Why Should We Care About Property Rights?

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Caros: May 14, 2008

CommieGIR posted:

And now we await Jrods return.

I think we just got drive by Libertarianism'ed.

I have to admit that this seems pretty mellow by his usual standard. Last time he posted a thread like this he had something like 52 posts in a day. One part of me wants to think he's cooling off... the other read his OP again and thinks maybe not so much.

# ? Oct 11, 2015 06:25

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# ? Apr 16, 2024 21:45

jrodefeld: Sep 22, 2012; by Shine

team overhead smash posted:

As everyone else has mentioned your post is all over the place and doesn't clearly answer any questions. But to try to answer in good faith, I think the problem is that for a lot of this you seem to have these unrealistic ideological tenets that you hold to without having thought them through.

Take your criticism of democracy and collective ownership, where in a single paragraph you try to do away with both concepts. You state that it can't work because "If all workers owned factories together, endless meetings and deliberations would be required to make any decisions about the use of capital and production." The problem is, we know this isn't true because there are plenty of collectively owned businesses and strange as it may seem, they decided to set up their businesses in a manner which wasn't really obviously stupid. Take the John Lewis Partnership in the UK where I'm from. They're an employee owned co-operative with tens of thousands of employees and they work just fine.

I also think you're either mistaken on your economic history or getting confused between laissez-faire economic policies and a welfare state. The USA and other developing countries were notably protectionist during their period of industrialisation and growth. For over a century from 1816 to 1945 the USA had one of the highest tariff rates on manufacturing imports in the world, which combined with the natural protection due to high shipping costs from the rest of the world meant that the USA's developing industry's were perhaps the most protected of any country. Not just the USA either. For instance the UK during its period of development made plenty of use of export subsidies, import tariff rebates on inputs used for exporting, etc that we saw being used post WW2 in the East Asian countries.

In fact you seem to miss the point communal and socialist policies. When you bring up a person in starving in Africa who has a loaf of break the only two choices you think are available are leaving him with the bread or taking some of his bread. You don't see that the kind of policies you are railing against do not see either choice as acceptable, with the option of "Tax some rich fucker a bit more money and pay for this poor starving guy to have two loaves of bread and some chicken, some clean water, healthcare and education for his children" being the preferred go to option. The only reason the poor starving man ends up worse in your example is because you misrepresent what people want and how they would go about it.

Generally your entire approach reminds me of Adam Smith's land of barter, an ideological conceit based on no knowledge of the facts which falls apart as soon as you look at it.

The issue I am trying to get across is that if you took a situation where humans are suffering in abject poverty and starvation in a third world African country and your solution is simply for them to implement redistributive policies that take the wealth of the dictator and the (relatively speaking) "wealthy" and divided that money between the poor people of that country, you would have hardly helped anyone. Redistributing wealth in a tiny pie where there is not much wealth to go around skirts the real issue. Yes, if tyrants run your government and hoard all the wealth that does exist, they can seem relatively comfortable. And there is no question they ought to be ousted from power and are clearly exploiters of the poor and everyone else who isn't a member of the dictator's regime.

What needs to be done then is for such an African country to implement wise reforms which enable the internal wealth of the society to expand. History teaches that for prosperity to be generated most effectively, certain features must apply to the system of government a society chooses. In the first place, property rights must be legally recognized and arbitration of disputes must be based on these rights. If people are constantly fearing for their lives or afraid of thieves, then needless to say they won't save much money. Second, the money itself must be relatively stable. This doesn't have to be a hard money standard per se, although the libertarians would make the case that that would be best, but it surely cannot be a Zimbabwe style inflation machine where the currency loses value at a rapid pace. And Third, the State must be kept to a minimum, keeping the peace but staying out of the affairs of the private economy allowing entrepreneurs to set up and establish businesses quickly without interference.

This doesn't have to be some libertarian anarchist paradise, but the last half century has taught us (some of us at least) that liberal reforms of previously authoritarian nations have lead to drastic reductions in poverty and the creation of considerable wealth and middle classes. Look at the example of Hong Kong and how it compared to Mainland China for one example. The more economic freedom a nation has, the more prosperity can be generated.

The reason people are starving in places like Africa is that they lack the sort of economies and political policies that allow them to produce enough goods and services to effectively feed their populations. Just taking money from richer people and giving it to poorer people in Africa doesn't solve this essential problem.

Even Foreign Aid has proved disastrous. It would be better in the long run to teach people in the Third World about free market economics and private property where they can reform their societies along the lines of laissez-faire and follow the example of Hong Kong and other small nations who grew very wealthy even surrounded by authoritarian States.

Let me clarify one thing though. I don't oppose collective ownership of businesses if they are voluntarily formed. I recognize that peaceful collectives can function well in some circumstances. But taking an anecdote and extrapolating it out to how an entire economy might function if ALL businesses where democratically controlled and collectively owned is beyond foolish. I shop at a health food co-op and it is great, but do I think this is how a business like Google should operate? Of course not! Employees at Google might have some fantastic ideas but if they are unsatisfied with the decisions made by the board of directors and CEO, then they can break away and start their own business based on their own ideas, risking their own capital. And this happens all the time.

I can't believe that you don't think that having to achieve democratic consensus for every single business decision would not slow down decision making and make the market inefficient. In the first place, what would make you think that every employee SHOULD have a say in decisions about how the business should be run? As an employee, you might know how to do a few specific tasks well, but are you going to have any educated idea about how to compete against Microsoft in the market? Which advertisement campaign is market tested and most efficient?

There is a division of labor in the economy, and successful businesses hire specific marketing research people to help the ownership make important decisions about the company. And VERY successful businesses are headed by CEOs who are often visionary and uniquely gifted in anticipating consumer demand. What if Steve Jobs decided to democratically survey each and every Apple employee and go with whatever the majority wanted when designing the iPhone?

It doesn't make any sense.

If people want to voluntarily form co-operatives in the free market, that is perfectly fine. Up to a certain scale they can work reasonably well, and in some sectors of the economy better than others. But the impetus behind much of leftism is the notion that the entrepreneur/employee relationship is either inherently exploitative or someway or another seriously defective and should be generally looked upon with suspicion is what I am opposing.

# ? Oct 11, 2015 07:41

BENGHAZI 2: Oct 13, 2007; by Cyrano4747

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A Huge Misogynist posted: