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| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-05, 8:10 am |
| thant schrieb:
> (Not that there aren't cult members, as this
> thread has demonstrated.)
Actually, on both sides of the fence in this case. (No, I don't regard
you as cultist, in case you're wondering.)
> Specifically, the strength of the free
> software movement can be attributed to 1) the fact that in its
> manifestation as the GPL, it is property-rights respecting (to the
> degree that copyrights can be argued to be property-rights respecting--
> which I'm only willing to grant with very strong qualifications),
I agree that the GPL is based on copyright. However, this statement is
wrong in many other respects:
a) Copyright is not property right. The legal machinery for property is
quite different from the machinery for copyright: all copyright law has
provisions for fair use or something similar, while there is no such
thing for property (and that's just one example). (You might already
have alluded to that in the last sentence of the above.)
b) The GPL does not "respect" property rights; it is based on the legal
system to make sure that specific parts of the legal system do not apply.
c) The strength of the GPL-influenced portions of the free software
movement cannot be attributed to the whatever-respecting nature of the
GPL - that wouldn't explain its success. I think the success of the GPL
has a lot to do with the usual first mover advantage, plus RMS being
very vocal about his opinions, plus RMS being controversial so he gets a
lot of press coverage and becomes even more well-known. Plus, the GPL is
solid enough that it holds up in court (though I can't say how difficult
the task of setting up something like the GPL really is: courts tend to
judge in favor of the party that's trying to give their stuff away, not
in favor of the party that's trying to rip that stuff off).
> But I stand by my description of RMS as a "software communist,"
> because he views the private ownership of source code (in its roll as
> a capital resource) as inherently exploitive.
OK, if your use of "communist" was intended to be technical rather than
derogaroy, then I can agree with that - to some extent. I'm pretty sure
he doesn't fill the technical definition, if only because communism
deals with the society as a whole and software development just a tiny
(though important) part of it.
Besides, not all ideas in communism are bad. "Everybody should earn what
he needs" isn't a bad idea, isn't it?
The idea is unworkable for an entire society (IMVHO), and attempts to
implement it have been attracting all kinds of power-hungry unscrupulous
types like Stalin and Mao, since turned into an ideology, communism is
able to seduce the masses.
I don't think that FOSS proponents are "seduced" though - at least not
into something as unwholesome as "real socialism" or "dictatorship of
the proletariat". There are no Gulags, and the mere existence of the GPL
doesn't create a totalitarian environment for software developers.
(Actually, I see totalitarianism in the sense of "controlling all
aspects of what you do" more in the opposing camp: almost all
closed-source companies pursue various lock-in strategies, Microsoft and
Apple being most obsessed with that. Well, the difference is that MS is
locking in first and delivering quality second, why Apple priorises the
two goals roughly equally - or at least that's what I gather.)
> And I stand by my
> description of RMS as a nut case in that he is egomaniacally obsessed
> with the disjoint between his interests regarding software and other
> people's interests regarding software. (I'm not convinced he's just
> fooling people.)
I agree that RMS is obsessed with his mission.
I'm not sure whether that's egomaniacal. There might be egomaniacal
traits in his personality - OTOH I'm under the impression that that's
probably necessary to pursue a mission like the one he is on. IOW
egomany (sp?) is part of the mission profile, not necessarily one of RMS
in person.
I definitely don't think he's a nut case. He's exaggerating, sometimes
grossly. He's using the GPL as a political tool to further his cause.
That's an abuse of a license for changing society, true - but OTOH media
and software companies are doing just the same, they just spend money to
lobby various parliaments into getting laws written that favor their
existing business models, and that's a similar abuse. (Media industry
has started to seriously consider watermarking instead of DRM to protect
their investments.)
I do think he's following a worthy cause. Without the RMSes of this
world, we'd face a future where every bit of data is DRM-controlled,
with the originator of each and every bit controlling what you can or
cannot do with it; the copyright holders would try to enforce not just
that they get paid, they'd also try to prevent investigative journalism
(at least as far as it applies to them), they'd prevent the competition
from reading their data formats, and that would generally make software
less useful for everybody.
I don't savor the occasional foam from his mouth. If you (like me) want
a far more considerate point of view, try the writings of Cory Doctorow;
that man is able to convey the same messages as RMS, but with a far less
emotional rationale. Try this one: http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt
(it's more on DRM than on the GPL itself, but it's enlightening wrt. the
status of copyright anyway).
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Paul Rubin 2007-03-05, 10:09 pm |
| Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> I don't savor the occasional foam from his mouth. If you (like me)
> want a far more considerate point of view, try the writings of Cory
> Doctorow; that man is able to convey the same messages as RMS, but
> with a far less emotional rationale. Try this one:
> http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt (it's more on DRM than on the GPL
> itself, but it's enlightening wrt. the status of copyright anyway).
There is also the (downloadable) book "Free Culture" by law professor
Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons):
http://free-culture.org
I don't think Cory Doctorow's or Lawrence Lessig's messages really
are the same as RMS's, but they have lots of common ground with him.
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-05, 10:09 pm |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> thant schrieb:
>
> Actually, on both sides of the fence in this case. (No, I don't regard
> you as cultist, in case you're wondering.)
<...>
>
> OK, if your use of "communist" was intended to be technical rather
> than derogaroy, then I can agree with that - to some extent. I'm
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
That does not seem plausible in the light of the following sentences:
(There was more of that in other Thant posts, so this is not a
misunderstanding).
Jo, I cannot believe you're seriously discussing with someone who is
using -- unprovoked -- language like "RMS is a nut case" or "software
communist". But that is your choice altogether.
But I _do_ object a bit about the following sentence (quoted again
from above):
[color=darkred]
>
> Actually, on both sides of the fence in this case. (No, I don't regard
> you as cultist, in case you're wondering.)
I can only imagine you mean me and/or Paul in "this case" (this
thread ...?).
But please note that I have actually refused to discuss RMS or the FSF
or whatever after this auspicious beginning, purely on formal grounds:
That shouldn't qualify me as a cult member in your eyes (I don't care
about "Mark" and Thant for reasons already given).
Regards -- Markus
| |
| thant 2007-03-05, 10:09 pm |
| On Mar 5, 6:11 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
> thant schrieb:
>
>
> Actually, on both sides of the fence in this case.
Yes, I noticed. :-)
> (No, I don't regard
> you as cultist, in case you're wondering.)
Thanks.
[...]
> OK, if your use of "communist" was intended to be technical rather than
> derogaroy, then I can agree with that - to some extent. I'm pretty sure
> he doesn't fill the technical definition, if only because communism
> deals with the society as a whole and software development just a tiny
> (though important) part of it.
Yes. Why the focus on software in particular? One of the things that
make this topic interesting.
> Besides, not all ideas in communism are bad. "Everybody should earn what
> he needs" isn't a bad idea, isn't it?
It's one of the truly stupidest things Marx ever said. Technically he
said something like "from each according to their ability to each
according to their need." It's attractive to those who put themselves
in the "need" category, but it also tells anybody who is genuinely in
practice in the "ability" category that it is not theirs to decide
where the products of their efforts goes. It implies that those who
get to decide how *other* people's wealth is spent (by virtue of their
political acumen) are somehow inherently more benevolent than those
who only get to direct the products of their own efforts. Blatantly
absurd given even the smallest amount of reflection.
[...portions addressed elsewhere...]
-thant
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-06, 4:22 am |
|
"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:
> It's one of the truly stupidest things Marx ever said. Technically he
> said something like "from each according to their ability to each
> according to their need." It's attractive to those who put themselves
> in the "need" category, but it also tells anybody who is genuinely in
> practice in the "ability" category that it is not theirs to decide
> where the products of their efforts goes. It implies that those who
> get to decide how *other* people's wealth is spent (by virtue of their
> political acumen) are somehow inherently more benevolent than those
> who only get to direct the products of their own efforts. Blatantly
> absurd given even the smallest amount of reflection.
Typical neocons drivel. Next we hear how all those "welfare mothers"
are bleeding society dry.
You became what you are only because society as a whole invested in
you. If think if we follow your rather property oriented resoning, we
should have universities "licensing" knowledge to you and demand
fees+taxes for the rest of your live, instead of having them get a fix
amount and be done.
Your attidute towards property is where we disagree (and I
won't go into a longer discussion of that): You seem to think property
was there first, a give natural law/right and then came society. I
think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and the various(!)
concepts of properties are just sets of rules (give by humans beings)
that control the allocation of resources, but they are just this: A
useful mechanism, not more.
