitate our system of commerce, not obstruct it. There are certain obligations that go along with the use of anyone else's property. You want to discriminate against customers with legal money, because they are black or whatever? Fine. Stop using our national currency then.

I will agree that this is a novel argument of my own construction. It may be defective, although none of your objections so far compel me to abandon it. I am looking for an alternative to the usual justification for title II, under the Commerce Clause, because these expansions of Federal power trouble me (see Wickard v. Filburn, the Mann Act, etc.). Or, to be more precise, I don't mind justifying title II under the Commerce Clause, but I take a different construction of this clause than I would imagine the government does in their own justifications. I don't know what these are exactly, beyond the wikipedia summery. If the argument progresses much further, I may have to actually read the ruling, the congressional debate, and so on--not because I am interested in the "positive" question itself, but only in order to shed light on the "normative" question.

Then again, why should I waste my time, if you cannot follow this simple distinction I am trying to draw concerning speech rights? I will try once more: On the one hand, we have laws that restrict where and how you can practice your right to free speech (so many feet away from the entrance of a business, for example). Such laws can be justified. They impose limits on how you can speak, but not on what you can say. On the other hand, there are laws that attempt to regulate the content of the speech itself (laws against hate speech, such as those found in Europe). These laws cannot be justified--not in the "normative" sense, anyway.

Do you see the distinction? I am suggesting that title II, if it is analogous to a law that regulates speech, then it falls under the former category, rather than the latter. Perhaps this is a false distinction, but how can you even tell if you are incapable of making the distinction in the first place? If you are going to continue and try to hammer this analogy to speech rights, fine. But don't just repeat the same talking-point over and over again. Address my objections to your analogy in a way that shows me you understand them. Have I made a false distinction? If so, then how is it false? Perhaps the distinction is valid, but for other reasons it only applies to speech, not to commerce. If so, then what are these "other reasons"?

But, because you seem to be extremely anarchistic, I may be barking up the wrong tree here. I will have to re-craft my arguments in light of this. It is very tricky to argue government policy with a hard anarchist. Their position is extremely confusing. For example, you yourself believe that all government is unjust, by definition. And yet you are also willing to argue that a particular law is itself unjust (in this case title II). How do you pull that off? Why get so upset over this one particular law? According to your own ideology, this is merely another act of government, which is equally unjust in all its actions. Why single out title II? And this ideology also makes your position on compulsory jury-duty seem a little schizophrenic. You argue that they have a well regulated system of justice in other countries without this feature, but these other countries still have courts, and a court is an institution of government. If you are a strict anarchist, you should be against such institutions. How can you say one system is better? They are all "guilty of illegitimate aggression."

And there definitely are different shades of anarchism, I think. I would describe myself as a soft anarchist. I also believe that government is unjust, by definition. The problem for me is that I don't see any other viable option. I don't exactly agree with Hobbes, when he says that the social order would completely breakdown in the absence of government, a terrifying "state of nature" in which every individual is at war with every other individual. But, I can follow his reasoning when he says that government is the result of a kind of contract (a "covenant"), which inevitably entails a loss of freedom and the imposition of certain obligations (taxation, conscription), but people enter into these contracts for reasons of security. In a dangerous world full of neighbors who continually threaten your freedom, your property, and your life, it is completely understandable to organize the defenses of your community. Government is the expression of a completely valid self-interest, just like business activities.

Hard anarchism seems to lead to contradictory conclusions. Now that I understand your political ideology a little better, I see that these contradictions run throughout your musings.

A well-regulated economy needs nothing beyond tolerable defence of property rights.

But people form governments for that exact reason, for the protection of property! You keep saying that government is against property rights by its very nature, but I find it hard to believe that this can be its nature, when it was created to protect property. You can say they are going about it the wrong way. You can say that they unjustly privilege one class of owners over the rest. But you cannot say they are going against property rights in general. The opposite is closer to the truth.

On the institutions of public justice, you seem to agree that they are necessary, but only if they are not "government-run."

"Public" in the sense of open and available to all - yes. "Public" in the sense of government-run and coercion-based - no.

This is truly schizophrenic. How are you going to select the magistrates? Who is going to pay them? If you have a court system, then you have some form of government, ipso facto. You can't have the one without the other. Tell me, in your utopian fantasy, how do you envision a system of justice that is not "government-run"? That's like trying to envision a square circle.

A nation that is worth saving will not find it difficult to recruit volunteers... If my country was under external attack, I have no doubt that my fellow citizens would gladly volunteer to defeat the aggressors. Substituting a domestic aggressor (government) for a foreign one will only perpetuate life under aggression.

At least you answered my question: yes, you would prefer to be conquered by a foreign power, rather than fight back with conscripts. Your ideology does not leave a lot of room for patriotism, does it? Let's draw out your logic a little more explicitly. This is all quite abstract, but indulge me. Let's say your country is invaded, and you now have two options: fight back with conscripts, and win, or fight back without conscripts, and lose. In reality we cannot predict the outcome with such certainty, but in the abstract realm of thought experiment, we can. Besides, you can at least admit that conscription adds to the numerical strength of your forces, and hence makes victory, not certain, but definitely more likely. However, in my abstract scenario, we will assume that the outcome is certain. The first option will allow you to preserve the independence of your nation, but you think the cost too high. So you've got to go with the second option, and allow yourself to be conquered. In other words, you really don't have a choice at all. Why even fight back at all? It would be better to just rapidly give in to any foreign aggressor who even talks about attacking you. Your nation will be weak, dependent, and servile.

America is not perfect. The rulers here are assholes. But they are my assholes--homegrown. My ancestors refused to be ruled by a foreign government, and I refuse this today. Furthermore, I am willing to use every weapon available to avert such a catastrophe, including conscription. I think it would be stupid not to use this weapon. You can win a war without this weapon, true. But why risk it? If you are carrying a gun, and a guy attacks you with a knife, you might be able to fight him off with your bare hands, but then again, maybe you can't. Why not use the gun?

You yourself said you were willing to countenance some violations of property rights in cases of emergency, when human life is threatened. There are few emergencies of greater magnitude than a military invasion of your country.

But I have run far afield from the topic at hand. These speculations about anarchism and war, while interesting, are only loosely related to our immediate questions. I will conclude with a few comments on your assertions about money.

Here you seem to have trouble with another one of my distinctions:

But money is also a store of value, and as such is a type of property.

The "but" implies that you are objecting to my position, but I don't see how. I agree that money is a type of property. But it is a special type of property with unique characteristics that allow us to distinguish it from the rest.

