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[Night Angel]

Why is it his to decide in the first place? What gives him a right to force me out if I can't pay? By what right does he have property? It is only his because we decide it is his.

I stay there because I need a home, he profits off of this for work he's never done. What makes the land his? He didn't create it. Neither did the person he bought it from.

So you should be able to live anywhere you want but no one is allowed to own anything.

Mind if I move in with you rent free? What right have you to deny me?

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

There are plenty of homes. Why do you have to stay in his? Surely you can find another home to house you for free?

He doesn't live in the house and he didn't build it or the land it sits on, so why is it his to grant permission in to begin with?

 

[CornBurrito]

There are plenty of homes. Why do you have to stay in his? Surely you can find another home to house you for free?

And get arrested by the police for squatting on unused land.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

So you should be able to live anywhere you want but no one is allowed to own anything.

Mind if I move in with you rent free? What right have you to deny me?

If there's a house I and no one else am living in, I'd welcome you to stay there. What right do I have to deny you that?

 

[kirblar]

He doesn't live in the house and he didn't build it or the land it sits on, so why is it his to grant permission in to begin with?

Because he traded for it or was gifted it. Someone needs to be in charge of maintaining property.

Why should you be able to live anywhere you want?

 

[Night Angel]

If there's a house I and no one else am living in, I'd welcome you to stay there. What right do I have to deny you that?

So if I go to your house while you're at work and get myself settled, I'm good, yeah?

 

[iamblades]

Why is it his to decide in the first place? What gives him a right to force me out if I can't pay? By what right does he have property? It is only his because we decide it is his.

I stay there because I need a home, he profits off of this for work he's never done. What makes the land his? He didn't create it. Neither did the person he bought it from.

He owns that land because he has mixed his labor with it in making improvements to it, even if he bought the land and paid people to build on it, the money that was used for the purchase is a result of his prior labor, or the labor of someone who gave it to him.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

No

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

He owns that land because he has mixed his labor with it in making improvements to it, even if he bought the land and paid people to build on it, the money that was used for the purchase is a result of his prior labor, or the labor of someone who gave it to him.

I used to think Locke had it right but it doesn't make sense to me now. The land my landlord holds came from conquest and blood, he doesn't own it because of his mixed labor but because of violence, and the labor he "paid" for came under threat of starvation through violence. He now profits because of the exploitation and blood of others.

 

[Night Angel]

I used to think Locke had it right but it doesn't make sense to me now. The land my landlord holds came from conquest and blood, he doesn't own it because of his mixed labor but because of violence, and the labor he "paid" for came under threat of starvation through violence. He now profits because of the exploitation and blood of others.

Is your landlord an immortal vampire?

Like, are you being serious?

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Is your landlord an immortal vampire?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

 

[Night Angel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

So why are you OK with living in his house that was stolen via conquest? You're benefiting from said bloodshed, aintcha? Also, note that these events took place well over a human lifetime ago.

More to the point, you can probably tie any property in most of the world to past aggression. Should no one own anything? Should everyone be able to freely choose where they can live at any time? How does your utopia work, exactly? Who is building houses for anyone to just walk into?

 

[iamblades]

I used to think Locke had it right but it doesn't make sense to me now. The land my landlord holds came from conquest and blood, he doesn't own it because of his mixed labor but because of violence, and the labor he "paid" for came under threat of starvation through violence. He now profits because of the exploitation and blood of others.

I agree with Mises and Rothbard regarding this issue:

Today we can no longer accept these views, for the assumptions with which we approach the problem have changed. To us the idea of a human nature which differs fundamentally from the nature of all other living creatures seems strange indeed; we no longer think of man as a being who has harboured an idea of justice from the beginning. But if, perhaps, we offer no answer to the question how Law arose, we must still make it clear that it could not have arisen legally. Law cannot have begot itself of itself. Its origin lies beyond the legal sphere. In complaining that Law is nothing more or less than legalized injustice, one fails to perceive that it could only be otherwise if it had existed from the very beginning. If it is supposed to have arisen once, then that which at that moment became Law could not have been Law before. To demand that Law should have arisen legally is to demand the impossible. Whoever does so applies to something standing outside the legal order a concept valid only within the order.