If you think it through, you'll see that property-as-a-natural-right
is inconsistent. The usual reason given that somebody ought to be
entitled to own things, is, that he had success in getting them (he
_earned_ them, because he was better in some respect). Apart from the
fact that I don't relish the idea of society as a Darwinist gambling
game, I don't see, how in a framework of rational ethics, it could be
concluded from that that the others should respect his property
rights: After all, if they can take his property from him, _they_ were
"better", so they "win". So, law, society etc. introduce some kind of
artificial restriction how things can change owner: Not by theft,
murder or fraud, but by dealing, speculation, even with insider
knowledge.
The concept of lawful property is pretty much an artificial
construct. Society guarantees that people keep to certain rules,
respect property and the owners of property but since it is society
that actually guarantees the continous validity of property, the
owner of property isn't a shark among minor fish: He only has his
property because it is granted to him by society as something of his
to keep, a gratification for work he has done.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Ulf Wiger 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
| >>>>> "ML" == Markus E Leypold <Markus> writes:
ML> I think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and
ML> the various(!) concepts of properties are just sets of rules
ML> (give by humans beings) that control the allocation of
ML> resources, but they are just this: A useful mechanism, not more.
A reasonable approach, I think.
ML> If you think it through, you'll see that
ML> property-as-a-natural-right is inconsistent. The usual reason
ML> given that somebody ought to be entitled to own things, is, that
ML> he had success in getting them (he _earned_ them, because he was
ML> better in some respect).
And already here we start getting into trouble, and more so in
some fields than others.
Exactly _who_ earns the right to intellectual property? The inventor,
or whoever happens to pay the inventors salary (and if it's the
latter, and the invention is a result of many years of labour at
different companies, which employer has the strongest moral claim)?
There is no simple answer, since it depends in part on the nature
of the business (some inventions are not possible without billions
of dollars worth of infrastructure, while others are mainly the
result of thinking and discourse).
Tony Hoare was hired by Microsoft Research at the age of 65.
Does that mean that MS has the moral right of ownership of
his ideas henceforth? If his inventions came about as a result
of accessing information he could not have accessed except as
a Microsoft employee, then perhaps. (I have no idea what
terms MS has negotiated with Tony Hoare; I suspect he is
allowed to publish quite freely.)
Ok, there is a simple answer, if we strike the word "moral":
We can simply state that whoever hands you your paycheck also
owns whatever you produce. While this is rather uncontroversial
when applied to someone operating a "Spinning Jenny", it is
less so when applied to someone who's invested many years
and perhaps hundreds of thousand dollars in his own education,
and who may have laboured for decades, while working various
day jobs, to formulate an idea.
Many large companies also make
their employees sign far-reaching confidentiality agreements
effectively forcing them to sign away not only their ideas,
but also the chance to develop those ideas further, should
they leave the company. While this is certainly troublesome
for the individual, it is arguably bad for society as a whole,
and possibly also for the company in the long run (if
competitors start offering more lenient terms, thereby
attracting top minds.)
BTW, while googling, I came across the following blog:
http://shelleytherepublican.com/200...y-of-linux.aspx
The article does seem to support the notion that RMS is
a nut case, and all Linux hackers are a bunch of untrustworthy
thieves. Personally, I tend to find the argument weakened
somewhat by some of the other articles by the same blogger,
for example claiming that the majority of liberals who own
a digital camera also collect child porn. I will specifically
refrain from drawing any parallels with this thread, except
to say that I found some of the language remarkably similar.
BR,
Ulf W
--
Ulf Wiger, Senior Specialist,
/ / / Architecture & Design of Carrier-Class Software
/ / / Team Leader, Software Characteristics
/ / / Ericsson AB, IMS Gateways
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
| Paul Rubin schrieb:
> Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
>
> I don't think Cory Doctorow's or Lawrence Lessig's messages really
> are the same as RMS's, but they have lots of common ground with him.
Agreed. I was overgeneralizing.
Sorry.
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
| Markus E Leypold schrieb:
> Jo, I cannot believe you're seriously discussing with someone who is
> using -- unprovoked -- language like "RMS is a nut case" or "software
> communist".
Thant didn't qualify RMS as a nut case. That was Mark Haniford.
And Thant's usage of "communist" was technical, not derogatory.
I have to say that I wouldn't have discussed with Thant after his first
message, so it was a good thing that he cleared that up.
> But I _do_ object a bit about the following sentence (quoted again
> from above):
>
>
> I can only imagine you mean me and/or Paul in "this case" (this
> thread ...?).
Nooo.
The worst cultist here is Mark.
There is slight cultist behavior on the pro-RMS side here (and I'm
including myself in that group).
Regards,
Jo
| |
|
|
On Mar 6, 1:26 am, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
[...]
> Typical neocons drivel. [...]
The neocons are anti-Stalinist, not anti-communist.
As for the rest of what you wrote, natural law is called 'natural'
because it is derived from a rational attempt to stipulate mutually-
binding rules of conduct regarding scarce resources. That's all. It
rejects the notion that any specific individual should be granted
privileges regarding property because they somehow speak for
'society.'
-thant
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
|
Ulf Wiger <etxuwig@cbe.ericsson.se> writes:
>
> ML> I think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and
> ML> the various(!) concepts of properties are just sets of rules
> ML> (give by humans beings) that control the allocation of
> ML> resources, but they are just this: A useful mechanism, not more.
>
> A reasonable approach, I think.
>
> ML> If you think it through, you'll see that
> ML> property-as-a-natural-right is inconsistent. The usual reason
> ML> given that somebody ought to be entitled to own things, is, that
> ML> he had success in getting them (he _earned_ them, because he was
> ML> better in some respect).
>
> And already here we start getting into trouble, and more so in
> some fields than others.
>
> Exactly _who_ earns the right to intellectual property? The inventor,
I think we're basically in agreement here, since I only tried to
summrize the state of reasoning "the other side" (i.e. the property is
natural pholosophers) has or better has not reached at this satet of
things.
What you elaborate in the part is almost completely as I see things
here. I'd like to add another tiny aspect, though, regarding the
difference between material property and intellectual property, which
IMHO illustrates that "property" is to a certain extend a viable
concept for ressource allocation in the case of material things, but
not in the case of whatever is called I.P.
1) Consider a potato. Only 1 of us can own it, only 1 of us can eat
it. The property concept in this case serves as an abstraction to
track who ate the moment has the right to eat it.
(As an aside: There is an interesting opening to question the
appropriateness of the material property concept here. The property
concept does not only give the right to eat the potato, but also
the right to let it rot or to spoil it. If we assert that it is
highly immoral to spoil food while other people (say just in the
same region) are going hungry or just dying and that potatoes in
such times should be eaten, not spoiled, it would be immoral to
aloow people to spoil potatoes only because they can afford
to. Indeed, that is not what society would want at that time. So
the general property-to-be-done-with-what-you-want would be needed
to be replaced by a less general
property-to-be-eaten-or-you-loose-it concept.
This thought experiment illustrates how even the material property
concept break down at the fringes when things are too important for
society, that is, their allocation touches basic human rights and
they are scarce.
Actually if you look upon recent European history, decaoupling
property rights on food from the rest of the property system is
exactly what has happened after the war (at least in Germany) in
the form of food rationing (I damit I don't know about the
situation in other european contries at the time).
2) Consider an idea Z (a method to do something). Assume A had the
idea some 6 months ago and patented it. Now he "owns" the idea and
can control wether anybody uses the method. But now C has the same
idea as A had without knowing about A and his patent and B had the
same idea 7 months ago.
Both are precluded now from using _their very own idea_. This seems
unjust, because the intellectual property idea was supposed to
deliver gratification for accomplishments which C and D certainly
had.
Whereas the interaction between the potato I have and you being
able to have the same potato seems to be quite clear, the
interaction between me, not being allowed to use an idea I had and
you having had the same idea at some other time seems to be magic
and arbitrary.
It is also unnatural (the limits on potato distributions are
natural) which should throw a spannera into the argumentative works
if the property-is-natural so-we-need-IP reasoners.
Intellectual property works only well, if you assume that only one
person has / will have idea in question for a long time, else it
will be lost. So the originality of the patented idea is a very
essential ingredient for any IP system to work as intended. Which
means: We must raise the bars to accepting patents a lot.
I would hardly allow more than some 100 really-not-trivial ideas
per year, with a patent life time dependend on the rate of progress
in the given discipline (certainly not 50 years for IT stuff).
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
| thant schrieb:
>
> It's one of the truly stupidest things Marx ever said.
With "not a bad idea" I meant "it's an ethically positive idea", not
necessarily "an idea that works" (Marxism doesn't work, it's an utopy).
> Technically he said something like "from each according to their
> ability to each according to their need." It's attractive to those
> who put themselves in the "need" category, but it also tells anybody
> who is genuinely in practice in the "ability" category that it is not
> theirs to decide where the products of their efforts goes.
I think that's exaggerating the idea so far that it becomes bogus.