It is true that dollar bills have no "intrinsic" value. But then nothing else does either. A diamond ring, a loaf of bread, an iPhone - all are considered valuable because (and to the extent) that people are willing to give up other valuable things in exchange for them. The very same holds for dollar bills.

The diamond ring is valuable for the following reasons. One, diamonds are rare. This may be an artificial scarcity enforced by cartels, but artificial or not, it is still scarcity. Two, the value of whatever precious metals it contains, also determined by scarcity. Three, the skill of the craftsman who made the ring, and the effort he put into it. If the ring is of inferior craftsmanship, if it contains base or impure metals, if the cut of the diamond is not ideal, then we are talking about a completely different ring. Change these qualities, and you change the object itself. Hence, these qualities are intrinsic. Now the value of the ring, measured in money, can indeed change without any corresponding change in the ring itself. The cartels might flood the market with diamonds one year, and the value of your ring is suddenly cut in half. But, even if diamonds become as common as bottles of Coke, the ring will still preserve some of its value, based on craftsmanship and the quality of the metal. So the value of the ring, at least in part, is determined by its intrinsic qualities.

A loaf of bread is valuable because it sustains life. Also, the type of grain, its quality, can add to the price. All intrinsic to the loaf itself. Once again, market conditions, weather conditions, all can cause the money-value to change, but there is an intrinsic value here that you cannot alter without altering the bread itself. If some ergot got ground up in a loaf of rye, then that loaf will be worthless, but we are in this case talking about a completely different loaf of bread, with its own intrinsic value (nothing... because it contains hallucinogenic toxins).

The iPhone receives its value from the various functions it can preform, which are of course intrinsic. Change the functions, and you change the object itself. It cannot make toast. A toaster has that function; it is an intrinsic aspect of its design, from which (in part) its own value is derived.

Now, this last example might tempt you to assert something like the following: "The iPhone receives its value from its function, as does money. Money is a medium of exchange, that is its function, that is what gives it value." And this is true, but there is one major difference. The functionality of the iPhone is intrinsic to its physical nature, whereas the functionality of money is not. Any symbolic marker can serve as a medium of exchange; it does not matter what its intrinsic qualities are. It has to be small and transportable, easy to count or weigh, difficult to counterfeit. It helps for some accounting purposes if it is made from a finite and relatively scarce resource, like gold, but that is not strictly necessary. Thousands of different kinds of objects have properties that could allow them to be used as money. Convicts in prison use cigarettes. Conceivably, you can use iPhones and toasters as currency. This has nothing to do with the intrinsic fact that one device makes phone calls, and the other makes toast. The intrinsic qualities of these objects are immaterial, with respect to their function as money.

Furthermore, you have pointed out that money is a measure of the value of goods. The more money it costs to buy an object, the more valuable it is. I am well aware of that, but it triggers a question: how do we measure the value of money itself? The answer is quite simple. If we measure the value of goods according to the amount of money they cost, then it would be quite logical to measure the value of money according to the amount of goods it can purchase. If money is valuable, that means you can purchase more goods with it. If money losses value, that is the same thing as saying that it has lost its purchasing power. What once cost one dollar now costs two.

These are the well known mechanisms of inflation and deflation that I know you are familiar with. This alone ought to convince you that money is a special type of property with unique and distinct qualities of its own, as long as bother to follow the implications. Think about it: when money becomes less valuable, all the other goods in the market rise in price (inflation). So when money loses value, commodities gain value. And, when money becomes more scarce, the price of all other goods and types of property goes down (deflation). So when money-value rises, commodity-value drops. While money is a commodity, it has unique characteristics. In this example, we can see that its market behavior is directly inverse to that of the other commodities.

One more example. Consider the flow of goods and money in commerce. The merchant seeks to buy from a market where prices are low, and sell on a market where prices are high. He carries his money to the deflationary market, and then he carries the goods to an inflationary market. In other words, money and goods tend to move in opposite directions to each other. Goods flow to the place where prices are high. Money flows to where prices are low. They are two different things, with different characteristics (even though they are both forms of property).

So I propose to amend your definitions like this: under Property, we should distinguish the two major types. On the one hand, Money. On the other hand, all the other goods and commodities, things which derive at least some of their value from their own intrinsic qualities, and this second class I suggest we call Wealth. If you can follow this distinction, perhaps we can proceed to a more serious discussion of fractional reserve banking, government chartered banking monopolies, and how I believe this relates to the obligation of a proprietor to not discriminate. If you can't follow it, try to ask some intelligent questions, and I will try to explain it in a better way.

[Eran]

It sounds like you don't know what you are talking about. Have you read Henry Adams' history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations?

No, I haven't read that specific history. However, I did read about the war and its causes. It was declared by the US (British burned Washington D.C. well into the war, and that act couldn't be used to justify the initial declaration of war). The US had several "issues" with Britain, primary amongst them insulting British behaviour in the high seas, as well as British support of Indian tribes. Not to mention American hopes of taking over Canada.

Which of those, in your opinion, made it an "essential defensive war"? Which of those justified the deaths of nearly 20,000 people (according to Wikipedia)?

this was a legally declared war in which the enemy directly threatened our home territory

Not according to Wikipedia, which never mentions direct British threats to American home territory in this article.

I am also disappointed that you continue to attack title II under the idea that it is somehow equivalent to passing a law against speech with racist content. I thought we dealt with this already, but still you persist.

I hate disappointing you. My main point in this analogy is to distinguish between immoral and undesirable behaviour on the one hand, and behaviour that ought to be criminalised on the other. We can both agree, I think, that the two are not the same. We both agree that racist behaviour (whether in speech or in commercial discrimination) is both immoral and undesirable. We both agree that racist speech, while immoral and undesirable, ought not be made illegal.

Thus to show that commercial discrimination ought to be made illegal, you have to go beyond arguing that such behaviour is immoral and undesirable. This is the only point of the analogy. If we are agreed on this point, I will find no need to resort to it again.

But, if this proprietor discriminates by race, then he obstructs the flow of commerce.

There is a huge difference between declining to partake in commerce (which is what such proprietor might do) and obstructing it. Said proprietor would just as equally "obstruct the flow of commerce" by taking a day off or retiring. Conversely, offering "separate but equal" accommodations for protected minorities couldn't be argued to be "obstructing the flow of commerce" (any more than offering first class seats on a train).

You want to discriminate against customers with legal money, because they are black or whatever? Fine. Stop using our national currency then.

Problem - that would be illegal based on American legal tender laws.

