Thank you Ludwig,

I now eagerly await Jardine's response, so I'll keep to the sidelines for now.

Dear Pericles,

<<That is an expression of of economic policy, not morals. The concept of property rights has no moral dimension whatsoever - unless, of course, you are suggesting that ownership of property is itself a moral issue.>>

I agree that ownership of property is not a moral issue: there is no moral imperative to own property.

But given that, somehow or another, one already owns property, isn't the issue of whether it is right to take it away or otherwise deny that person the ability to enjoy that property, a moral one?

If it isn't, then where does property end and body begins? Is the question whether it is right or not to strip a person of their clothing an economic or a moral question? Then what about hair? is the question of shearing another person's hair an economic or a moral question? If it's merely an economic question, then why not knock their teeth and pull their nails as well? or is harvesting someone's kidneys merely an economic issue, a legitimate way to have them repay a financial debt? Where do you draw the line, or do you?

Well of course you do, Ludwig. It's your own personal moral imperative.

>>Pericles I’ve got to disagree entirely<<

So let's get back to basics for a moment, and take stock of where we are. First of all, is there anything in this analysis of morality that you find untenable...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/

Here's an interesting starting-point:

"In the normative sense, morality should never be overridden, that is, no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement for non-moral considerations."

With that as background, to your point:

>>You can’t say that mining and property rights have nothing to do with morality<<

Certainly - as Yuyutsu points out - the violation of mining and property rights has a strong moral dimension. Theft, after all, is generally regarded as a "moral prohibition" in most societies. The morality of property ownership itself is surely an entirely separate question.

Some governments have tried to make property ownership a moral issue, Soviet communism being a recent example, with its Marxist roots. Proudhon gave it a fully anarchical flavour with his much-interpreted slogan, "property is theft". But most people today are happy to separate the moral content of the ownership of property, from the violation of it.

So, if you please, a little more justification of this statement of yours might help things along a little:

>>Property owners should certainly not have inalienable rights to do whatever they like with their land and to exclude all other uses or people.<<

Why not? So long as their actions do not violate the rights of others - which would quite rightly bring their actions into Yuyutsu's morality compass - surely they have an entirely moral right to enjoy their own property?

From the principle of liberty, ownership of land should be, as at common law, to the centre of the earth. The statutory “reservation” of minerals by “the Crown” is, in plain language, nothing but the theft of property by the most aggressive party. The law should be that any use of the owner’s property requires his consent. The owner should be liable for infringements of the personal or property rights of others.

The current heated conflicts between “agriculture” or “mining” are unnecessary. They are caused by the State invading the principle of liberty as explained above.

Ludwig’s argument would only make sense if government did not enforce law or policy. Given that it does, the ethics of using force or threats of force are unavoidably implicated in every government policy.

The reason Ludwig is unable to state any principle by which anyone could know whether their person or property should be free from aggressive invasion by government, is because he doesn’t have one! His talk of “shades of grey” means only that he doesn’t know what the principle limiting government power should be. He hopes it will be his own opinion about how other people should use their own property. But he concedes that it, in practical politics, it might be someone else’s opinion or a compromise of the opinion of other people, who want to forcibly override the personal or property rights of others. They only thing he is constant on, is that non-owners and non-producers should be given benefits of other people's property without paying for it, by threatening to imprison the owner if he doesn't agree. And then, assuming his honesty, he displays his failure to comprehend, by protesting that he doesn't defend aggression against person or property. That's exactly what he's defending!

(cont.)

Our argument looks like this:
J: “The principle of liberty states the legitimate limits of governmental action.”
L: “No it doesn’t. There needs to be a point of balance.”
J: “What is the point of balance?”
L: (Long spiel on multiple imponderable factors and objectively unknowable values without at any stage saying what the point of balance is.)
J: “What is the point of balance?”
L: “I’ve answered that directly. How can you suggest I’m in favour of aggressive violence?”

Ludwig is caught in a self-contradiction. Either he states the principle on which government power should be limited; or he continues to obfuscate what it is; either way he is left only affirming that the principle of liberty should be forcibly violated.

As for the “common good”, the good cannot be known in common. That’s why Ludwig can’t say what the point of balance is at which he himself could know the legitimate limits of government in his own statement “Of course government shouldn’t have unlimited power”.

Thank you Jardine,

This debate is extremely fascinating.

Still from the sidelines, I notice lack of agreement about the terms we use:

What is 'ownership'?

Here Ludwig seems to use the existing, Australian, legal definition while Jardine uses the common-law definition.
Interestingly, both conflict with the plain-English use of the word 'owner'.

L: Property owners should certainly not have inalienable rights to do whatever they like with their land and to exclude all other uses or people.

J: ownership of land should be, as at common law, to the centre of the earth.

Legally speaking, as Ludwig does, ownership is subject to legislation, hence to potential, partial or complete, revocation.

In plain English, however, as found in businessdictionary.com, an owner is:

1. A party that possesses the exclusive right to hold, use, benefit-from, enjoy, convey, transfer, and otherwise dispose of an asset or property.

Ownership is thus absolute and irrevocable (except when transferred voluntarily, but in some biblical references ownership is by divine decree and cannot be revoked even voluntarily). This would render Ludwig's statement self-contradictory, for if you can't do what you like with X, then you do not actually own X.

On the other hand, Jardine too cannot do whatever he likes with his owned land all the way to the centre of the earth - for not even the combined effort of all humanity can reach down further than 10 kilometres deep or so, then it would become too hot, the pressure too high and at some stage magma will burst out spreading over large areas, thwarting any attempt at land-ownership.

So the question stands for both:

What is ownership and how is it gained?

Some company was already selling plots of land on the moon - does this grant any person or any state/government ownership over that part of the moon? What then about other planets and distant stars? Does discovering them amount to ownership?

Looking forward to your answers!

Well according to the theory I'm prepared to hazard for anyone to shoot down if they can, ownership denotes a right to use something to the exclusion of others, using force if necessary to exclude them. (Ownership is not possession per se, so there’s no reason why a claim of ownership can’t extend to the moon or Earth’s centre. Whether it can be vindicated is another question.)

The starting point is that we need rules of just conduct because goods – the physical means to satisfy human wants – are scarce. If all goods were infinitely available, there would be no possibility of A’s usage having any negative consequence for B, and hence no need for rules of just conduct. This problem is not a “social construct” or because of “ideology”. It inheres in the physical nature of reality – natural scarcity. Even if we lived in a garden of Eden, replete with cornucopia, the problem would still exist because there would still be, at least, a scarcity of the physical stuff of one’s body and one’s standing-room.

The basal right of ownership, giving rise to all other ownership-rights, is the right of ownership of one’s physical body. Anyone who denies this must perform a self-contradiction, because he must assume the right to control his body to participate in the argument. He must also admit the possibility of coercion-based ownership of others.

From the right of self-ownership we derive the right to appropriate unowned goods from nature, e.g the air we breathe, without which the original right would be nugatory.

The next right to follow from these is that of *voluntary* exchange and association, without which, the benefits of human society would be denied.

Any use of force beyond that necessary to defend liberty and property, represents the original problem of unjust aggression which man needs to invent ethics, and property, to solve. The notion that human society, or fairness, or productivity, necessitate a larger role for unprovoked aggression is factually, logically and ethically false.