I do uphold that the strong should support the weak, so that when the
situation is reversed, the formerly weak can aid the formerly strong. I
also uphold that those who are weak in many respects should get more
help than those who are just marginally weak.
Of course, one would have to be careful to avoid abuse of such a system.
You need a system of checks and balances to prevent people from making
themselves weaker than they are so that they don't have to work anymore.
However, in the area of software creation, I don't think that we have a
real problem. (We rather have the problem that the willingness to help
often exceeds the competence.)
Add to that the fact that software can be copied at near-zero cost (i.e.
without unduly burdening the strong), and ideas related to Marxism,
communism or what-have-you could work better.
In summary, I think that saying "RMS is a software communist", even if
there is a certain truth to it, isn't necessarily a reason to reject his
ideas. Economic theories do all kinds of generalizations and
approximations, and in the case of software, they are even worse than in
general; applying economic theory to the software market is hence going
to give even less useful results than in general.
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> Markus E Leypold schrieb:
>
> Thant didn't qualify RMS as a nut case. That was Mark Haniford.
> And Thant's usage of "communist" was technical, not derogatory.
>
> I have to say that I wouldn't have discussed with Thant after his
> first message, so it was a good thing that he cleared that up.
>
>
> Nooo.
> The worst cultist here is Mark.
Aaah. That was lost to me. Perhaps because I expect a cultist to
venerate _something_ at least, and "Mark" was not coherent enough to
me to formulate any positive train of thought in his rambling. The only
thing I know, he is swearing at RMS: But what does he approve of?
> There is slight cultist behavior on the pro-RMS side here (and I'm
> including myself in that group).
:-). Oh certainly. I wouldn't call it cultist, though. I do not have
to take any gauntlet thrown down with the words "RMS is a
&insult;". RMS is IMHO a respected member of the software community,
which doesn't mean I have to agree with him on all points. That's
exactly what politics is there for, to negotiate the rules of society
and to settle upon some compromise. RMS is welcome to participate in
this process and actually has driven and inspired large parts of it as
far as free software goes.
As I said I don't agree with RMS in all points ("Mark"'s quotes aren't
such a point for various reasons)
But I can be irritated if someone is starting to insult a respected
figure of the community without apparent reason -- and I don't
consider this slightly cultist.
:-)
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> Markus E Leypold schrieb:
>
> Thant didn't qualify RMS as a nut case. That was Mark Haniford.
> And Thant's usage of "communist" was technical, not derogatory.
I think Thant used the word "nutty", too. And that IMHO reflect back
to the use of the word communist 2 paragraphs above and actually put
me of enough to continue that part of the discussion with him.
(But I certainly don't want to keep you from continuing your
discussion: It's a free country and all that. I only was surprised to
see you accepting Thant's "I'm using communist purely descriptive"
just some sentences before the "nutty" theme creeps in again.)
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Thomas Lindgren 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
|
Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:
> Your attidute towards property is where we disagree (and I
> won't go into a longer discussion of that): You seem to think property
> was there first, a give natural law/right and then came society. I
> think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and the various(!)
> concepts of properties are just sets of rules (give by humans beings)
> that control the allocation of resources, but they are just this: A
> useful mechanism, not more.
>
> If you think it through, you'll see that property-as-a-natural-right
> is inconsistent. The usual reason given that somebody ought to be
> entitled to own things, is, that he had success in getting them (he
> _earned_ them, because he was better in some respect). Apart from the
> fact that I don't relish the idea of society as a Darwinist gambling
> game, I don't see, how in a framework of rational ethics, it could be
> concluded from that that the others should respect his property
> rights: After all, if they can take his property from him, _they_ were
> "better", so they "win". So, law, society etc. introduce some kind of
> artificial restriction how things can change owner: Not by theft,
> murder or fraud, but by dealing, speculation, even with insider
> knowledge.
>
> The concept of lawful property is pretty much an artificial
> construct. Society guarantees that people keep to certain rules,
> respect property and the owners of property but since it is society
> that actually guarantees the continous validity of property, the
> owner of property isn't a shark among minor fish: He only has his
> property because it is granted to him by society as something of his
> to keep, a gratification for work he has done.
In other words, the sole principle is, you only get to keep what the
mob lets you keep. That's a great society you've got going there,
buddy.
Bye,
Thomas
--
Thomas Lindgren
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Fail again. Fail better."
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-06, 8:13 am |
|
"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:
> On Mar 6, 1:26 am, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>
> The neocons are anti-Stalinist, not anti-communist.
The also denigrate the idea of welfare, taxes, redistribution of
wealth etc as obviously absurd as you did.
If it is absurd or at least not required by the needs of society it is
at least not obviously though.
> As for the rest of what you wrote, natural law is called 'natural'
> because it is derived from a rational attempt to stipulate mutually-
> binding rules of conduct regarding scarce resources. That's all.
No, sorry. The "rational attempt to stipulate [...] rules" is called
"rational ethics".
Natural law is another concept altogether and a problematic one
because the natural state of things (right of the stronger) wouldn't
be a good reference for ethics as we understand it (and it wouldn't
work in you case, because "conning" people into taking the wealthier
persons riches away and give it to the "con man" would actually be a
valid strategy -- to be able to do so is a kind of strength) and
beyond that we don't have a common reference point (like God) in a
post modern society.
Now we have to start all over again, leave "natural law" and try to
reason things out starting from the task to organize a society and the
behavious of it's members so that certain, as of yet undefined goals
are reached. That attempt is called "rational ethics" ("Rationale
Ethik" in German, I didn't look it up, so the proper english
translation might be different).
> It rejects the notion that any specific individual should be granted
> privileges regarding property because they somehow speak for
> 'society.'
I do not see how that ("specific individual") relates to your Marx
quote you snipped from your reply. "To each according to their needs"
("Jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen") doesn't say something about
specific individuals and nothing about "speaking for society".
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Ulf Wiger 2007-03-06, 7:04 pm |
| >>>>> "TL" == Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> writes:
TL> Markus E Leypold
TL> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>
TL> writes:
[color=darkred]
TL> In other words, the sole principle is, you only get to keep what
TL> the mob lets you keep. That's a great society you've got going
TL> there, buddy.
That's a reasonable interpretation if you equate society = mob,
and (democratic rule) = (mob rule). This is not too uncommon,
most people who use this line of reasoning are not willing
to hold up another model as superior. Are you?
I guess Markus' description also holds for communist societies,
and perhaps you can describe that as "mob rule" as well? (:
His description also holds for dictatorships, I think.
The distinguishing property of different societies is how we
go about the legislative process. Some protection of property
rights may be in the constitution, but even that is merely
law, which can be changed. The only difference is how many
obstacles we've invented for the law makers. (In Sweden, there
is a committee which can advice law makers that proposed
legistation is in violation of the constitution, but this
doesn't formally stop the Riksdag from approving the law,
as has been demonstrated now and again.)
There are several examples of how this description is applied
in practice in democratic societies. A common example is when
roads are built, and private property needs to be appropriated
to make room for the road. Municipalities in Sweden will offer
what they believe is fair market value for the land, but if
the owner doesn't want to sell, it will go to litigation. In
practice, the Municipality nearly always wins(*), and the owner
may have to settle for a lower price than initially offered.
(*) I've heard of cases where the verdict has gone the other
way, but this is highly unusual.
Some types of property are even illegal to possess in many
countries. In Sweden, you may not own a TV without paying
a monthly fee to finance Public Television, regardless of
whether or not you actually use your TV.
I happen to live in a house that is classified as "Kulturminne"
(which means that it's of historic significance). This severely
limits what I am allowed to do with it. It's debatable whether
I'd be allowed to put a satellite dish on the roof. The
landlord (I rent it) may also be directed by the Municipality
to refurbish his own house, if they feel that he is not
caring for it properly.
BR,
Ulf W
--
Ulf Wiger, Senior Specialist,
/ / / Architecture & Design of Carrier-Class Software
/ / / Team Leader, Software Characteristics
/ / / Ericsson AB, IMS Gateways
| |
|
| On Mar 6, 5:02 am, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
> "thant" <a...@standarddeviance.com> writes:
>
>
>
>
> The also denigrate the idea of welfare, taxes, redistribution of
> wealth etc as obviously absurd as you did.
I know these exchanges are wildly unproductive, but the neocons are
something I've put some effort into trying to understand.
The neocons as a group have their roots in the far left. (That's why
they're called *neo* conservatives.) They haven't rejected their
socialist roots so much as abandoned them for grander, more imperial
ambitions. You're confusing the neocons with the big-government
backlash political movement they hijacked under the Reagan
administration. As a group they are now basically uninterested in
domestic social welfare policy. All they really care about is the
accumulation and centralization of political power. They don't care at
all that domestic spending under Bush the Younger has grown wildly as
long as it bought Democratic support for their wars.