Do you see the distinction? I am suggesting that title II, if it is analogous to a law that regulates speech, then it falls under the former category, rather than the latter.

I don't think even that works. To be of the former type, the law would have to prohibit any form of discrimination. Title II doesn't. It only outlaws certain forms of discrimination (race, color, religion or national origin) but not others (hair color, gender, sexual preference, place of residence, occupation, etc, etc.).

It is very tricky to argue government policy with a hard anarchist.

Agreed. For the purpose of this discussion, I will pretend to be a mild libertarian (like Ron Paul or Cato Institute) rather than the hard-core anarchist that I am. As a mild libertarian I accept that government can act legitimately and usefully. I certainly accept government's role in keeping law and order. I even accept government's role in providing a social safety net and public infrastructure.

For example, you yourself believe that all government is unjust, by definition. And yet you are also willing to argue that a particular law is itself unjust (in this case title II). How do you pull that off? Why get so upset over this one particular law?

That's an excellent question. The answer is that I am upset about many laws, but sometimes I attack them one at a time.

According to your own ideology, this is merely another act of government, which is equally unjust in all its actions.

Not equally unjust, no. Obviously a government law that prohibits murder is much less unjust than a government law that mandates it (say through a declaration of an unnecessary war ).

In particular, many government laws are benign in the sense of being legitimate except for their propagation through government. Any law restricted to the protection of (just) property rights fall into that category. Laws that legitimately regulate behaviour in areas under government administration (e.g. speed limits or prohibition on alcohol in national parks) qualifies too.

If you are a strict anarchist, you should be against such institutions. How can you say one system is better? They are all "guilty of illegitimate aggression."

I am indeed against government courts, though not against courts in general (I advocate voluntary courts with rare involuntary exceptions for those unwilling to cooperate). But as stated above, while all governments are unjust, not all governments are equally unjust. It would be silly to pretend there are no moral distinctions between, say, Nazi Germany and modern Denmark.

My point regarding juries is to show that coerced jury attendance is not necessary even in the context of government monopoly over the criminal-justice system.

I can follow his reasoning when he says that government is the result of a kind of contract (a "covenant"), which inevitably entails a loss of freedom and the imposition of certain obligations (taxation, conscription),

You and I could have interesting conversation over the possibility of anarchy. The mistake Hobbes and other social contractarians make is in using the language and logic of voluntary contracts to justify an involuntary imposition of rules. If, as Hobbes contends, humans wishing to live in a society have to group together to secure themselves, why not allow them to do so voluntarily? Every vision of a stable anarchy I have seen includes voluntary institutions dedicated to protection of individuals from criminals.

But people form governments for that exact reason, for the protection of property!

As a matter of historic fact, this is utterly wrong. There are virtually no examples of people "forming governments". Instead, history is full of (1) people using violence to force themselves as governments, and (2) people using a variety of means to take over existing governments. Even the American experience is of (state-level) governments pre-dating the Revolution. The American Revolution was about changing the nature of government (from one dictated by London to one elected by Americans), rather than forming a new one. The Federal government was originally a compact between existing governments.

To more accurately understand the relation between government and property rights one has to distinguish here too between positive and normative rights. Governments routinely use the concept of property rights to promote the peaceful functioning of society. Since it would be impractical for government to intervene whenever two people have a conflict of interest with respect to the use of a scarce resource, government sets out so-called "property rights" to determine, absent contrary government decision, who gets to decide how to use which resource.

Those, however, are not true rights. The main reason is that every government implicitly reserves the prerogative to unilaterally change property rights at will. Nothing is absolutely "yours". You think you own your house, but really you merely exercise provisional control over the house, subject to the whims of government officials. Those can tax you, prohibit you from using your house as you wish, or even confiscate it (under eminent domain).

Governments routinely promote "property rights" of this nature as a matter of administrative convenience, as well as to satisfy natural human desire to own property and for other reasons. In particular, governments routinely violate people's "natural" property rights by both taking property away and giving people property they don't deserve.

Governments are totally opposed to property rights in the normative sense. In that sense, a person's right over property is absolute, not subject to government approval. Those rights may be respected or violated, but not given or taken away.

How are you going to select the magistrates? Who is going to pay them? If you have a court system, then you have some form of government, ipso facto. You can't have the one without the other. Tell me, in your utopian fantasy, how do you envision a system of justice that is not "government-run"? That's like trying to envision a square circle.

I have written a lot on the subject. I will give you a brief outline, and will be happy to go into detail.

In my utopian fantasy there is only one law - no person may violate another person's property rights. Period. It follows that there is only one crime - violating another person's property rights. The line separating tort and criminal action is gone. Every crime is treated as a dispute between two private parties - the one whose property rights were violated (the plaintiff) and the one claimed to have done the violation (defendant).

In many if not most cases, the two parties will agree (or have already agreed) on an arbitration firm - essentially a private court - to settle their dispute. In rare cases, the defendant refuses to cooperate, and the plaintiff may seek to obtain a one-sided judgement from an arbitration court.

To understand why this doesn't open a wide door to abuse, keep in mind that, unlike a government system, no party in my utopian fantasy enjoys a legally-privileged position. Not the arbitration court nor the enforcement agency that enforces court rulings.

Say you went to an arbitration court with a complaint against me. Assume the court is biased or corrupt, and issues a judgement in your favour despite lack of evidence. You take the judgement to an enforcement agency, whose employees come to my house and take my TV (per the judgement).

Legally, there is no difference between the status of those employees and that of a bunch of burglars. I can sue them for burglary or robbery. Not just the enforcement agency as a company, but even its individual employees are subject to prosecution. Knowing that will do wonders to keep such agencies straight. In particular, such agencies will be very careful only to use force pursuant the judgement of a reliable arbitration court.

A court which loses its reputation for objectivity and legal judgement will quickly go out of business. First, it will lose the business coming from both sides agreeing on a court (since at least one of the sides will decline choosing a court known not to be objective). Second, protection agencies will cease to respect judgements issued by such a court (since they open themselves to legal action if they did). And without protection agencies willing to respect the court judgements, those judgements become worthless pieces of paper. Thus the court will lose its one-sided business too.

At least you answered my question: yes, you would prefer to be conquered by a foreign power, rather than fight back with conscripts.

Yes. Though I made the strong point that this is not a likely dilemma. I cannot think of a single example in which a government was able to defend itself using conscripts, but wouldn't have been able to do the same using volunteers.