We who only see the effect of Law—which is to make peace—must realize that it could not have originated except through a recognition of the existing state of affairs, however that has arisen. Attempts to do otherwise would have renewed and perpetuated the struggle. Peace can come about only when we secure a momentary state of affairs from violent disturbance and make every future change depend upon the consent of the person involved. This is the real significance of the protection of existing rights, which constitutes the kernel of all Law.

It might be charged that our theory of justice in property titles is deficient because in the real world most landed (and even other) property has a past history so tangled that it becomesimpossible to identify who or what has committed coercion and therefore who the current just owner may be. But the point of the ”homestead principle" is that if we don't know what crimes have been committed in acquiring the property in the past, or if we don't know the victims or their heirs, then the current owner becomes the legitimate and just owner on homestead grounds. In short, if Jones owns a piece of land at the present time, and we don't know what crimes were committed to arrive at the current title, then Jones, as the current owner, becomes as fully legitimate a property owner of this land as he does over his own person. Overthrow of existing property title only becomes legitimate if the victims or their heirs can present an authenticated, demonstrable, and specific claim to the property. Failing such conditions, existing landowners possess a fully moral right to their property.

Law can not correct for all history. To attempt to do so requires injustice on a grand scale.

 

[CornBurrito]

Because he traded for it or was gifted it. Someone needs to be in charge of maintaining property.

Why should you be able to live anywhere you want?

Traded whom? Gifted by whom?

And who gave the property/the right to it to that original person?

 

[Giant Panda]

So if Capitalism isn't the problem, then why does it need to be regulated?

Based on all the responses here I'm frankly baffled that people would consider Neogaf as some kind of bastion of the left. US based 'liberals' I would generally consider to be center left or dead on center if you go off of all those threads about minimum wage and healthcare funding.

The left in America does not exist and it's easy to come to that realization when people conflate socialism with authoritarian regimes in this forum.

All socialism means is that the workers own the means of production, and there are various ways in which that can happen democratically.

Enforcing only workers owning meaning of production would entail a large and highly interfering government that banned people from owning vast varieties of assets. It would require the banning of many transactions between two voluntary participants. That sounds highly authoritarian to me.

 

[CornBurrito]

Enforcing only workers owning meaning of production would entail a large and highly interfering government that banned people from owning vast varieties of assets. It would require the banning of many transactions between two voluntary participants. That sounds highly authoritarian to me.

By any chance do you believe in climate change and the need for large-scale government intervention across multiple developed nations?

 

[The Technomancer]

I'm pretty for an increased public ownership of rentable property, does someone have a good counterargument for why this would be terrible?

 

[iamblades]

By any chance do you believe in climate change and the need for large-scale government intervention across multiple developed nations?

Yes and no, but pretty much everyone is in agreement on that latter point, which is why there has been no large scale government intervention aside from giant subsidies for wind and solar power.

If there is a solution it will come from technology and geo-engineering, not some large scale government intervention in the economy at large, because short of murdering 3/4 of the earths population, that ship has sailed.

No government on earth is going to be willing to force it's citizens to make the kinds of sacrifices that would be necessary to actually limit greenhouse gasses. Least of all socialist countries, which haven't had the best track record on environmental issues historically speaking.

I'm pretty for an increased public ownership of rentable property, does someone have a good counterargument for why this would be terrible?

Oh, the entire history of public housing projects anywhere in the world?

To be serious though, housing is one area where I think government can have a role to some degree, because on a consequentialist level, the costs of dealing with homelessness are well in excess of actually just providing the housing. The government makes a shitty landlord though, it should just give ownership of properties to people so they have incentives to maintain it.