> Natural law is another concept altogether and a problematic one
> because the natural state of things (right of the stronger) wouldn't
> be a good reference for ethics as we understand it
I suppose I should have specified that I'm using the term in the sense
that John Locke used it, not in the sense that you seem to attribute
to it.
>
> I do not see how that ("specific individual") relates to your Marx
> quote you snipped from your reply. "To each according to their needs"
> ("Jedem nach seinen Bed=FCrfnissen") doesn't say something about
> specific individuals and nothing about "speaking for society".
Who gets to decide who needs what? Marx brushes all this off because
in Marxist theory, communism is a state of society in which the wants
of the individual have become indistinguishable from the common
interest. The individual has disloved into the collective. Reality
just doesn't work that way. In reality, it is the State that claims to
speak for society, and it's the State that uses this claim as an
excuse to impose a territorial monopoly on the institutuionalized use
of coercion.
As for the government's role in providing for the less fortunate, it's
a con job. Always has been. The politicians will raise minimum wages
as if they were compassionate heros. But confront them with the fact
that it's the government's fault that wages have eroded in the first
place, and you're talking to a brick wall.
http://www.mises.org/story/1909
-thant
| |
|
| On Mar 6, 4:29 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
> thant schrieb:
[...]
>
> I think that's exaggerating the idea so far that it becomes bogus.
Not based on my understanding of economic conditions in the Soviet
Union before it finally collapsed.
>
> I do uphold that the strong should support the weak, so that when the
> situation is reversed, the formerly weak can aid the formerly strong. I
> also uphold that those who are weak in many respects should get more
> help than those who are just marginally weak.
I do to. But it's up to the individual to decide how best to allocate
their resources toward goals they value (such as a better society).
> In summary, I think that saying "RMS is a software communist", even if
> there is a certain truth to it, isn't necessarily a reason to reject his
> ideas.
I reject his motivation, but respect his means.
> Economic theories do all kinds of generalizations and
> approximations, and in the case of software, they are even worse than in
> general; applying economic theory to the software market is hence going
> to give even less useful results than in general.
The two best books on the economics of software that I've read are
"The Cathedral and the Bazzar," by Eric Raymond, and "Software as
Capital," by Howard Baetjer Jr. These books are as different from each
other as one can possibly imagine, but together they are profoundly
insightful.
-thant
| |
| Mike Kent 2007-03-07, 4:06 am |
| Thomas Lindgren wrote:
> Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:
....
>
> In other words, the sole principle is, you only get to keep what the
> mob lets you keep.
If by "the mob" you mean "civil society" and if by "lets you keep" you mean
"falls within the (probably largely tacitly) agreed property rights
framework of the society you live in" then yes.
> That's a great society you've got going there, buddy.
Perhaps, or maybe not; the devil's in the details. With no rules, you get
Hobbes' war of each against all; with rules you have, well, rules, and
constraints, and ways of deciding who owns what and what constitutes a basis
for ownership, and when mere possession is not ownership, ... . What is
thought to be a good set of rules varies from place to place and has varied
from time to time, and while I happen to have a set that I prefer I don't
have quite enough hubris to believe that they are the One Revealed True Way.
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-07, 4:06 am |
| On Mar 6, 10:26 am, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
> Your attidute towards property is where we disagree (and I
> won't go into a longer discussion of that): You seem to think property
> was there first, a give natural law/right and then came society. I
> think, society and its laws are pretty malleable and the various(!)
> concepts of properties are just sets of rules (give by humans beings)
> that control the allocation of resources, but they are just this: A
> useful mechanism, not more.
So you admit, that you have not some natural or intrinsic right to
defend your opinion, or even a right to have an opinion, unless
"society" grants it to you?
> If you think it through, you'll see that property-as-a-natural-right
> is inconsistent.
It is, on the contrary, obvious that your point "no rights unless
society grants it" is self defeating. If you accept self-ownership and
the right to live, then you must also accept the right to earn and
keep the material means for subsistence. If you do not accept self-
ownership and the right to live, then how come you dare to use your
"property" and be it only your tongue, to discuss about ethics?
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-07, 8:25 am |
| Mike Kent schrieb:
> With no rules, you get Hobbes' war of each against all;
Note that it's not "each against all"; most people wouldn't start to
kill each other just because there is no central authority. (The
treatise this concept was published in was written in defence of
monarchy, so it's biased.)
Of course, without a central authority, other things can go wrong.
Coming to think of it: *with* central authority, yet other things can
and do go wrong. Where there's power, it's abused, where there's no
power, people start to accumulate it.
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-07, 8:25 am |
| Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
> If you accept self-ownership and the right to live, then you must
> also accept the right to earn and keep the material means for
> subsistence.
No, I need to accept the right to use the material means for subsistence.
I can imagine a state where there is no property but the state
guarantees that I'll always be able to access these material means.
I'm not sure that such a society is desirable, but it's possible and has
been done (it even worked to some extent).
Regards,
Jo
| |
|
| On Mar 7, 3:00 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
> Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
>
>
>
> No, I need to accept the right to use the material means for subsistence.
> I can imagine a state where there is no property but the state
> guarantees that I'll always be able to access these material means.
> I'm not sure that such a society is desirable, but it's possible and has
> been done (it even worked to some extent).
http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap26sec1.asp
The reason the economy of the Soviet Union "worked" at all is because
they were using price information from the west. (I used to have a
link to a collection of pictures of soviet calculators. It became
apparent from the comments in the blog that most, if not all of the
calculators were just relabeled western calculators.)
Communism in some sense can only exist at the family and tribal level.
This, if you think about it, is the situation in which humans evolved,
which is why people have such a strong instinct to, what I call,
"impose consensus." To the degree that people attempt to impose it at
the level of society, it destroys society.
-thant
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-07, 7:06 pm |
| On Mar 7, 12:00 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
> Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
>
>
>
> No, I need to accept the right to use the material means for subsistence.
> I can imagine a state where there is no property but the state
> guarantees that I'll always be able to access these material means.
It's very off-topic, meanwhile, but let me say that I think that what
you say is logically impossible. For, it is always individuals that
act, even if they do so in the name of an institution. At least the
founders of the institution must have been individuals, and here we
are back to the questions what rights and freedoms a single person
does or does not have (by the will of god, or by logical necessity, as
you prefer). For instance, I might argue, that a person may rightfully
only decide to let the state care about *his* property, not about
soemone else's property.
But if you deny the latter, then everybody could decide about
everybody else's non-property, and this could only lead to chaos, not
to the foundation of a rightfully existing state.
Economically, the idea of "no property" is outright nonsensical. It's
scarcity that demands that someone must decide what to do with a given
goood, since there is not enough there for all thinkable means and
uses.
(Incidentally, this does not apply to software, so I am probably a
software communist also:)
If goods were not scarce, there would be no need for property, indeed,
but also not for a state that distributes things or guaranties access
to material means. The very procedure of distributing or putting to
use something is the essence of ownership in the economic sense. Thus,
in your scenarion, there is not "no property", but property with only
one owner: the state. But, as explained above, the state could never
be the rightful owner of everything, unless everybody agreed that this
should be so.
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:06 pm |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> thant schrieb:
>
> With "not a bad idea" I meant "it's an ethically positive idea", not
> necessarily "an idea that works" (Marxism doesn't work, it's an utopy).
Nor does Ayn Rand capitalism. A modern welfare state actually does
incorporate quite a good part of "everyone according to his needs".
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:06 pm |
|
Thomas Lindgren <***********@*****.***> writes:
> Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:
>
>
> In other words, the sole principle is, you only get to keep what the
> mob lets you keep. That's a great society you've got going there,
> buddy.
Well,
1. I'm not your buddy.
2. "you only get to keep what the mob lets you keep" correctly
describes the states of things in all societies. It is the
collective adherence to agreed law by the others (by whom ever)
that lets YOU keep your stuff. That is simply a fact, because if
the majority in a country would spit upon the law (even a strong
minority) it would simply be impossible to keep up law and order
and finally, property rights.
Why does that annoy you?
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:06 pm |
|
"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:
> On Mar 6, 4:29 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
>
>
> [...]
>
>
> Not based on my understanding of economic conditions in the Soviet
> Union before it finally collapsed.
There is, my friend, a long way from Marx to the "economic conditions
in the Soviet Union before it finally collapsed". The connection to
Marx "To each according to their needs" is quite tenous. I suggest a
good history book.
>
> I do to. But it's up to the individual to decide how best to allocate
> their resources toward goals they value (such as a better society).
No. Since the strong got their resource only by the grace of society,
and seldom discharge their responsibilities voluntarily. What you
preach is basically social Darwinism and we don't want that in alawful
society.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:06 pm |
|
"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:
> On Mar 6, 5:02 am, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> I know these exchanges are wildly unproductive, but the neocons are
> something I've put some effort into trying to understand.