Conscripts can just as easily be used for an offensive war as for a defensive one. They can just as easily be used in a defensive war against a foreign power intent on replacing a bad government with a better one as with one intent on occupying the country. Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin all used conscripts to "defend" their countries.

What should we assume about a country cannot be defended without conscription? It must be one that a large minority (if not an outright majority) of fighting-age men prefer occupation over fighting. Perhaps it is because they don't think occupation would be so terrible. Perhaps it is because they think the defensive forces are unlikely to prevail in any event. Perhaps they don't view the war as a defensive war altogether. In any event the assumed prevalence of such views is telling.

Besides, you can at least admit that conscription adds to the numerical strength of your forces, and hence makes victory, not certain, but definitely more likely.

Not at all. Armies using conscripts are notoriously inefficient in their use of (to them free) manpower. Conscripts themselves tend to be unmotivated and poorly trained. To be clear, I am only talking about those conscripts who, absent conscription, would have refused service; in WW II, for example, many people were conscripted which would have volunteered anyway. Further, many people can be more useful staying at home and producing than going to war.

My ancestors refused to be ruled by a foreign government, and I refuse this today. Furthermore, I am willing to use every weapon available to avert such a catastrophe, including conscription.

You have no right nor need. Consider - do you think your views regarding the undesirability of a foreign government put you in the minority or the majority of Americans? I am sure you are in the majority. In that case, you are welcome to volunteer. The majority of your fellow citizens will also volunteer. No need for conscription.

But what if many people don't share your views? In such case conscription is morally reprehensible. It is essentially forcing people to risk their lives (or, at least, waste their time) for a goal they don't believe in. You have no right (normatively) to do that. Nor would it be wise to empower your government to do so. As you correctly pointed out, America's rulers are assholes. They have a rich history of international aggression.

In the one legitimate war America fought against a foreign army (the Revolutionary War), no conscription was necessary. Nothing illustrates my point better.

You yourself said you were willing to countenance some violations of property rights in cases of emergency, when human life is threatened. There are few emergencies of greater magnitude than a military invasion of your country.

You got me. To be consistent, I have to acknowledge the theoretical possibility of a life-threatening emergency requiring conscription. As a matter of practice, I would never trust politicians to make that determination.

I agree that money is a type of property. But it is a special type of property with unique characteristics that allow us to distinguish it from the rest.

I was addressing your statement that "Money, strictly speaking, is not wealth". However, I missed an earlier statement in which you wrote " It is true that money is a type of property, but it has special characteristics that force us to distinguish it from other types of property."

I recognize that I didn't properly address your original argument

Just the same, the assets upon which American currency is issued are owned by the stock holders of the Federal Reserve, not by the people who actually use the currency (please tell me if I have made a mistake in describing the exact financial mechanism).

All you are saying is that holders of government notes (money) do not directly own the assets held by the Fed. That is true. But why is it relevant?

It is true that government facilitates commerce through issuance of currency. It similarly facilitates commerce through the maintenance of roads to transport people and goods. But since governments is a coercive monopoly for either service, I don't see how any normative claims can arise from making use of those services.

For your argument to work, we would need:
1. Repeal legal tender laws such that currency competition would be legal
2. Government money to explicitly state that use is conditional upon compliance with title II (or more generally rules published by the federal government).

Only then could use of money be taken to normatively binding.

The diamond ring is valuable for the following reasons. One, diamonds are rare.

You missed the most important reason - diamonds are valuable because people, for whatever reason, want them. Nothing can be valuable if it isn't desired. Nothing can fail to be valuable if it is both scarce and desired.

Money is both scarce and desired. Hence it is valuable.

There are many other objects which have no intrinsic value (the original Mona Lisa, for example) yet have great subjective value due to people's desire for them.

The functionality of the iPhone is intrinsic to its physical nature, whereas the functionality of money is not. Any symbolic marker can serve as a medium of exchange; it does not matter what its intrinsic qualities are. It has to be small and transportable, easy to count or weigh, difficult to counterfeit.

...

The intrinsic qualities of these objects are immaterial, with respect to their function as money.

Well, isn't being difficult to counterfeit an important intrinsic quality for money?

Think about it: when money becomes less valuable, all the other goods in the market rise in price (inflation). So when money loses value, commodities gain value. And, when money becomes more scarce, the price of all other goods and types of property goes down (deflation). So when money-value rises, commodity-value drops. While money is a commodity, it has unique characteristics. In this example, we can see that its market behavior is directly inverse to that of the other commodities.

You are confusing price and value. Price is a quantitative measure of value, but rising prices (as under inflation) doesn't imply rising value for the commodity under question - merely a drop in value of the money unit.

This is neither here nor there. Objects have to have certain intrinsic qualities to serve as good money. Only objects that have those qualities are likely to emerge as money in a free market. All bets are off when government forces people to use objects as money, btw.

I still miss the argument that relates those special properties of money with the normative justification of title II. I am also curious to see whether that argument fails to allow the Federal government to be normatively justified in doing just about anything it wants. After all, the people living in the US all use money. Does that mean that the Federal government may do with them as it pleases?

They are two different things, with different characteristics (even though they are both forms of property).

More generally, goods tend to flow from where they are relatively cheap to where they are relatively expensive. That holds for both money and non-money goods, right? There is no difference. We can imagine two countries engaged in money-less barter. Country A sells wheat to country B, in exchange for oil. Wheat flows from A (where it is cheaper) to B (where it is more expensive), and oil flows in the opposite direction.

If you can follow this distinction, perhaps we can proceed to a more serious discussion of fractional reserve banking, government chartered banking monopolies, and how I believe this relates to the obligation of a proprietor to not discriminate. If you can't follow it, try to ask some intelligent questions, and I will try to explain it in a better way.

By all means. Let's postpone discussion over fractional reserve banking (unless it is relevant for your argument) and focus on what it is that makes the use of government money justify enforcement of title II.

[Soixante-Retard]

Falsely yelling fire is in a crowded theater is not illegal because it violates some rule of conduct stipulated by the theater's owner. It is illegal, because doing this can cause people to be hurt or killed.

Is it necessary for speech to be illegal because of what is said? No. Say, for example, you weren't yelling fire but instead yelling, repeatedly, something like "strawberry ice cream". Do you think that, in this case, the person wouldn't be arrested because the words, in itself, didn't cause physical harm? Of course not, the person would still be arrested.

Now imagine the person didn't yell anything at all, suppose the person was a mute, and started doing laps inside the theatre. Would the person still be arrested even though the person didn't say anything? Of course.

Not everything can be boiled down to property rights!

Murray Rothbard begs to differ.

Excerpt:

...you do not have to shout "fire" to get arrested. If a person creates a disorder in a theater, they would get him there not because of what he hollered but because he hollered.

[Spouter]

I still miss the argument that relates those special properties of money with the normative justification of title II.

I am trying to find a "normative" justification for Title II, based on

(1) the idea that the use of other people's property creates obligations (the proprietor's use of the assets of the Federal Reserve, which the proprietor does not own), and

(2) the idea that one of these obligations is not to discriminate on the basis of race and whatnot.

I will frankly admit that I don't have a very distinct idea of how I am going to get from (1) to (2). But, I figured that wasn't a lethal defect, because we were first going to have a discussion about the Federal Reserve, central banks, and banks in general, and through the course of that, my thoughts would become clearer. However, I wasn't even ready to have that conversation, until we had first discussed the nature of money in general.

We need clarity here. The Federal Reserve issues US currency, and US currency is a form of money. We should make an effort to define our basic terms as clearly as possible, and in any economic discussion, money is bound to be one of the basic terms. Why was this term missing from that list of basic terms and their definitions that you provided earlier?

You libertarians are full of helpful advice on how we could reform our economy, but why should I trust this advice, if you can't even define what money is? This confusion in your fundamental concepts wrecks havoc on your thought process, leading to all kinds of bizarre conclusions. Not only do you fail to distinguish between money and goods, you also seem unable to distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic properties. This last failure is shocking. Such a basic concept!

There are many other objects which have no intrinsic value (the original Mona Lisa, for example) yet have great subjective value due to people's desire for them.

Intrinsic: "belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing." There is an easy way to determine this. You simply ask, if this characteristic or property is altered, is the thing itself altered? It is an intrinsic property of the Mona Lisa that it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci. If it was by a different artist, then it would be a different painting. What about the fact that it is displayed in the Louvre? That is extrinsic, because an object doesn't necessarily turn into another object, just because you change its physical location. Hang it in a different museum, it is still the Mona Lisa.

There are infinite variations on this, but that is the basic concept. Why do you find it so difficult?

Wait a second. That's not entirely fair. Everyone has difficulty with this concept. You made the following observation yourself.

When we say "X has a lot of money", we are being careless. What we really mean is "measured in terms of money (as a unit of accounting), X's wealth is large".

You are close to making the distinction here, which would allow you to properly define the concept of money. You should have said this: when we say that X is wealthy, because he has a lot of money, we are being careless. What we really mean to say is that X has a lot of money, but that doesn't necessarily make him wealthy. Wealth is defined in terms of goods and property (forms of property different from money). It is possible for a person to have almost no money at all, but still be extremely wealthy.

What you were merely trying to say is that people commonly misconceive the nature of money, because they believe that money has intrinsic value, in and of itself. But you then go on to make the same mistake yourself.

It is true that dollar bills have no "intrinsic" value. But then nothing else does either.

To be very precise, yes, nothing has "intrinsic value," in and of itself. Value is a property first of the human mind, and then we attribute this value to various objects in our environment, in various ways.

So let's put it this way. Some objects are attributed with value because of their intrinsic properties. For example, all of the things that we traditionally call wealth. Land is one of the big forms of wealth (not the only one, by far). In any case, land has value because of certain intrinsic properties (it can be used to grow food, for example). An object designated as money is not valuable because of any its own intrinsic properties; it is valuable because it is money. An object that otherwise has no value will automatically become valuable, once it has been designated as money.

Money serves at least three distinct (but related) purposes:
1. Unit of accounting
2. Medium of exchange
3. Store of value.

I will accept these as some of the fundamental properties of money. None of them are intrinsic properties, however, with respect to the particular object that is being used as money. Or, to put this as precisely as possible, some objects are less suitable for monetary functions. An elephant, for example, would not work well as a unit of currency. A gold coin will work. Silver or copper. Prisoners use cigarettes. Most modern economies use paper, or even electronic "data." The range of objects, the materials they can be composed of, it is more or less limitless. It is not absolutely limitless, but it is less limited than the range of objects that can be used as a hammer. Even a hammer can be used as money. A metal coin, a cigarette, a piece of paper, even computerized data, all can serve as currency. Try hammering a nail with any of these things.

To define a thing means to separate it from other things. What makes it different? Why is it unique? Money is one of the forms of property, but it has different characteristics than other forms. Are you even aware of these differences?

Instead of trying to work on a meaningful dialogue, you would rather nitpick.

You are confusing price and value. Price is a quantitative measure of value, but rising prices (as under inflation) doesn't imply rising value for the commodity under question - merely a drop in value of the money unit.

I have no such confusion. I understand perfectly well the distinction between price and value. I thought you did too, which would enable me to use a kind of shorthand. Instead of tediously spelling out the phrase "monetary value," every single time, I could simply say "value." I had hoped you were intelligent to derive the specific meaning from the context of my specific statement.

Price is a measure of value, in units of money. More units, more value. It is not an exact measurement, by any means. One thing is physical, the other psychological. People often think that monetarily worthless artifacts are valuable, and highly expensive goods can be completely devalued and disdained by the human intellect.

Price is a quantitative measure of value, but rising prices (as under inflation) doesn't imply rising value for the commodity under question - merely a drop in value of the money unit.

Who is playing word games now? Let's take the loaf of bread. We can both agree (I hope) that the bread does not change its nature, just because it is being traded on an inflationary market. Inflationary/deflationary--it is all the same to the bread. Bread is bread.

But for people, it means all the difference in the world. The "value" of bread exists only in the human mind--as you point out, value is based on the mind's desire. Imagine a world of disastrous inflation, where a loaf of bread that once cost one hour's wages, now costs five. If your currency is inflated like that, everything will be more expensive. All commodities will be dearer. Imagine a world where your wages from the entire day were worth one loaf of bread. Won't bread be more valuable to you then? Won't all commodities?

Your basic definitions are confused, because you refuse to distinguish money from goods. That is not at all surprising, because you also fail to distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic. How is that possible? It sounds like you read books occasionally.

[Eran]

We should make an effort to define our basic terms as clearly as possible, and in any economic discussion, money is bound to be one of the basic terms. Why was this term missing from that list of basic terms and their definitions that you provided earlier?

Money is a basic term, but not quite as basic as those I defined above. There are comparably basic economic terms (investment, capital, profit, entrepreneur, land, labour, time-value of money, price, supply, demand, etc.) which I also failed to define.

You libertarians are full of helpful advice on how we could reform our economy, but why should I trust this advice, if you can't even define what money is?

Hold on! One of the most important libertarians of the 20th century, Ludwig von Mises, began his career as an economist with the publication of The Theory of Money and Credit. Libertarians (or, more precisely, Austrian economists) have a very good idea of what money is.

Not only do you fail to distinguish between money and goods, you also seem unable to distinguish intrinsic from extrinsic properties. This last failure is shocking. Such a basic concept!

And again I say, hold on! The distinction between money and goods is relevant in some contexts, but not in others. Our previous discussion focused (in my mind at least) on ownership of property. In tracing ownership chains, goods can freely be "transformed" into money (through a sale), and back (through a purchase).

But even if I was wrong (as will certainly happen from time to time), it would be wrong to ascribe my faults to libertarians in general.

It is an intrinsic property of the Mona Lisa that it was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

As it is an intrinsic property of a Federal Reserve note that is was printed on behalf of the Federal Reserve.

But while having been painted by Leonardo is clearly an intrinsic property of the Mona Lisa, it isn't one that, in and by itself, explain its value. The value of the Mona Lisa comes from the fact that many people value Leonardo's original work. The value, in other words, comes from the subjective judgement of people. A Fed note is no different in that regard.

What you were merely trying to say is that people commonly misconceive the nature of money, because they believe that money has intrinsic value, in and of itself. But you then go on to make the same mistake yourself.

Not quite. My point was expressed precisely. Most people don't have a lot of money. Having money is wasteful, as money is unproductive. Bill Gates owns much valuable property, but I doubt much of it is held in form of money at any one time.

Money receives its value from the subjective valuation of market participants. Money has value because people value it. This may sound circular (and it is), but money is not different from any other asset. My point above was that the Mona Lisa also derives its value from the subjective valuation of people. People who value works of Leonardo more highly than those of many of his contemporaries (not to mention vs. identical reproductions).


By all means, let's continue to discuss the nature of money, and other basic concepts.

To be very precise, yes, nothing has "intrinsic value," in and of itself. Value is a property first of the human mind, and then we attribute this value to various objects in our environment, in various ways.

Exactly!

An object designated as money is not valuable because of any its own intrinsic properties; it is valuable because it is money. An object that otherwise has no value will automatically become valuable, once it has been designated as money.

Almost, but not quite. As von Mises demonstrated, money can never be designated arbitrarily. When you track the evolution of money you will find that it generally starts out as a valuable commodity, be it gold and silver or cigarettes. The initial value of money comes from its commodity value. Over time, as a commodity's use for indirect exchange dominates its direct use, its value may shift accordingly. Modern fiat money has evolved out of its commodity-based origins. That origin is necessary for understanding the source of money's value.

Having said that, it is correct that, by virtue of the "fiat" adjective, modern money has detouched itself from its commodity origins, and its value now is entirely circular.

Instead of trying to work on a meaningful dialogue, you would rather nitpick.

I must have really offended you, for which I apologise. Let's see if we can get back to a meaningful dialogue.


Let me try to tackle the issue of money again, and see if we can get back to a constructive conversation.

"Money" refers to assets commonly used in indirect exchange within a given market. Certain objective properties tend to characterise assets chosen as money in different markets. Those include limited supply, divisibility, portability (high value per weight/volume), etc.

Being "money" isn't always intrinsic to an object. Cigarettes have been used as money, but typically aren't.

Money, while often acquiring much of its value from the expectation that it will continue to retain its value (making its valuation circular), is still a property in the sense of being scarce and economically valuable, and thus subject to ownership.

While the Federal Reserves issues bank notes, it doesn't continue to own them. Rather, those notes are given or sold to others, and thereby become their property. Wouldn't the alternative (i.e. that the Fed still owns those notes) suggest that the Fed can confiscate everybody's dollars at will?

So "money" is property, albeit a special kind of property. Now what?

[Spouter]

I must have really offended you, for which I apologise.

Sometimes you casually toss these comments out... I try not to get angry, but it slips through anyway, I guess.

There is so much in that little phrase, "insulting British behaviour in the high seas," of which you are obviously ignorant. When a Brit lectures me about how the War of 1812 was "unnecessary," as if it was just cooked up by a bunch of greedy American imperialists who wanted to conquer Canada... but I must control my temper. It is irrational to be angry with someone who honestly doesn't know any better.

We have to table a discussion on conscription for the future, don't you think? I tried to address this subject in a separate post, but I found that I couldn't stop typing. You have so many misconceptions here, and I set about trying to correct them all. With every sentence I wrote, the summery and conclusion seemed to recede further away. This subject deserves a separate debate.

So I scrapped that one, and I issued another post focusing on money. In your response, you finally came close to recognizing the distinction I was seeking.

So "money" is property, albeit a special kind of property. Now what?

And yet, I can sense that your heart isn't in it. Do you understand the basis of the distinction? You know there is a difference, but can you explain exactly what it is? Other of your comments lead me to think otherwise.

...money is not different from any other asset.

In other words, you are willing at times to draw the distinction between money and goods, but you reserve the right to dissolve this distinction whenever you feel like it. This is difficult to argue against, because it leaves the basic term, "money," suspended in a state of permanent uncertainty. I began another post, in which I tried to provide a more stable definition, but once again, I could not bring my comments to a close.

So I scrapped that one, and now you are reading my latest efforts. I am thinking about withdrawing from the debate, at this point. I don't want to turn into one of those posters who rambles far away from the original topic without the slightest compunction, responding only to the ideology of their opponent, and not to his actual arguments. I am really the problem here. In the course of our debate so far, I realized that I am far more interested in these other subjects--war, conscription, and money--than I am in the "normative" justification of Title II.

There is one more approach I could take, but it is not a "normative" argument, and we have both expressed an interest in this side of things, versus the "positive" question (I am still not sure I have mastered this distinction... it is similar to the distinction between abstract and concrete, correct?). This argument would proceed on the following basis.

The "normative" question is somewhat irrelevant, because there was a historical necessity for Title II. Rather than argue from abstract principle, I would scour the net for quotable examples of discrimination by Southern proprietors. This would bleed into a general discussion of the plight of the Southern Negro in the first half of the 20th century. I would argue that the Negro's poor and abject condition in this period was extreme and exceptional, and hence extreme measures were needed to correct it (as in a war or other public emergency), even if these measures are not in strict accordance with your preconceived ideas of "normative" justice. I can be expected to cite examples of general racist abuse, beyond discrimination by proprietors. Lynching, for example. This would bleed into a general discussion of slavery and the Civil War. I will argue that the Civil War was inevitable and necessary, because of slavery. And yet, the contradictions in our society caused by slavery were not completely resolved by this conflict. Because of the policies of reconstruction, the responsibility for solving this problem was pushed forward onto future generations. Now days, in 2012, the Southern Negro is more fully integrated into American society--he is less like a slave, and more like a citizen of a democratic republic. Legislation like Title II was necessary for this positive result.

But on second thought, I cannot follow this line of attack, because the subject of war has crept back in. It is inevitable that I will become captivated here once again. It seems to me that libertarian attitudes on this subject are totally off base. I am so interested in exploring these differences of opinion, that it is inevitable that I will neglect the original topic, once again. Libertarianism and War--that sounds fruitful, does it not? I would begin by arguing that in some cases, not only is conscription necessary, but it can also be given a "normative" justification (based on the right of self-defense, I think).

The money issue also seems like a more fruitful topic of discussion. Our exploration of the relation between speech and commerce has totally stalled. You already know my position on this. You claim that passing a law against discrimination by proprietors is tantamount to passing a law that interferes with the content of speech. I assert, on the other hand, that your analogy is incorrect. If speech rights can be justly compared to commerce rights, then Title II is more analogous to a law that says a street schizo cannot stand in the middle of the sidewalk, and obstruct the flow of commerce, while he rants and raves. This has nothing to do with the content of his rantings and ravings. In my version of this analogy, the public thoroughfare is comparable to the national currency.

But, I don't know how to craft my arguments, because I am unfamiliar with the libertarian definition of money. If you are representative, it is very confused. This definition ought to be included with the list of basic concepts that you provided last week. It is fundamental, in my opinion. But, that is an entirely different debate (which I am beginning to realize would have been much more enlightening), and has very little to do with Title II.

In short, I think this particular debate is played out. I see no possibility of a meaningful resolution. If you would like to discuss one of these more fundamental issues (conscription, money), then just say so, and I will slap a thread together. If you think my judgment on the status of our Title II debate is wrong, then please explain how. I believe Title II is too concrete and specific an example to facilitate a more complete understanding of libertarian principles. It is a good illustration of superficial differences, but the root of the issue remains untouched. A discussion of conscription would help clarify my understanding of your position. Perhaps a discussion of money. But a discussion of Title II isn't going anywhere, I don't think.

[Eran]

I will start by stating that I will be happy to discuss war, conscription and money with you, here or in a different thread(s).

Second, my knowledge of history is far from perfect. And while I doubt historic facts about British behaviour on the high seas would justify initiation of hostilities in which thousands of people were killed, I am open to hear your arguments.


Money is a particular kind of asset, typically owned as property. It shares several generic aspects of property: it has an owner with a right to exchange it for another person's property, and its value is subjectively determined by people in the market.

At the same time, it also has some distinguishing characteristics. It has all the known properties that make commodities be appropriate for use as medium of exchange, store of value and unit of value measurement. In particular, its value is determined in a self-referential way.

Money isn't unique in that latter respect. Many so-called "collector items" as well as financial assets (e.g. stocks) also have their values determined in a self-referential way - people pay a lot of money for an original Picasso, at least in part, because they expect others will agree to pay a lot of money (hopefully even more) for the same painting. The observable beauty of a painting can be very cheaply replicated, yet the value of a superficially-identical copy is a tiny fraction of the value of the original.

I will stress that objects become "money" through their use, rather than due to their intrinsic nature. Cigarettes can be money (in a prison) or simply be smoked. A bank-note or a gold coin can be money, or a collector's item.

I am still not sure I have mastered this distinction... it is similar to the distinction between abstract and concrete, correct?

Not exactly. "Positive" answers questions about the world as it is. "Normative" answers questions about the world as it ought to be.

Positive tells us what is. Normative tells us what is good, desirable, right (or, conversely, bad, undesirable or wrong).

The "normative" question is somewhat irrelevant, because there was a historical necessity for Title II.

I'd be happy to address the question. I will argue that such historic necessity was never demonstrated. I don't think we need to go back to the Civil War (which was neither necessary nor primarily about slavery, but rather about keeping the union united, but that should be the subject of a separate thread).

So I will stipulate that racial discrimination was rife in the South of the 1960s. I will also stipulate that such racial discrimination is both morally wrong and otherwise detrimental to society. Thus I will share with you the sense of urgency over the need to reduce if not eliminate that discrimination.

I will even set aside my normative point that government has no right to dictate to private property owners with whom they have to do business. Instead, I will try to persuade you that racial discrimination in commercial establishments (the primary focus of Title II) wouldn't have lasted for long (1) once Jim Crow laws were eliminated, and (2) given the quickly changing attitudes towards blacks in American society (including the South).

Thomas Sowell, btw, is an excellent source on this point. He is a trained economist and a free-market proponent, though not a full libertarian (and certainly not an anarchist like me). He has research and written much about race relations, not just in the US, but elsewhere in the world. He is opposed to Title II. He is also black.

His argument and mine goes as follows. We first need to distinguish between discrimination (an overt act) and prejudice (a state of mind). Title II cannot do anything against prejudice. Its only object is (overt) discrimination.

Second, we need to recognize that in some cases, prejudice is rational. When a group of people shares (at least statistically) certain characteristics, and when the cost of identifying whether an individual belongs to that group is much lower than the cost of ascertaining whether the individual shares group characteristics, basing one's decision on group membership is rational.

To give a benign example, most people who graduate with a Ph.D. in Physics from Stanford are both intelligent and self-driven. As a prospective employer, you could rationally "discriminate" in favour of Stanford graduates because it is much simpler to verify that a person is indeed a graduate than to check whether they are self-driven.

Historically, Irish in late 19th-century America were known as violent drunks. I am sure that generalisation did injustice to many sober and peaceful Irish. But if you need to recruit 100 people to work on a railroad project in the middle of nowhere, you cannot afford to get to know each worker personally. It is much easier (and rational) to avoid Irish altogether.

I am not suggesting that in the case of black victims of discrimination in 1960s American South, prejudice or discrimination were typically rational.

Irrational prejudice is "free", but irrational discrimination, absent government mandates, isn't. Commercial establishments pay for discriminating. That is why there are no examples of persistent (irrational) discrimination absent government laws.

As soon as Jim Crow laws were scrapped, private establishments operating in a competitive environment (as opposed to government-granted monopolies) would have quickly stopped discriminating, or be driven out of business.

The transition would not have been immediate. Old habits take time to change. But they do change over time.