A good example of this: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/half-a-house/

Needless to say these homes probably aren't going to be located in manhattan or SF though.

 

[kirblar]

I'm pretty for an increased public ownership of rentable property, does someone have a good counterargument for why this would be terrible?

It generally ends up with a bunch of poor people ghettoized in projects. Encouraging construction and increasing housing subsidies are a much better solution.

 

[Glass Shark]

Who would make video games in a non-capitalist society?

I think I would be okay with not having a new multi-billion dollar Call of Duty game every year if my family and loved ones never had to worry about food, shelter, clothing, or healthcare ever again.

 

[KingSnake]

I think I would be okay with not having a new multi-billion dollar Call of Duty game every year if my family and loved ones never had to worry about food, shelter, clothing, or healthcare ever again.

So your ideal society covers just the minimal needs of everybody?

Edit: also, it was an answer to a specific scenarios that was talking about the game development environment, not a petty complain.

 

[Giant Panda]

By any chance do you believe in climate change and the need for large-scale government intervention across multiple developed nations?

The only government intervention needed is a carbon tax or cap and trade system. Funding R&D is fine too.

 

[CornBurrito]

The only government intervention needed is a carbon tax or cap and trade system. Funding R&D is fine too.

Where's your proof for this?

The goal right now is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius which will still be devastating to millions.

What is more likely to happen is an increase of anywhere from 2-4C.

 

[CornBurrito]

It generally ends up with a bunch of poor people ghettoized in projects. Encouraging construction and increasing housing subsidies are a much better solution.

Much better for those poor people to just be homeless.

 

[travisbickle]

So your ideal society covers just the minimal needs of everybody?

That would be pretty good, wouldn't it. Currently, we seem to be arguing which society creates the least homelessness/hunger.

 

[CornBurrito]

That would be pretty good, wouldn't it. Currently, we seem to be arguing which society creates the least homelessness/hunger.

Kingsnake wants A Call of Duty game every year even if it means ~18,000 children die each day of completely treatable illness that they cannot afford to treat.

He's fine with it so long as he doesn't need to see the suffering required for his life of luxury.

 

[Guileless]

When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake

A post earlier this year on Houston’s Reddit that mentioned late Russian president Boris Yeltsin’s wide-eyed trip to a Clear Lake grocery store led to a trip to the Houston Chronicle archives, where a batch of photos of the leader were found.

It was September 16, 1989 and Yeltsin, then newly elected to the new Soviet parliament and the Supreme Soviet, had just visited Johnson Space Center.

At JSC, Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location.

Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”

Yeltsin asked customers about what they were buying and how much it cost, later asking the store manager if one needed a special education to manage a store. In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops.

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. You can blame those frozen Jell-O Pudding pops.

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

 

[CornBurrito]

When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake

As bad as the USSR was, it lifted Russia out of developing nation status and made it a world power with enough clout to rival the US.

Oh also this is a bread line in the US:

And there's food insecurity in the US as well.

 

[kirblar]

Much better for those poor people to just be homeless.

Yes, my desire for greater social welfare benefits delivered through a method that helps mix them into existing neighborhoods instead of isolating then sure means i want to see people homeless.

Fucking hell.

 

[CornBurrito]

Yes, my desire for greater social welfare benefits delivered through a method that helps mix them into existing neighborhoods instead of isolating then sure means i want to see people homeless.

I sincerely don't believe you.

 

[The Technomancer]

I sincerely don't believe you.