It is perhaps here, that I need to prune trees of topics. That subtree to me
looks especially unmanagable.
> The neocons as a group have their roots in the far left. (That's why
> they're called *neo* conservatives.) They haven't rejected their
Neo isn't quite Gr for "left" ...
Actually we're approaching very slippery ground here, since I what is
called left/right in the US has probably no exact correspondence to
what is called left or right in Germany or other European
countries. I've always harboured the suspicion that it is there where
are lot of misunderstandings about european vs. american politics lie.
So as interesting as I consider american politics, I'm inclined to
just read what you're writing and not to comment it, even if you can
assume that I probably don't agree with it. I've had some experience
with the inside view of party politics, how they see themselves and
the picture they (often honestly without the explicit intention to
decieve) try to project to the outside.
I'm deeply mistrustful about ANY "analysis", either by layman or by
"think tanks" which tries to suggest a big picture. Most attempts end
up as spin, wether that was intented or not.
And since this are probably even more murky waters than the theory
vs. practice discussion, I'm not going into them.
<snipped rest of essay on the neocons movement>
[color=darkred]
> I suppose I should have specified that I'm using the term in the sense
> that John Locke used it, not in the sense that you seem to attribute
> to it.
I'll have to read up Lockes definition, but as I said: There is no
anchor any more (be it nature as for the enlightenment movement, be it
God as for the more traditional theories of state) against which a
natural law concept can be grounded in a post modern society. The
conpet will have to go and to be replaced like something like a
consensus between equals, a social contract by which the rules were
agreed.
This is very democratic, indeed. :-).
>
> Who gets to decide who needs what? Marx brushes all this off because
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Exactly. He doesn't draw your implications: A bit unfair to blame Marx
for a conclusion -- possibly wrong -- you have drawn how the
distribution mechanism should work.
Especially since you critized that "To each according to their needs"
is _absurd, not that you don't see way/algorithm to allocate the
resources according to this maxim.
> in Marxist theory, communism is a state of society in which the wants
> of the individual have become indistinguishable from the common
> interest. The individual has disloved into the collective. Reality
I'm almost sure you're now mixing up Marxism-Leninism with what Marx
(alone) wrote. There is also Trotzkism and Anarchism. It is difficult
to delineate the territories here, but I'd be cautious to lump
everything broadly under "Marxism". People have actually spent a life
time studying history, practice and theory or a political movement
that has for more than a century stamped national and global politics.
If you don't differentiate like that, capitalism, feudalism and
serfdom would also merge to quite the same thing: Which they aren't
and which even Marx (e.g.) doesn't pretend that they are.
What I want to say: It's important to understand nuances. If you
don't, you end up fighting wind mills.
Actually that is where I'd like to make the point that "sw communism"
is not the right label for RMS's stance: "Communism" is a specific
historical movement. Comparing apples with oranges is not totally
wrong (they are both fruit) but ultimately misleading and hinders
undertstanding.
> just doesn't work that way. In reality, it is the State that claims to
> speak for society, and it's the State that uses this claim as an
> excuse to impose a territorial monopoly on the institutuionalized use
> of coercion.
One would mean, that in a democracy the state is actually representing
and executing the will of the people. Do you think that "democracy
doesn't work" ans thus doesn't represent the will of the people or do
you suggest democracy is bad, because (...).
> As for the government's role in providing for the less fortunate, it's
> a con job. Always has been. The politicians will raise minimum wages
> as if they were compassionate heros. But confront them with the fact
> that it's the government's fault that wages have eroded in the first
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^
Really? That would surprise me: Have you ever seen an employer paying
more than he absolutely needs to pay? And don't you think that the
labour market is actually _a market_ so that unemployment (oversupply of
workers) will lead to dropping wages until they can _just barely_
survive in the present?
I could elaborate on that, but I fear it would actually lead too
far. So be warned: Even if you're answering, I'll probably not reply
(but don't let that keep you from correcting my perceptions).
> place, and you're talking to a brick wall.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:07 pm |
|
"thant" <adm@standarddeviance.com> writes:
> www.mises.org/humanaction/chap26sec1.asp
"The Ludwig von Mises Institute is the research and educational
center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and
the Austrian School of economics."
Hardly a neutral source.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:07 pm |
|
"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
> On Mar 6, 10:26 am, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
>
> So you admit, that you have not some natural or intrinsic right to
> defend your opinion, or even a right to have an opinion, unless
> "society" grants it to you?
Basically yes. The problem in building a system of rational ethics is
bootstrapping the axioms without making the word "you have the right"
completely meaningless.
Though I would have prefered the formulation: Society is, what
guarantees me the ability to exercise that right, society protexts
that right.
[color=darkred]
> It is, on the contrary, obvious that your point "no rights unless
> society grants it" is self defeating. If you accept self-ownership and
Interesting point ypu make here: The question is, what "you have the
right" or "the exististence of a right" actually might mean in a
society that doesn't recognize those rights (yet). E.g. I wonder
wether you can say, people in the middle ages or earlier had "the
right to live" since that seems universally not have been absolute:
The death penalty for minor trifles was rather wide spread.
There are perhaps ways out of that bootstrapping dilemma considering
that no cultural matrix is actually homogenous.
I see the problem and reserve judgement here, but still insist that
perhaps the right to live and the right not to suffer bodily harm is
of a higher order than the right to own property (though exactly this
has been handled differently in history more than once: People sent to
death to defend property right).
> the right to live, then you must also accept the right to earn and
> keep the material means for subsistence.
I do not think this does follow. See "property as an allocation
mechnism". If allocation and subsistence can be achieved otherwise --
and alternative allocation mechanisms exist -- they might subsitute
the property concept. We are not all living in the Wild West, you know
.... :-).
> If you do not accept self- ownership and the right to live, then how
> come you dare to use your "property" and be it only your tongue, to
> discuss about ethics?
See above. Property is not a precondition for living and "guarantee
subsistence".
So I dare. (How do you dare to use the word dare in this discussion?
I'm not at all trying to bullshit anyone here, just honestly trying to
reason it out. I'd accept that you insist I'm mistaken, but "dare"?
Well.)
Seriously I'm not feeling well continuing that discussion since (a)
I've no solution to the general problem of bootstrapping a rational
ethics (b) seriously doubt that property is more than a derived value,
but (c) know about the irrational attachment many people show to the
property idea and the fear and irrational behaviour that too often
breaks out if the status of property is (only) even discussed.
(I'm not suggesting that you fall under (c)).
There a way too many possibilities to trip myself up and get myself
overwhelmed by some emotionally dominated counter campaign I wouldn't
be able to handle (esp. since things are so murky in this area). So
I'd prefer to (approximately :-) stop the discussion on "is property a
natural right" here, at least the public part. As opposed to,
e.g. "Mark Haniford", I've no desire to burn my public identiy (yet).
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-07, 7:07 pm |
|
"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
> On Mar 7, 12:00 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
>
> It's very off-topic, meanwhile, but let me say that I think that what
> you say is logically impossible. For, it is always individuals that
> act, even if they do so in the name of an institution. At least the
Which is no contradiction. After all, the government is elected, it
acts for the state. It being composed o individuals doesn't mean they
got society / state as a personal fiefdom and the taxes as personal
property for some years.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-08, 8:07 am |
| On Mar 7, 11:45 am, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
> "Ingo Menger" <quetzalc...@consultant.com> writes:
>
>
>
> Basically yes. The problem in building a system of rational ethics is
> bootstrapping the axioms without making the word "you have the right"
> completely meaningless.
This, indeed, is tricky. But, if you agree, that, in order to find a
system of rational ethics, one first must have the right to speak,
then you're on the right track. Otherwise, you perform a vocal self-
contradiction.
> Though I would have prefered the formulation: Society is, what
> guarantees me the ability to exercise that right, society protexts
> that right.
In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.
>
> Interesting point ypu make here: The question is, what "you have the
> right" or "the exististence of a right" actually might mean in a
> society that doesn't recognize those rights (yet).
The same that "truth" means in a society that doesn't recognize
certain truths (yet), for example, that the earth revolves around the
sun.
> E.g. I wonder
> wether you can say, people in the middle ages or earlier had "the
> right to live" since that seems universally not have been absolute:
> The death penalty for minor trifles was rather wide spread.
The fact that rights can be violated is no more an argument against
their existence than the fact that somebody may say "The earth does
not rotate around the sun." is an argument against that it in fact
does.
>
> I do not think this does follow. See "property as an allocation
> mechnism". If allocation and subsistence can be achieved otherwise --
> and alternative allocation mechanisms exist --
The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
to execute a property right. It's in our world of scarcity not the
question, whether property rights should be executed, but only *who*
executes them. Who comes to dispose about that, what somebody earns,
that is the question.
