Thankyou for your thoughts Sienna

I dont say property rights are exploitative.
I say that capitalist property rights allow(and in most cases leads to)exploitation.
Exploitation of those who dont have property by those that do.

Your argument on self ownership is complete nonsense. It has absolutely nothing to do with capitalist private property rights.

<<This is because self-ownership must mean the right to the exclusive appropriation of natural resources: the physical standing space, the air we breathe, food and drink.>>

Fair enough on the space we occupy and air we breath, Nothing can change our size and biology. But your talking out your posterior with the food and drink. Since when do we have a right to food and drink? I cant remember the last time food just appeared in front of me. I usually have to pay or go hungry.

How does the right to breathe or indeed even physically exist equate to theft of natural resources like oil or minerals by giant multinational corporations?
I dont see the connection.

Just because I own myself doesnt mean I can claim ownership to anything else.
Do I really "own" the air I breathe? I dont use all of it and I exhale some. Where does my air go? Who owns it once I breathe it out?
How can I say I "own" the space I stand in? What happens when I move? Do I still own the space I was just standing in?
Did BHP(who isnt a person btw)walk all over their mining leases before they could claim ownership?
So how exactly does your "self ownership" extend to giant companies who arent even people and so have no "self" to own.

Admit it, your philosophy of self ownership has absolutely no bearing on capitalism and the property rights enshrined in that system. It is a complete dead end and propaganda in an attempt to misdirect and confuse.

continued

continued

<<If self-ownership confers a right to a benefit only if one uses it oneself, for example from making a chair, but not to a benefit from an exchange>>

I never said you cant benefit from exchange. Once again you are slipping and sliding in your muddy pool of neocon propaganda and conflating the personal with the commercial.
A person making a chair and selling/exchanging it is hardly the same as him being employed by a capitalist to make a chair which then gets sold/exchanged(by the capitalist)and some(not all)of the proceeds returned to the chair maker. He does the same work but the capitalist takes a share of the product. A product he did not work to produce. Like a thief.

<<Others would be justified in using force to appropriate any surplus of one’s labour over and above the costs.>>
What, like capitalists do?

<<Thus one cannot consistently admit of self-ownership but deny:
1. right to appropriate unowned natural resources>>
Its SELF-ownership we are talking about not outside ourself ownership. Natural resources like oil and coal can hardly be considered "self" can they? You still have no cogent argument how self-ownership leads to ownership of over half the worlds wealth by a small minority. It frankly beggars belief.

<<2. right to exclude>>
So according to you exclusion is a good thing? Excluding people invading your "self" is one thing but extending that to the necessities of life and resources provided by nature is impossible to categorize as fair or just or efficient or beneficial for humankind.

<<3. property rights in the fruits of one’s labour,>>
You should have the SOLE right to the fruits of your labours. Not your boss by dint of capitalist property rights giving you no choice but to submit to a his will or starve.

<<4. property rights in net benefit of voluntary exchanges, a.k.a. profit.>>
Profiting from ones own labours is fine it is profiting off the labours of others that is wrong. Exactly what capitalists do.

All-
I am not talking about Marxism. Go back and read my posts before you assume I am seeking some sort of Marxist utopia. I am talking about a mixed economy one that recognises the merits of private and public ownership that work to the best advantage for people. At the moment we are too geared into private asset thinking without recognising the benefits of the other.

I understand the intent of your meaning Pelican; In short, the System that you mentioned did exist in Australia up until some 40 odd years ago, Private and Public – Before the Ideological Paradigm set in.

It is not actually indicative of the Marxian Strand per say, but the inclusionement of various other Strands of Ideological inculcations over the past 150 years that had manifested in Europe and America.
Using Australia, as the best example, Young as a Nation, was self sufficient, reasonably intelligent and its people were very resourceful in solving difficulties that arose ;. Strongly independent and very industrious; Up until 40 years ago, our Public sector was the employment of the BEST of the best in any public or private institution you may choose to name;
And regardless of the pay scale , it was an Honour that was bestowed on the Individual to be recognised to such an appointment.

Big difference in today’s language ; Public appointments are By Agitprop – Mates – Political Apparatchiks and ridicules Buaerocrats in their hundreds of thousands;

Already the public sector is so much of a dysfunctional Mental Assylum , it is difficult to tell who are the inpatient’s or who is running the place; No pun intended , that part is so true;

Secondly ; all the public assets have been surreptitiously on sold to The States Monopoly granted privilage Mercantile Interests ,other words, Beaurocrat Industries – Airports – Roads- even down to Red Light and speed cameras etc, etc,etc; To the absurd and Criminal Ideology to charges in the PUBLIC UTILLITIES sector , so it to be out of near everyone’s price range , Already owned by Tax payers; Well until your public rights to ownership are relinquished at least ; That sounds democratic in a Totalitarian Autocracy , so do you now understand what I am saying Pelican.

I do not disagree with your Idea Pelican , It did exist before in Australia , I disagree wholly that with an Institution run by Pathological Liars and self serving Thief’s and Exploiters , Even Robber Barons ;- are what you call Government and its band of Autocratic parasites ;

I would gradually add the charge of the obvious ; They will not be helping you in your plight.

They Ought to be put on trial for Treason and Grand Theft , for such on a scale never could have been imagined in the entire history of Mankind.
Without writing at book length

Mikk
>"Do I really "own" the air I breathe?”
Yes. Ownership means a right to exclusive possession and control. You own it because you ‘homestead’ it – you appropriated it from nature where it was unowned. How could it possibly be otherwise?

Similarly with food. You don’t have a right to other people’s efforts. But if you homestead unowned food, or if you acquire food legitimately from someone who does own it, then you have an ownership right in it, which means a right to use it yourself, and to exclude other people from using it. How could it possibly be otherwise?

But if you deny, or do not admit, that people have a right to breathe in, or to eat, then obviously:
a) no worker could have more of a right, namely, to the fruits of his labour, and
b) there’s no point in my proving further property rights in answer to your questions. You’ve lost because you don’t acknowledge, or you blow hot and cold on, whether people have a right to be alive.