- I can't emphasize enough that the notion of private property is critical for successful societies. It's a lesson history shows us very clearly.
In case it's not clear: I agree.
- My ownership of something does not depend on my fellow citizens allowing me to own it.
This is where a failure to distinguish between abstraction and reality can be harmful. "It'd be awesome if my ownership of something didn't depend on my fellow citizens allowing me to own it" is true. But pick anything:
- can you defend "your" property against a coordinated assault of more than a handful of your fellow citizens? If not, it's "yours" up until a handful (or more) of your fellow citizens decide it's theirs
- you may say: but then the police or the courts step in. But then: what if the police don't care that you think it's yours? same question with the courts: what if they don't care?
Generally you can rely on the police and the courts, b/c they're embedded in a very wide web of "consent" (they may not care at all about your particular ownership claims, but they're enmeshed in a broader network of incentives to respect ownership claims which makes them unlikely to actively deny your claims).
- Certain principles are innate, endowed by our creator, whatever-your-favorite-language. Inviolate. It's the entire basis of western society.
Again agreed -- that is the basis of society. But since there is no actual creator to appeal to, your particular rights are inviolate up to the point anyone decides to try violating them. This isn't just a nitpick, it's important -- cf next.
- But to believe that it's natural for global health concerns to intrude more and more on personal property is to say that people are going to stop being people at some point and simply be cells performing in a larger organism.
I think you're missing what happens when there's just "more people". People will not stop being people, but how people behave when they're crowded together (subway station, train station, apartment complex) is different from how people behave when they're pretty well isolated
(at home, camping, etc.).
In the same way that strong private property protections are a bedrock of western civilization, you can throw in "decent behavior in public"; we don't throw chamberpots out the window and we look askance at the noisy and smelly in crowded public settings...and westerners generally are terrified by images of the crowded Indian or Asian urban environment.
Even if you stick to garden-variety "negative rights" language, being in public "inverts" the dynamic:
- out on a farm in the boonies, any restrictions on your behavior seems unnatural and invasive (with good reason: who else is around)
- out in a crowded public place, to have any semblance of "freedom from" unwanted actions from other people involves praying that the other people aren't uncouth assholes; it starts looking very attractive to insist on adopting -- and violently enforcing, if need be -- some code of behavior in public
Even if you're still out on a farm somewhere, the outlook and expectations of everyone else will be increasingly "urban" with the corresponding assumption that you're being the inconsiderate ass (by acting with insufficient concern for your neighbors)...just like the dude with the loud boombox is being an ass -- making the judgment that his pleasure in hearing his tunes outweighs everyone else's annoyance -- not some kind of principled hero standing up for personal freedom.
That's the way the wind is blowing; there are countervailing trends (momentum gaining for eg gay rights and drug legalization show the populous has some inherent interest in not being unduly restricted in one's personal freedoms) but for issues of "health" or general wellbeing I can't see a trend reversal in the cards yet.
And so this is why the property rights resting on the consent of everyone else is important, not just a nit:
- since the boundaries of personal property are always and everywhere ultimately a political thing, you have to win at the political side, too
- the world of the future is crowded and urban, with the corresponding difference of outlook (behavior restrictions are necessary in crowds to maintain some semblance of freedom; not indicating that you understand that makes you look unhinged to native urbanites, even if they can't articulate it)
- my prediction is that that pro-property rights types in the usa will lose the game, hard, if they fail to address the political side, and to win at the political side they need to deal with reality, not simply insist that their particular abstractions are best
- I don't see that happening any time soon. The human animal simply won't fit into the little box that you'd like them to fit into.
Eh, I hate boxes and being in boxes, but I see nothing stepping in to check present trends and as present trends continue everyone's going to be in a box (whose walls are your neighbors, and your neighbors' neighbors, etc.) like it or not; trying to win the pro-property-rights argument by insisting you aren't actually in a box is just going to help lose the game.