That's not fair

EDIT: No seriously this is a real problem I'm having with a lot of "far left" folks at this moment: everyone who does not agree with you already cannot be arguing in bad faith and secretly wants to let poor people starve. This jaded, cynical, defensiveness that is quick to break out snarky memes and sarcasm "because why bother engaging with the neoliberals who just want to watch the babies die amirite?" is seriously fucking offputting

 

[CornBurrito]

That's not fair

EDIT: No seriously this is a real problem I'm having with a lot of "far left" folks at this moment: everyone who does not agree with you already cannot be arguing in bad faith and secretly wants to let poor people starve. This jaded, cynical, defensiveness that is quick to break out snarky memes and sarcasm "because why bother engaging with the neoliberals who just want to watch the babies die amirite?" is seriously fucking offputting

When the dude says "There are plenty of homes. Why do you have to stay in his? Surely you can find another home to house you for free?"

I can't help but think they don't actually care about housing someone.

 

[The Technomancer]

When the dude says "There are plenty of homes. Why do you have to stay in his? Surely you can find another home to house you for free?"

I can't help but think they don't actually care about housing someone.

It was an (admittedly sarcastic) response to the idea that housing is beyond having value

 

[kirblar]

When the dude says "There are plenty of homes. Why do you have to stay in his? Surely you can find another home to house you for free?"

I can't help but think they don't actually care about housing someone. It's so out of tune with reality.

Because Bonen wants other people to build houses and provide him food while he provides nothing in return.

I do not care that Bonen doesn't want to pay rent out of some absurd principle that private property is immoral.

I am not saying that we should not provide people with housing. I am saying thay the expectation that someone should be able to stay wherever they want rent free is ridiculous and comes off as an attempt to rationalize Rocket Raccoons speech at the end of GOTG1. We can provide people with shelter while also compensating those who provide it!

 

[CornBurrito]

Because Bonen wants other people to build houses and provide him food while he provides nothing in return.

I do not care that Bonen doesn't want to pay rent out of some absurd principle that private property is immoral.

Was the conquest of the Native Americans not immoral?

 

[CornBurrito]

It was an (admittedly sarcastic) response to the idea that housing is beyond having value

Food and medicine have value too.

I still expect those to be provided to people who cannot afford it. I expect housing to be available to those who cannot afford it as well.

 

[The Technomancer]

In the sense that housing still has value the idea of paying rent is one I accept

However the profits generated off of rent often highly exceed the maintenance of rentable property, and its true that the distribution of land ownership is pretty arbitrary based on history

Hence why public ownership of rent, with profits towards public services, is something I would be interested in.

The problem, of course, is how one solves the issues that face what we currently consider "public housing"

 

[kirblar]

Was the conquest of the Native Americans not immoral?

Do you have a time machine?

I'm all for increased support for them in the current day, but deal with the world as it is, not as you wish history had played out.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Do you have a time machine?

I'm all for increased support for them in the current day, but deal with the world as it is, not as you wish history had played out.

how can anyone reasonably claim to own land in North America unless they're Native Americans?

 

[The Technomancer]

Food and medicine have value too.

I still expect those to be provided to people who cannot afford it. I expect housing to be available to those who cannot afford it as well.

I don't think any of us actually disagree with that. Agreement with this idea cannot take the form of "via the abolition of private property or else nothing is acceptable"

 

[CornBurrito]

Do you have a time machine?

No.

But what gives the government the right to sell someone a piece of land in the first place? Personally I'd be fine with "if you aren't actively using or living on a plot of land, you do not own it". There's real harm in foreign entities buying up properties in countries they don't live in and will never even visit simply for the sake of profit.

I'm for squatters being able to squat in unused property for example.

 

[CornBurrito]

I don't think any of us actually disagree with that. Agreement with this idea cannot take the form of "via the abolition of private property or else nothing is acceptable"

Agreement with the idea also cannot take the form of "sorry, you'll have to find someone willing to house you for free. I will not be responsible for any other man and I do not expect any other man to be responsible for me."

Kirblar seems entirely opposed to public housing. What is his actual solution for housing the homeless? These are people who cannot afford rent, and likely do not have the ability to land a job with high enough pay to afford current rents. "Build more houses and rents will hopefully fall enough!" isn't a solution. We already have enough homes available. Providing the homeless with PREEXISTING homes has been tried already and actually been found to be successful, or at least more successful than keeping them on the streets while the free market sorts itself.