You claim that passing a law against discrimination by proprietors is tantamount to passing a law that interferes with the content of speech.

Not at all. There is a huge difference between speech and other forms of action. The analogy between speech and discrimination had only one goal (which I think was achieved), namely to demonstrate that we don't automatically advocate outlawing an action just because it is racist and morally reprehensible.

Having established that we can move on to discuss what relevant difference between commercial discrimination and racist speech justifies, in your mind, government intervention.

In my version of this analogy, the public thoroughfare is comparable to the national currency.

IF nothing else, this is very problematic, because it gives the federal government virtually unlimited scope to regulate commerce (virtually all of which, by law, uses federal money).

A more plausible argument for Title II is that so-called "private" accommodations, restaurants and the like aren't really private. Sure - they are privately owned and operated, but they form part of the "public" space in the sense of being the space generally accessible to all members of society, subject only to a uniform payment.

The government has effectively "conscripted" each and every bed&breakfast, motel, hotel, bar, restaurant, pub and club. Your home was your own as long as you only welcome unpaying guests (Title II doesn't extend to private friendship relations; why?). But as soon as you declared yourself open to paying guests, you lose your right to decide whom you accept. Effectively, you (partially) lose control of your property.

If you would like to discuss one of these more fundamental issues (conscription, money), then just say so, and I will slap a thread together.

Absolutely.

But a discussion of Title II isn't going anywhere, I don't think.

I take your point. Title II helped illustrate our differences, but your analysis of the issue is intimately related to your understanding of money. By all means, let's have a separate conversation on the topic (as well as the topic of war/conscription). At the end, we may (or may not) want to come back to this more specific discussion.

[Spouter]

We may return to this topic, but I would like to move on, right at the moment.

It has been profitable. For example, now I can myself employ this other terminology, normative and positive, because I finally understand the distinction that is implied here. I won't have to put quotation marks around these terms any longer. You have explained it perfectly, and it is not complex. It is analogous to the distinction between concrete and abstract, but more precise, and hence more useful for our current purposes. The positive dimension seems almost synonymous with the concrete, but the normative dimension is only one city in the country of the abstract. There are other cities; for example, the city, not of things that ought to be, but of things that could be (whether they are good or bad). Then there is the city of things that could have been, if this or that event had happened differently. A very sizable region in the realm of abstract fantasy (which is separate from the normative region).

Your definitions are solid, and will almost certainly be referred to in the future.

For the time being, I have no normative justification for Title II. If there is one, then I believe it can only be found by examining the other topics I have indicated. For example, you yourself point out that the loss of the proprietor's freedom under Title II is similar to the practice of conscription; it as if his motel or movie theater has been "conscripted" for uses other than those chosen by the proprietor himself, to be utilized in a "war" by the state against the racist subjugation of Southern Negroes (a cause the proprietor might not wish to support). You can agree with this, however: it is a less onerous form of conscription than involuntary military service. Title II only places a negative obligation on the proprietor (he shall not discriminate), and it only refers to his activities as a proprietor (in his life outside the store, he can discriminate all he wants... and even if he is forced to sell to Negroes, he is not forced to be happy about it... he can call the customer a N***** right to his face, if he wants, although he can not refuse him goods and services). But military conscription places extreme and positive obligations on a person. The conscript effectively loses almost all rights over his own body (not just his exterior property... where he will be shipped to, what he will be ordered to do once he gets there, none of it is under his own control).

And so, if I can defend military conscription on a normative basis (and I believe I can), then I should be able to extend these arguments to cover the lesser form of "conscription" that we find under Title II.

I could continue with the positive argument, from historical necessity. We have both outlined our starting positions here. All that is needed is to elaborate these further. But, I am really interested in the normative principle in libertarian ideology, and I think a discussion of conscription could clarify this much better.

I am already working on the OP for the conscription debate. The only thing is, I don't exactly where to start the thread. This is beyond economics and capitalism. I guess it belongs in international relations and conflict, strictly speaking. But, since we are both more interested in the normative aspect, it almost seems to fit better in morals and ethics. Oh well, I am sure the moderators can move it if I place it incorrectly. Look for it tomorrow morning.

I look forward to this. If I can understand your position on conscription, Eran, then I think this will give me insight into the libertarian ideology, in general.

(The money debate will proceed at a later date, if you don't mind.)

[Eran]

And so, if I can defend military conscription on a normative basis (and I believe I can), then I should be able to extend these arguments to cover the lesser form of "conscription" that we find under Title II.

Perhaps, but not necessarily. While I agree that the "conscription" (or partial nationalisation, or whatever) of a racist proprietor's property is less onerous than of an actual young soldier, the justification is also less powerful.

To anticipate the discussion, I will start by acknowledging an "emergency exception" to the normal duty to respect property rights. The ordinarily neat and logical logic governing property rights and use of force doesn't apply under emergency situations.

To avoid the almost-routine use of the emergency excuse for property right violations, I advocate a very simple remedy. While violating property rights due to an emergency is understandable and sometimes appropriate, it still gives rise to a duty to pay restitution in retrospect.

The "canonical" example of the emergency exception is that of a hiker stranded overnight as temperatures drop. To save his life, the hiker breaks into a locked and empty cabin to stay the night. The break-in is permitted under the emergency exception, except that the hiker is still liable for the damage his break-in might have caused.

When we come to discuss conscription, I anticipate that you will argue that a defensive war constitutes an emergency warranting even drastic violations of property rights (in fact, slavery in all but name). I will argue that, as a matter of practice (and we can review historic examples), this is rarely the case. But even if it were the case that an emergency exception requires enslaving and risking the lives of thousands of young men against their will, the duty of those violating their property rights is still to compensate them fully after the emergency is over.

It is very hard to see how such emergency exception can apply for the worthy goal of reducing or eliminating racism.


Many people have noted libertarian or even anarchist undertones in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. People noted, for example, lack of government in the Hobbit's Shire. To me, however, the main message comes from an analogy between The Ring and the reigns of government.

The Ring represents tremendous power, power that is obviously being used malevolently by evil people, but power that tends to corrupt even will-intentioned individuals.

Government is like the Ring.

[Nunt]

When talking about a just defensive war there can be no conscription. Say a foreign nation attacks with the intent of enslaving the people. How can someone then be in favor of conscription? In this case the people have the choice between enslavement by a foreign government or by their own government
both governments do the same thing. If enslavement is wrong then nobody should be allowed to do it. It seems that in the case of conscription the people have already lost the war. Such a war would not be about freedom versus tyranny but about choosing a slave master.