[color=darkred]
> So I dare.
And, while doing so, you confirm that you dispose about your body as
you will. Fine.
> (How do you dare to use the word dare in this discussion?
Sorry, as non-native english speaker I may have missed some negative
connotation of the word "dare" - I mean it like "doing something
without permission or without being justified".
Of course, you don't need permisssion to speak, not even from society,
that's what I try to explain here, and what you deny. So, by your own
standards, did I, or anybody else that belongs to "society" permit it?
> I'm not at all trying to bullshit anyone here, just honestly trying to
> reason it out. I'd accept that you insist I'm mistaken, but "dare"?
> Well.)
I really didn't mean to insult you.
>
> Seriously I'm not feeling well continuing that discussion since (a)
> I've no solution to the general problem of bootstrapping a rational
> ethics
Ok, and it's not the topic here, also, therefore, you're right, we
should stop it.
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-08, 8:07 am |
| Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
> In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
> exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
> anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
> justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
> ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
> which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
> from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.
Well, a lot of societies are possible. Including some that deny human
rights to all of its members (western medieval society for one example,
where individual rights such as the human rights were far less relevant
than collective rights).
Whether a society is justifiable is a question of what justifications
you accept. Those medieval people had lots of justifications (as have
the Sauds or the Nepalesian king or the South-American Juntas, or any
tyrant of history); it's just that we find these justifications
unacceptable for various reasons.
I.e. you have to go back to first principles somewhere. What do you
think is desirable? Westerners tend to list quite different things than
people in other cultures - though you have to check whom you're talking
with: I'm pretty sure that the desiderata that you hear from a Hindu
Brahman will be quite different from those of a Pariah.
>
> The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
> to execute a property right.
That's a question of definition.
If you mean "individual property", in the sense of a right to exclusive
access that cannot be taken away, just given away voluntarily (e.g. in
exchange for other goods): This kind of right doesn't necessarily exist.
In fact this kind of right wasn't very important in the Middle Ages;
access to commons was far more important.
If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
definition, an act of exercizing property rights.
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Garry Hodgson 2007-03-08, 7:04 pm |
| Ulf Wiger wrote:
> BTW, while googling, I came across the following blog:
>
> http://shelleytherepublican.com/200...y-of-linux.aspx
>
> The article does seem to support the notion that RMS is
> a nut case, and all Linux hackers are a bunch of untrustworthy
> thieves. Personally, I tend to find the argument weakened
> somewhat by some of the other articles by the same blogger,
i don't think you need to go much further than the first line:
"In my first article on Linux, I allerted my fellow conservatives
to the liberalconspiracy that threatens our Nation?s IT Infrastructure."
to realize that the rest is gonna be BS.
----
Garry Hodgson, Senior Software G, AT&T CSO
do for others with no desire of return.
we should all plant some trees
we will never sit under.
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-08, 7:04 pm |
| On Mar 8, 3:05 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
> Ingo Menger schrieb:
>
>
>
>
> Well, a lot of societies are possible. Including some that deny human
> rights to all of its members (western medieval society for one example,
> where individual rights such as the human rights were far less relevant
> than collective rights).
Correct.
> Whether a society is justifiable is a question of what justifications
> you accept.
Correct also. That would be a matter of discussion, right?
And in this discussion, I would note, that the ability to discuss
things must be considered "a first principle" at least, otherwise
people could not even clarify the question what ethical system is
justified.
So, if we need an ethical system in order to prevent that all
conflicts are "solved" by brute force, we are by logical necessity
forced (!) to admit, that the use of the own brain, and tongue and so
on, in short the ownership of the own body (or, as others call it, the
right to live) must be a basic principle of that ethics.
> I.e. you have to go back to first principles somewhere. What do you
> think is desirable? Westerners tend to list quite different things than
> people in other cultures - though you have to check whom you're talking
> with: I'm pretty sure that the desiderata that you hear from a Hindu
> Brahman will be quite different from those of a Pariah.
I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
versa.
>
> That's a question of definition.
> [...]
> If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
> definition, an act of exercizing property rights.
While we were speaking of ethics I assumed of course, that someone who
allocates something has also the power to do so due to (property)
rights and is justified in doing so.
In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage. With
growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
are gone, and for a reason.
Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
last fish may break out.
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-08, 7:04 pm |
| Ingo Menger schrieb:
> On Mar 8, 3:05 pm, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
>
>
> Correct also. That would be a matter of discussion, right?
> And in this discussion, I would note, that the ability to discuss
> things must be considered "a first principle" at least, otherwise
> people could not even clarify the question what ethical system is
> justified.
Oh no. I'm not discussing the issue as a member of a restrictive
society, but as a member of a society that guarantees freedom of speech
and other human rights (well, at least to the extent that I dare write
this *ggg*).
> So, if we need an ethical system in order to prevent that all
> conflicts are "solved" by brute force, we are by logical necessity
> forced (!) to admit, that the use of the own brain, and tongue and so
> on, in short the ownership of the own body (or, as others call it, the
> right to live) must be a basic principle of that ethics.
First, all social systems are based on bodily force. Even in the most
liberal society, if you don't accept the fine, you'll be arrested, and
if you resist arrest, you're bodily forced into arrest. If you use arms
to resist, you may even get shot.
Of course, in western culture, physical force is ultima ratio. Other
societies handle this differently, some of them being remarkably stable
(again, medieval societies had a good deal of violence built into them,
without losing much stability).
So, no, I'm not forced to admit anything. It's more a matter of the
goals a society strives for, and the justification it is willing to
accept, rather than logical consequence.
Of course, if the goal is a society that respects human rights and
grants the right to pursue happiness, then you cannot base it on brute
force (except as ultima ratio). It's the kind of society I have been
living in, and the kind of society I want to continue to live in.
If, on the other hand, the goal is a society that follows the principles
of a specific confession (be it socialism, Christian faith, Muslim
faith, capitalism, or fascism), to the exclusion of personal happiness
and individual human rights, then brute force can be an effective means
of establishing and perpetuating such a society. It would also be a
society I would not want to live in (and I guess most people wouldn't
want to, too).
> I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
> notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
> decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
> versa.
But historically, this has happened, and more than once.
> In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
> a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage.
Oh no, there was a *lot* of conflict about the use of commons. They were
not "free goods" in any sense - they were protected not by property law
(not much of that existed anyway), but by tradition, and woe to those
who dared send their swines into the forest ahead of the proper time!
The full construction was like this:
The land was property of the king, who granted parts of it as fiefdoms
to his followers (and these most definitely did not own the land).
The inhabitants of the land didn't own it, but they had rights to its
use - such as the right to feed their swines in the oak forest, or have
their cattle graze on the meadows. They were also supposed to organize
things so that the land wasn't overused, and established traditions to
do that (I imagine that many of these traditions were established long
before the medieval fief system was introduced).
Nobody in the village had a personal property in the commons. In fact he
couldn't sell these rights - he had the rights to the commons because he
was part of the village. If somebody married into a different village,
he lost all the rights in the old village and gained those in the new
village. (Those who were evicted from their village lost their rights to
any commons.)
No property in the commons. Still, a quite effective system of
regulating the use of the commons.
> With
> growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
> former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
> are gone, and for a reason.
Sure, though growing population is just a small part of it.
Other factors were nobility that was overtaxing land and population to
raise money for wars and personal luxury; a growing consensus that there
should be personal property even in land (something unheard of outside
of the Roman Empire, at least in Europe); possibly others that I don't
recall.
> Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
> development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
> otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
> last fish may break out.
Military action already has happened. More in the form of warships
firing warning shots at fishing boats than real wars, though.
Regards,
Jo
| |
| Ulf Wiger 2007-03-08, 7:04 pm |
| >>>>> "GH" == Garry Hodgson <garry@sage.att.com> writes:
GH> Ulf Wiger wrote:[color=darkred]
GH> i don't think you need to go much further than the first line:
GH> "In my first article on Linux, I allerted my fellow
GH> conservatives to the liberalconspiracy that threatens our
GH> Nation?s IT Infrastructure."
GH> to realize that the rest is gonna be BS.
Just for clarity's sake then - it's not like I had to read
all the articles in order to make up my mind. I was trying
an old Nordic literary style called 'understatement'. (:
BR,
Ulf W
--
Ulf Wiger, Senior Specialist,
/ / / Architecture & Design of Carrier-Class Software
/ / / Team Leader, Software Characteristics
/ / / Ericsson AB, IMS Gateways
| |
|
| I really wanted to try to stay on topic (in the tenuous sense that
copyrights and patents with regard to software are on topic, and
except for the 'neocon' thing, which is just personally important to
me to get the details right on, because they are an incredibly
dangerous lot), but...
