@Jardine K. Jardine: an example of the parties to a conflict over natural resource uses coming to an agreement that is *not* within the law?

Allowing some clear felling where there is a blanket ban on clear felling.

@Jardine K. Jardine: the issue is what reason is there to think that the balance between conflicting uses is best determined by a political process of decision-making

Having a pollie make a decision isn't the best, having everyone come to an agreement is best. The question is what is plan B if that fails. I have told you what my plan B is, and there is nothing circular about it. What is your plan B?

@Jardine K. Jardine: The government claimsthat it represents the majority in everything it does

But they don't claim that. They often make decisions they know will be unpopular, because they don't feel like they have any choice. The proposed Queensland Government asset sell off is but one example. In fact, often they come to the electoral process with a package of policies, some of which they know are unpopular.

@Jardine K. Jardine: But appeal to “democracy” is an assertion about the general optimality of majority opinion

There are a lot of big words there, as there tends to be in arguments about philosophy. But you miss the bigger picture. Most don't give a rats about philosophy - yours, mine or anybody else's. What they do care about is of all the political systems we have seen over the millennia, democracy has been the most successful in terms of delivering human wants. You can argue till your blue in the face that it is lousy at doing that, but you are going to have awful trouble convincing anybody given the history of human society.

It doesn't help that your argument is purely philosophical. You offer no statistics, hard login like say game theory - nothing that gives me any confidence what you sayis anything more than a sticky web of self supporting logic.

>>an example of the parties to a conflict over natural resource uses coming to an agreement that is *not* within the law?

> Allowing some clear felling where there is a blanket ban on clear felling.

Let us assume at first that the forest is privately owned. In that case, we are supposing that the parties are able to come to an agreement about how best to balance their conflicting wants to use the forest, and the only thing stopping them is pre-existing laws that prevent the owner of the forest from using it as he thinks best. Therefore what is preventing the resource from being used to achieve the best balance as between conflicting uses, is the law, which represents political decision-making on resource use. Therefore there is no reason to presume that political decision-making is any better at getting the balance right between different conflicting uses, and assuming it is, is assuming what is in issue.

But if the forest is publicly owned, then it begs the question whether government is presumptively better at deciding the best balance, which is to assume what is in issue.

> Having a pollie make a decision isn't the best, having everyone come to an agreement is best. The question is what is plan B if that fails. I have told you what my plan B is, and there is nothing circular about it. What is your plan B?

Just because you want to use your property to do one thing, and I want to use it to do something else, doesn’t mean we should be treated as having an equal claim, or that I should have the benefit of government to force a compromise.

Plan B is that in the event of a disagreement the property owner decides, and those who don't agree need to buy the forest, or make some other consent-based arrangement with the owner, such as lease, or payment for specific product. For example, those who want the forest to be used for habitat for parrots, can pay the owner an agreed price per parrot.

This would enable maximal accommodation of different conflicting interests, to the extent they aren't zero-sum, in which case a compulsory override still cannot produce a better result.

But it would require those who want parrots, to pay the cost of them relative to the cost of the values of the other products of other possible uses, such as timber. The problem is that the conservationists know that in that case the property will run at a loss, and they will have to pay the costs of the values they assert. Since they don’t want to do that, they prefer to assert the supposed moral imperative of their own preference and force the issue.

But there is a movement for privately-funded conservation, which I think is great.

>…What they do care about is … [what political system is] … most successful in terms of delivering human wants.

Perhaps so, but that still doesn’t say why, within the democratic framework, the decisions should not be based on private property rights, rather than on politically-based interventions that override private property rights, whether or not they also represent the opinion of the majority.

>It doesn't help that your argument is purely philosophical. You offer no statistics, hard login like say game theory - nothing that gives me any confidence what you say is anything more than a sticky web of self supporting logic.

That is fair enough; and there is a problem of how we are to know the truth of propositions that are highly complex and full of many kinds of uncertainty.

However data and statistics do not interpret themselves; that requires theory. Clearly the absolute minimum is that propositions must not breach the rules of logic. If the theory is not logically valid, we will end up with the wrong conclusions no matter how good the data sets are. Since the interventionists’ arguments is circular, therefore it does not get to square one, and hence even force, or majority opinion, or popularity cannot make it true or workable. It will remain in the realm of irrational beliefs.

@Jardine K. Jardine: the decisions should ... be based on private property rights

This is the nub of it, isn't it? I hope so, because at it seems our "circular argument" is at cross purposes - we seem to be talking about two different things. You seem to be saying no central government is needed at all, and I am talking about the best sort of central government to have.

I expect my reaction to basing decisions on property rights won't be new to you, so I be brief. I am interested in what your response is.

My problem is that property isn't allocated equally. So it isn't one vote one value. Which effectively means by choosing your system, I have chosen to let the rich run the earth. That would not be my choice.

It’s true that property isn't allocated equally, but neither are height, weight, intelligence, singing ability, number of children, ambitions, and so on. There is no good reason why equality should be the criterion of decision-making.

Let's follow the piece of string to the both ends. Suppose people were equal: what would it mean? Well, it's literally meaningless, isn't it? They're not equal and they can't ever be equal.

But if people were equal, then no-one could obtain any advantage from entering into relations with others; and human society would come to an end.

Equality is an abstract perfect conception, suited to mathematics perhaps, but neither true, nor desirable, nor attainable in social theory or practice. For example, some people want children and others don't. How, or why, could they ever be treated “equally”? And while applying it to others, you don’t apply it to yourself. How could you?

Left to themselves, people won't just voluntarily make themselves equal, will they? If they would, there would be no issue. It will have to be done by force. But if it is to be done by force, what should the limits of that force be? Should everyone be entitled to equality in everything? Should everyone have an equal claim on the common storehouse regardless of what they have produced? But if not, why not? Should childless couples be equally entitled to children as fecund couples? Should pretty women be forced to provide sex to ugly or violent or diseased men so they can be equal with handsome or charming or healthy men? And why should equality be limited to the population within a state? Why should not everyone in the world have an equal claim to your house, your land, your food, your clothing and your internet service?

Political power is also not allocated equally. Those in marginal seats, or benefitting from back-room pre-selection deals, or parties holding the balance of power – these have greatly unequal power compared to everyone else. And the politicians as a whole have a gross inequality of political power compared to everyone else.

Also, the inequality between the state and any given citizen is far greater than the inequality between the richest and the poorest citizen, even if the only difference were the monopoly of violence that states claim; and that is far from being the only difference.

In any event, most questions are not between the richest and the poorest; they are not about some people living in luxury while others starve. Rather, they are about conflicting wants, often of the same people. Those who want timber, and those who want parrots, are not two separate and hostile tribes. They are the same individuals with conflicting wants. And even where they are of different individuals, that is still no reason why everyone's different wants and values should be, or should be attempted to be submitted to the criterion of equality.

But more importantly, since property is wholly or partly the result of human effort, to assert a right of equality is to assert that some people are morally entitled to use coercion to appropriate the labour of others, which is far more anti-social and exploitative than the principle of property.

“You seem to be saying no central government is needed at all, and I am talking about the best sort of central government to have.”

As I have said, even with central government, or with the best sort of central government, that still begs the question why the use of a given resource should be decided by government.

It still involves a creed:
1. That is fundamentally impossible, unreasonable and anti-social
2. That envisages no limits on government power and is far more abusive than property
3. That would necessarily involve much greater destruction to the environment.

Also, in the absence of political decision-making on resources, the holders of property are unconditionally subject to the sovereignty of the mass of the people as consumers. The property-holders must serve the wants of the people or they will go broke and lose their property into the hands of those who will.