"Because Bonen wants other people to build houses and provide him food while he provides nothing in return." sounds a lot like the current Republican rhetoric for slashing welfare benefits. Lazy parasites want food off the taxpayers tit.

 

[The Technomancer]

Agreement with the idea also cannot take the form of "sorry, you'll have to find someone willing to house you for free. I will not be responsible for any other man and I do not expect any other man to be responsible for me."

Kirblar seems entirely opposed to public housing. What is his actual solution for housing the homeless? These are people who cannot afford rent, and likely do not have the ability to land a job with high enough pay to afford current rents.

"Because Bonen wants other people to build houses and provide him food while he provides nothing in return." sounds a lot like the current Republican rhetoric for slashing welfare benefits. Lazy parasites want food off the taxpayers tit.

Kirblar's point is not, I believe, that people who are housed must pay, but that people who provide housing deserve compensation. Now I'm not sure if I fully disagree with that but it is not a call for the eviction of the poor

 

[CornBurrito]

Kirblar's point is not, I believe, that people who are housed must pay, but that people who provide housing deserve compensation. Now I'm not sure if I fully disagree with that but it is not a call for the eviction of the poor

We're reading him differently than.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Kirblar's point is not, I believe, that people who are housed must pay, but that people who provide housing deserve compensation. Now I'm not sure if I fully disagree with that but it is not a call for the eviction of the poor

The conclusion then, however, is that other people's property rights should be infringed upon to maintain the landlord's property rights. If I'm sucking from the taxpayer's teat to pay my rents, then that's just shifting whose property rights are infringed upon.

Positive rights and property rights are inherently antagonistic.

 

[The Technomancer]

The conclusion then, however, is that other people's property rights should be infringed upon to maintain the landlord's property rights. If I'm sucking from the taxpayer's teat to pay my rents, then that's just shifting whose property rights are infringed upon.

Positive rights and property rights are inherently antagonistic.

I mean we're capable of finding one set of infringements (taxation) acceptable and another (abolition of property ownership) not? The idea of "property rights" lacks ideological consistency for me to consider that hypocrisy, to me its literally a matter of "what will people accept", and "you can't own property anymore' seems like a bitter pill to swallow

 

[CornBurrito]

I mean we're capable of finding one set of infringements (taxation) acceptable and another (abolition of property ownership) not? The idea of "property rights" lacks ideological consistency for me to consider that hypocrisy, to me its literally a matter of "what will people accept", and "you can't own property anymore' seems like a bitter pill to swallow

There's a difference between personal and private property, but most people conflate the two which is why it is such a hard pill to swallow.

 

[kirblar]

We're reading him differently.

And Techno is reading me correctly.

Bonen is indeed the leftist boogeyman that conservatives use to slander poor people. But poor people are generally not lazy, don't want to abolish private property rights, and don't subscribe to crazy ideologies. They just want opportunity and a safety net.

When they started a long term UBI study in Africa a few years back, what did many of the participants do? They took the money and reinvested it, starting or expanding businesses.

It's ridiculous that in one thread I get called a heartless conservative while in another I get called a socialist. Believing in both capitalism and strong safety that's possible in today's world due to tech advancement is not contradictory. Believing that people are entitled to baseline support while also believing people should be free to make a living and better themselves is not contradictory.

 

[Phrynobatrachus]

people constantly seem to miss the difference between personal and private property, expropriation of the latter doesn't mean your house is going to be given away

 

[The Technomancer]

There's a difference between personal and private property, but most people conflate the two which is why it is such a hard pill to swallow.

I touched on this several pages ago but I don't think that distinction is nearly as clean as classical Marxism posits. The separation of "property that can be used for economic activity" and "property that can't" doesn't make a lot of sense outside of the very narrow confines of owning the land a business is seated on