"Property rights are a social construct used to deal with economic scarcity."

[Son_of_Liberty90]

Ok, this is a LONG article detailing about how politics is a racket, and ways of decentralization to escape the racket. It's a whole mix of philosophy, history, finance, health tips,socialization tips, etc.

Overall, I think it's a great read with good tips. It is VERY dense, and will need several reading sessions to get through it all. There a lot of software programs listed that I didn't know about before.

But I think his discussion on property rights misses the mark. For example, how does the corrupt military contractor making more than someone in a poor developing nation make property rights a "joke" as he puts it? And, "Because virutally all tangible goods (or the natural resources used to manufacture them) are to some measure tainted by extortion, fraud, slavery, or outright theft, there’s no practical way to “set things right.” ... "If we buy goods produced by regime-approved slave labor, are we the 100% pure and true “rightful owners” of those goods? It is what it is, but it certainly isn’t black and white."

Well, we can choose not to buy from companies that use slave labor.

What do you guys think?

https://bananas.liberty.me/escape-th...propertyrights

Freedom and Property Rights


On our quest to figure out what liberty is really about, we have to deal with ownership.
For many years I thought liberty was about property rights.


Property rights are a social construct used to deal with economic scarcity.

They’re not a “human right.” They are grounded in custom and contract, whether politically sanctioned or privately negotiated.

We live in a world of material scarcity, not utopian bounty. Every human being takes up space on scarce habitable ground. We all consume scarce food, scarce clean water, and scarce resources to clothe, shelter, and entertain ourselves. All 7.4 billion of us are running around every day, endlessly consuming and (sorry to be specific) expelling gasses, liquids, and solids…along with billions of tons of trash.



We’re really, really good at consuming and expelling. Live and let live sounds nice, but things get complicated in practice.
People try to resolve the inevitable conflicts which arise over the unpleasant reality of material scarcity (and our propensity to expel) by saying, “I have property rights!”


In other words, if I have somehow come to “rightfully own” the land, the food, the natural resources, the factory, etc., then I have the right to use or consume them as I see fit, at the exclusion of everyone else. And because I “rightfully own” said property, I get to decide what happens to it when I die.


But how was my rightful ownership established in the first place?


Nobody alive today was the original homesteader of any land or natural resource. And it’s not sufficient to say there was a purchase, inheritance, or gift.


The ownership lineage of physical assets in today’s world is an infinitely complex web riddled with what most people would describe as fundamental rights violations. “Rightful ownership” is enmeshed with generations of predatory behavior at the individual and institutional level across billions of people.


All physical things in our world are rooted to varying degrees in the plunder of literally thousands of wars and genocides, trillions of acts of political extortion, confiscation, expropriation, and redistribution, billions of acts of private theft and fraud, and the enslavement of millions. The tracing of each “property right violation” is categorically impossible.

Because virutally all tangible goods (or the natural resources used to manufacture them) are to some measure tainted by extortion, fraud, slavery, or outright theft, there’s no practical way to “set things right.”


It just is, and it sucks. If you’re well off, you’ll likely lose no sleep over this. The status quo is working for you.
But to the couple billion people around the world who own essentially nothing — who have no property or savings whatsoever with which to train or invest in themselves — who have no access to capital goods to produce products to advance their material wealth through commerce — it’s hardly a shoulder shrug issue. “Property rights” don’t ring so clear and righteous.


This might sound abstract and easy to brush off. All I can say is, travel.


Go meet and spend time with people born with nothing in poor countries — people who work their asses off to earn 5-10 dollars per day. Look them in the eyes and remind yourself that a military-industrial complex CEO paid by Saudi petrodollar taxes “earns” more in one day than that person makes every forty years.


It makes property rights seem like a cynical joke. The web of coercion-tainted ownership unfolds like an endless fractal. That MIC executive takes his paycheck and buys a yacht. Is he the “rightful owner”? When you obtain something through extortion, are you the rightful owner?


If extortion, fraud, or slavery are institutionalized as legal by a political regime, does that change anything? If we buy goods produced by regime-approved slave labor, are we the 100% pure and true “rightful owners” of those goods? It is what it is, but it certainly isn’t black and white.

[The Gold Standard]

Go meet and spend time with people born with nothing in poor countries — people who work their asses off to earn 5-10 dollars per day. Look them in the eyes and remind yourself that a military-industrial complex CEO paid by Saudi petrodollar taxes “earns” more in one day than that person makes every forty years.


It makes property rights seem like a cynical joke.

This ignorance is reason enough for me to ignore the rest of the article. I don't have any idea what property rights have to do with a MIC CEO getting paid with stolen money, or poor people that are poor because their government is stealing from them.

[Madison320]

What do you guys think?

I think it's a bunch of crap. I like the way Ayn Rand derives it. The fundamental right is the right to life and property rights are necessary to support your right to life.

[Krugminator2]

Overall, I think it's a great read with good tips.

Is it a good read?

What Madison30 said kind of refutes the parts you bolded. You own your own life which is the starting point of everything. If you accept that you own your own life then you have to accept that you own the product of your labor. If you own the product of your labor that means you can do what you want with it which means you can trade with other people. Clearly defined property rights ensure that people don't steal your labor.


People in poor countries are poor not because of Dick Cheney and oil and Haliburton and the military industrial petro fed complex. They are poor because they don't have strong property rights. That is really the only reason. Property rights are the strongest indicator of prosperity.

[Son_of_Liberty90]

Is it a good read?

What Madison30 said kind of refutes the parts you bolded. You own your own life which is the starting point of everything. If you accept that you own your own life then you have to accept that you own the product of your labor. If you own the product of your labor that means you can do what you want with it which means you can trade with other people. Clearly defined property rights ensure that people don't steal your labor.


People in poor countries are poor not because of Dick Cheney and oil and Haliburton and the military industrial petro fed complex. They are poor because they don't have strong property rights. That is really the only reason. Property rights are the strongest indicator of prosperity.

I am not trying to imply it's a breakthrough text in Libertarian thought. It is, however very dense and comprehensive covering many topics from a libertarian perspective. Much of it we already know, beginning with chronicling the history and abuse of the state he calls "The Regime". How oppressive it is in America with fines, tax codes, regulations, etc vs other countries. Then he goes over ways to improve your health, social relationships, and the power of decentralization to free people from the state. At the very least, for RPF member's it's worth a glance or brief scan IMO. That particular portion on private property stands out as being out of place in his piece.

I should say, though, that a lot of statistics and statist horror stories are citied. But lacks academic citation like Hyek, Mises, Bastiat, etc. Which would explain the gap in thought on private property.

[Madison320]

Property rights are the strongest indicator of prosperity.

Yup, by a mile. Look at Cato or Heritage Freedom index and if you sort on property rights you'll see a very strong correlation between prosperity and freedom. Other factors like taxation, or trade for example, have a much weaker correlation compared to property rights. Not that those other factors aren't important.

[Son_of_Liberty90]

I also think the author's main point is that it's impossible to overcome the tyranny of the state through politics, so it's only when citizens turn to decentralized solutions from the free market that will prove superior to the "solutions" the government provides, that the state will fall.