On Mar 8, 11:08 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
[...]
> First, all social systems are based on bodily force. Even in the most
> liberal society, if you don't accept the fine, you'll be arrested, and
> if you resist arrest, you're bodily forced into arrest. If you use arms
> to resist, you may even get shot.
We evolved as a species under conditions where we lived together in
small groups. You knew everybody. You stuck with the group because if
you didn't you'd probably die. If you met someone who didn't belong to
the group they were probably part of another group and that group was
probably in direct competition with your group for some natural
resource. Under these conditions, steal your neighbor's teapot and
you'll be tied to a tree and left for the bears. But kill a few
members of the tribe on the river's edge where the best fishing is and
you're a hero.
On to society. Society is any group of people so large that it is
impossible for everybody to know everybody else. Society is about the
ability to establish cultural institutions by which force is avoided.
Once you can do that, you get trade and the division of labor and all
the fantastic wealth benefits that go along with them.
The problem is, within society, there are individuals and groups of
individuals who take parasitical advantage of people's tribal
instincts toward solidarity and altruism within the tribe, especially
when they perceive a threat (real or not) from other tribes. Some of
these parasitites do it subconsciously, and some of them do it
consciously. People occasionally perceive *other* people's religions
or cults as parasitical on the part of their leaders, but the most
blatant and ubiquitous manifestation of this paracitical mechanism is
government.
>
> But historically, this has happened, and more than once.
The point is that rights are something you start out with. The
government might choose to recognize them, or it might deny you them.
But it didn't "grant" them. That's why the U.S. founders described
them as "inalienable."
>
>
> Oh no, there was a *lot* of conflict about the use of commons. [...]
I think that was a part of his point.
-thant
The State, that is the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly, also, it
lies, and the lie that creeps from its mouth is this: "I, the State,
am the People." -- Nietzsche
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> writes:
> Garry Hodgson <garry@sage.att.com> writes:
>
>
> I actually seem to have skipped that part of UW's reply on first
> reading. No I've had a look on the blog entry: ROFL. I wonder wether
> this isn't actually a parody (of the ATDI stance) ...
>
> From the second paragraph:
>
>
> Fact File: What is a Kernel? This component is used for typing in
> simple commands like "dir" and "more". Windows
> has a component called "cmd.exe" which serves a similar
> purpose but comes with better commands. Windows programmers often
> use a modern graphical user interface in preference to a kernel,
> however Linux users do not have this luxuary.
>
> Luxuary? Kernel? Used for typing in? Cmd.exe is a kernel? Better
> commands?
>
> Together with a friend I've been collecting scientific cranks for the
> last 15 years: Always fun. I wonder wether we shouldn't open a new
> wing in our museum ...
>
> (And thanks, UW, for this piece).
D*mn. I shouldn't have replied this fast. This is certainly a
parody. But funny nonetheless: I've heard many of this as serious
propositions, too.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
Garry Hodgson <garry@sage.att.com> writes:
> Ulf Wiger wrote:
>
>
> i don't think you need to go much further than the first line:
>
> "In my first article on Linux, I allerted my fellow conservatives
> to the liberalconspiracy that threatens our Nation?s IT Infrastructure."
>
> to realize that the rest is gonna be BS.
I actually seem to have skipped that part of UW's reply on first
reading. No I've had a look on the blog entry: ROFL. I wonder wether
this isn't actually a parody (of the ATDI stance) ...
From the second paragraph:
Fact File: What is a Kernel? This component is used for typing in
simple commands like "dir" and "more". Windows
has a component called "cmd.exe" which serves a similar
purpose but comes with better commands. Windows programmers often
use a modern graphical user interface in preference to a kernel,
however Linux users do not have this luxuary.
Luxuary? Kernel? Used for typing in? Cmd.exe is a kernel? Better
commands?
Together with a friend I've been collecting scientific cranks for the
last 15 years: Always fun. I wonder wether we shouldn't open a new
wing in our museum ...
(And thanks, UW, for this piece).
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
>
> I don't say it's easy. But I take my chance to counter the relativist
> notion, that rights are somehow what society grants us. And if it
> decides so, then what was right today will be wrong tomorrow and vice
> versa.
So back to the topic of this subthread: You assert that "property" (in
my opinion a concept, not a right, but mever mind) is a natural or
inviolable human right like e.g. the right to live?
(If you don't answer that with "yes" now, I'll accuse you of trying to
create a smoke screen ...)
>
> While we were speaking of ethics I assumed of course, that someone who
> allocates something has also the power to do so due to (property)
> rights and is justified in doing so.
> In the case of the commons, this can most probably be considered to be
> a "free good" as long as there were no conflicts about usage. With
> growing population and more cattle, conflicts indeed arouse, and the
> former commons became a more and more scarce ressource. Today, they
> are gone, and for a reason.
> Our "commons" today is the ocean with the fish in it, and the same
> development occurs. Hopefully, property rights will emerge here soon,
> otherwise, fish populations will be eradicated and even wars about the
> last fish may break out.
So the best way to handle the danger of (air) pollution would be to
make air a property of someone? Or might it be that you're the victim
of the golden hammer syndrome, i.e. since you got a hammer, every
problem must be a nail, or -- since property worked once for a time,
the best strategy is to arrange any processes for decisions humankind
has to make around some concept of property?
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
| "Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
> On Mar 7, 11:45 am, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> This, indeed, is tricky. But, if you agree, that, in order to find a
> system of rational ethics, one first must have the right to speak,
> then you're on the right track. Otherwise, you perform a vocal self-
> contradiction.
1. I did never deny the right to speak -- why do you think so?
2. Important to bootstrap a system of rational ethics (or any attempt
to change society) are possibilities / opportunities to speak, not
just "to have the right".
3. Formulating a right to speak and building in safe guards that this
rights are respected would make a system of rational ethics self
stabilizing in practice. But certainly you can try to reason about
ethical systems that don't contain the right to speak.
[color=darkred]
> In that case we'd have the problem of finding out what society is,
> exactly, and how comes it is in the position to allow or deny
> anything. Especially, if a society is logically possible and
> justifiable, that chooses to deny for example, free speech, work for
> ones own subsistence, etc. We might find, that this is not the case,
> which would reaffirm the cause that these rights are not merely gifts
> from the ohh so benevolent Great Society.
Fine -- what is your alternative? Leiving in the woods and being
strong, thus physically defending your rights against everyone else?
I'm a bit surprised about your negative reading of the term
society. To me, homo sapiens is a social creature and actually that is
what distinguished homo sapiens from pure animals, the amount and
deepness of social interaction. Thinking homo sapiens without society
-- that is inhuman.
[color=darkred]
> The same that "truth" means in a society that doesn't recognize
> certain truths (yet), for example, that the earth revolves around the
> sun.
Well, as I'm a postmodernist, this IS an interesting comparison: What
is truth? In a world were everything is interpretation and "in reality"
nothing exists as we percieve it (see Quantum mechanics).
You just subtitutes one problem against another. Recurring tu "truth"
or "reality" doesn't help in this case. Reality as a common
inter-subjective consensus is a moving target (though not necessarily
arbitrarily malleable by the individual: Just to make that point
before we follow that particular red herring).
[color=darkred]
> The fact that rights can be violated is no more an argument against
> their existence than the fact that somebody may say "The earth does
> not rotate around the sun." is an argument against that it in fact
> does.
Well. "exist" and "had" are highly problematic word here. may I refer
you to Bishop Berkeley and the tree falling in the wood where nobody
hears it: Does it make noise? The same idea, even more so, applies to
"having" an immaterial right or to this right "existing" in any sense.
[color=darkred]
> The very act of "allocating something" is actually nothing more than
> to execute a property right. It's in our world of scarcity not the
That is where the "propertist" make their mistake: Property is a very
special allocation scheme, a point I tried to make in my post about
food rationing in this very thread. There are other allocation schemes
that might e.g. give you only the right to do certain things with
something, but not everything.
> question, whether property rights should be executed, but only *who*
> executes them. Who comes to dispose about that, what somebody earns,
> that is the question.
No, that is not the question. Not before we haven't accepted the
classical property concept as an axiom. And wether this (classical
property concept) is the only imaginable allocation mechanism is the
topic of this thread.
>
[color=darkred]
> And, while doing so, you confirm that you dispose about your body as
> you will. Fine.
??
I'm a bit  : Because I move my body as I can (not as I would
like to ...) I'm obligate to accept (classical) property as a
ressource allocation mechanism, accept a specific monetary system,
accept capitalism? Whereas I have not real problem with all those in
the context of this rather theoretical discussion, your reasoning
seems to be bit flawed. And BTW: A body is not a thing.
[color=darkred]
> Sorry, as non-native english speaker I may have missed some negative
> connotation of the word "dare" - I mean it like "doing something
> without permission or without being justified".
I'm non-native too. Sounded like "what ch you have" to me. Never
mind, obviously it was not meant like this.
> Of course, you don't need permisssion to speak, not even from society,
But I have. And to continue speaking one needs to have the society
tolerate you speech, the fact that you speak. If speaaking freely
would be the natural state of things, neither the Roman empire nor the
middle ages would have happened, would they? The fact that democracy
is relatively new indicates very well that speaking freely is not
natural at all, specifically, sanctioning people who speak "wrongly"
is still the norm: Be it in the family or at the work place.
> that's what I try to explain here, and what you deny. So, by your own
> standards, did I, or anybody else that belongs to "society" permit it?
Obviously. You tolerate it, you find it Ok that I speak. Please not
that I did never use the explicit "permit" in my original reasoning,
so my impression is, you're twisting my argument somewhat. And BTW
we're now discussing a straw man: Another topic, even if somehow
related.
>
>
> I really didn't mean to insult you.
OK, I understand. Sorry.
[color=darkred]
> Ok, and it's not the topic here, also, therefore, you're right, we
> should stop it.
Oops too late :-).
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
>
> That's a question of definition.
>
> If you mean "individual property", in the sense of a right to
> exclusive access that cannot be taken away, just given away
> voluntarily (e.g. in exchange for other goods): This kind of right
> doesn't necessarily exist. In fact this kind of right wasn't very
> important in the Middle Ages; access to commons was far more important.
Yep. I'd like to support that. The means of substistence to
e.g. monastries was (later?) often not that they owned forests, rivers
etc but rather that they had the right to fish or the right to cut
wood to a certain extend and so on.
> If you mean "power to allocate", well, then allocation is, by
> definition, an act of exercizing property rights.
No. Allocation is the act of exercizing right to
use. Fullstop. Property is the right to exercise all imaginable rights
on the things you own.
I notice that the "propertists" in this discussion seem to deny that
something like a software license even exists or can be put to any use
....
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
| On Mar 8, 4:24 pm, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
> No. Allocation is the act of exercizing right to
> use.
This exactly *is* the essence of property right. Use it at your will.
> I notice that the "propertists" in this discussion seem to deny that
> something like a software license even exists or can be put to any use
> ...
Yes, this is so as far as it concerns me.
Basically, the original CD (or whatever medium) is not destroyed by
copying it. No harm is done to the owner of the CD as his property is
physically unaltered.
Contracts about software use are a different matter. It is not
justified to copy something, when I have agreed not to do so as a
condition of receiving the SW in the first place.
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
| On Mar 8, 7:32 pm, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
> "Ingo Menger" <quetzalc...@consultant.com> writes:
>
>
> So back to the topic of this subthread: You assert that "property" (in
> my opinion a concept, not a right, but mever mind) is a natural or
> inviolable human right like e.g. the right to live?
>
> (If you don't answer that with "yes" now, I'll accuse you of trying to
> create a smoke screen ...)
You don't need to. You hit the nail on the head.
>
> So the best way to handle the danger of (air) pollution would be to
> make air a property of someone?
No, this is not needed at all, since air is really a free good.
If air is polluted, then this will have consequences for someone
else's proberty (for example, for your health). Thus, air must not be
polluted. He who nevertheless wants or needs to do so needs the
consent of all victims. Most probably, he'll have to pay them
something in exchange. Today, a system of (tradeable) emission quotas
for various pollutants is emerging that subsumes the millions of tiny
transactions that would otherwise be necessary to make good all
damages.
> the best strategy is to arrange any processes for decisions humankind
> has to make around some concept of property?
Humankind has no decisions to make. Humankind is an abstract concept
in your head, but it hardly has itself a head and a brain :)
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
> On Mar 8, 4:24 pm, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
>
> This exactly *is* the essence of property right. Use it at your will.
Sorry to contradict: Property grants you all sorts of right. A right
to use something in _one_ specific way doesn't make it your
property. Property is far more than allocating a right to do something
with a thing. It's allocating all rights.
It's thos logical difference the last 3-4 mails in this thread have been about.
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
"Ingo Menger" <quetzalcotl@consultant.com> writes:
> On Mar 8, 4:24 pm, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>
>
> This exactly *is* the essence of property right. Use it at your will.
>
>
> Yes, this is so as far as it concerns me.
> Basically, the original CD (or whatever medium) is not destroyed by
> copying it. No harm is done to the owner of the CD as his property is
> physically unaltered.
> Contracts about software use are a different matter. It is not
> justified to copy something, when I have agreed not to do so as a
> condition of receiving the SW in the first place.
So there are allocation+regulation mechanisms different from the
property concept?
Regards -- Markus
| |
| Ingo Menger 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
| On Mar 9, 1:45 pm, Markus E Leypold
<development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
> "Ingo Menger" <quetzalc...@consultant.com> writes:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> So there are allocation+regulation mechanisms different from the
> property concept?
Different, sure. But based on it.
Basically, you can offer a contract only about your things.
| |
| Joachim Durchholz 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
| thant schrieb:
> I really wanted to try to stay on topic (in the tenuous sense that
> copyrights and patents with regard to software are on topic, and
> except for the 'neocon' thing, which is just personally important to
> me to get the details right on, because they are an incredibly
> dangerous lot), but...
>
> On Mar 8, 11:08 am, Joachim Durchholz <j...@durchholz.org> wrote:
>
> [...]
>
>
> We evolved as a species under conditions where we lived together in
> small groups. You knew everybody. You stuck with the group because if
> you didn't you'd probably die.
Agreed - though we'd be best advised to tread cautiously here. We don't
really know very much about how the average stone-age human lived.
> If you met someone who didn't belong to the group they were probably
> part of another group and that group was probably in direct
> competition with your group for some natural resource. Under these
> conditions, steal your neighbor's teapot and you'll be tied to a tree
> and left for the bears. But kill a few members of the tribe on the
> river's edge where the best fishing is and you're a hero.
Becoming hero for that might be one outcome.
Becoming a villain might be another one.
Though most would agree that the kill threshold is indeed far lower when
it comes to members of a different tribe.
> On to society. Society is any group of people so large that it is
> impossible for everybody to know everybody else. Society is about the
> ability to establish cultural institutions by which force is avoided.
> Once you can do that, you get trade and the division of labor and all
> the fantastic wealth benefits that go along with them.
>
> The problem is, within society, there are individuals and groups of
> individuals who take parasitical advantage of people's tribal
> instincts toward solidarity and altruism within the tribe, especially
> when they perceive a threat (real or not) from other tribes.
This happens even within a tribe where everybody knows everybody else.
I see a lot of reasons why a large society cannot be organized like a
tribe, but this is not one of them.
> Some of
> these parasitites do it subconsciously, and some of them do it
> consciously. People occasionally perceive *other* people's religions
> or cults as parasitical on the part of their leaders, but the most
> blatant and ubiquitous manifestation of this paracitical mechanism is
> government.
Another form is the way that multinational corporations operate. They
routinely and consciously break all rules that they can break and get
away with; whether a particular rule was introduced for parasitic
purposes or for the common good doesn't even enter into this strategy (I
don't mind if a corporation ignores censoring laws, but I do object if
they dump nuclear waste into the open).
Government is like all organized large groups: sometimes it helps, and
sometimes it does bad things.
The question is not whether there should be government at all (you need
some kind of government, as a balance against commercial and power
interests), the real question is what rules a government should be bound by.
>
> The point is that rights are something you start out with. The
> government might choose to recognize them, or it might deny you them.
Having a right is rather irrelevant if it isn't recognized (whether it's
government, a corporate bully or the street gang next door is rather
irrelevant if they kill you despite your right to live).
> But it didn't "grant" them. That's why the U.S. founders described
> them as "inalienable."
That's just a definition game.
What counts is what rules you can rely on.
Saying "X has right Y" is just a shorthand "there's a social rule that X
can enforce that Y is applied in his favor". So rights aren't givens,
they are defined only in a given social context.
Or, put another way: if you are caught and eaten by cannibals, it's a
rather academic question whether your right to life was born with you or
granted by anybody - those cannibals simply don't care.
If you get eaten by a tiger or overrun by a flood, you won't even get to
argue about your rights.
Regards,
Jo
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| Markus E Leypold 2007-03-09, 8:05 am |
|
Joachim Durchholz <jo@durchholz.org> writes:
> thant schrieb:
>
> Agreed - though we'd be best advised to tread cautiously here. We
> don't really know very much about how the average stone-age human
> lived.
And we certainly don't want to treat it as a pattern for future
development. It is specifically human to transcencend the origin of
the species and strive to become something better.
Regards -- Markus
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