I think frame of reference here is important when we talk about private property rights. You obviously want to frame this as a discussion based on a dense, urbanized population. To do so otherwise would be to fail to "distinguish between abstraction and reality"
But we have lots of examples of private property with a lack of government support. The early history of the United States was almost completely without lots of local civic support of private property rights, yet private property rights worked just fine. In absence of the government, I have the duty and obligation to protect both my private property rights and those of others. I could go on, but we can all agree that private property exists quite well without government support. Take a look at criminal activity and ownership, or ownership of explored lands during the Age of Exploration. (Now you can argue that the natives weren't given much private property rights, but that begins to diffuse the entire discussion. Let's stipulate that once people owned or took possession of things, they mostly held on to them just fine)
In the same way that strong private property protections are a bedrock of western civilization, you can throw in "decent behavior in public"
Not really. "Decent behavior in public" is only relevant in regards to how it relates to private property. We always get back to private property. And yes, we threw chamberpots out the windows for a long time and civilization went along just fine.
People are free to think of me as an inconsiderate ass. I welcome their disdain. That's the entire idea -- others' opinion of my behavior should be non-relevant to my life as much as humanly possible.
I think you're confusing a couple of things here. I am not trying to "win the pro-property-rights argument" I'm not a politician. I'm not a good orator. I'm not especially good at persuasion. I'm simply pointing out that private property rights are the bedrock of modern societies. This exists with or without my consent, support, influence, or whatever else.
You seem to be rambling around a bit, or perhaps I've done a poor job at reading your post.
There is an interesting inverse relationship between population density and available freedom of ownership. I can't own a loud dog if 200 people live within 50 feet of me, yet owning one on a farm is non-controversial.This doesn't mean that the basic amount of freedom required by the individual for a healthy and dynamic society changes, it just means that compromises have to be made. That's my point: saying it's relative and political and all of that is somewhat true in application, but the underlying principle has hard limits somewhere and with a constant drift towards less freedom we are bound to overrun it -- if we haven't already.
- the urban experience is going to be the normal human experience (if not already, in the future)
- in the urban environment, it's natural to accept general restrictions on behavior, b/c without such restrictions your freedom-of-action becomes more constrained
- the politics are reversed from the underlying assumptions of heartland americans and folk political theorists: instead of restrictions on action being tragic necessities to deal with a handful of extreme edge cases (like dumping 1 ton of arsenic), restrictions on action become the necessary prerequisite of freedom (they provide the personal space that allows those actions)
- the consequence of this is that restriction and regulation will be seen as sensible and normal on the part of the majority
- this actually matters, because whatever private property you think you have you ultimately have on account of societal consensus; to see this in action, consider what happens when two societies intersect...property rights recognized within one are not always recognized within the other (the native americans, the kulaks, the barbarians in rome, etc.)
- or, shorter: private property rights are the bedrock of modern societies, but their exact contours -- what they permit and deny -- are not fixed, and are always ultimately a political issue
- once things are a political issue, whether or not you're thought of ass an ass starts to matter, as political issues are matters of public taste
- I can't emphasize enough that the notion of private property is critical for successful societies. It's a lesson history shows us very clearly.
In case it's not clear: I agree.
- My ownership of something does not depend on my fellow citizens allowing me to own it.
This is where a failure to distinguish between abstraction and reality can be harmful. "It'd be awesome if my ownership of something didn't depend on my fellow citizens allowing me to own it" is true. But pick anything:
- can you defend "your" property against a coordinated assault of more than a handful of your fellow citizens? If not, it's "yours" up until a handful (or more) of your fellow citizens decide it's theirs
- you may say: but then the police or the courts step in. But then: what if the police don't care that you think it's yours? same question with the courts: what if they don't care?
Generally you can rely on the police and the courts, b/c they're embedded in a very wide web of "consent" (they may not care at all about your particular ownership claims, but they're enmeshed in a broader network of incentives to respect ownership claims which makes them unlikely to actively deny your claims).
- Certain principles are innate, endowed by our creator, whatever-your-favorite-language. Inviolate. It's the entire basis of western society.
Again agreed -- that is the basis of society. But since there is no actual creator to appeal to, your particular rights are inviolate up to the point anyone decides to try violating them. This isn't just a nitpick, it's important -- cf next.
- But to believe that it's natural for global health concerns to intrude more and more on personal property is to say that people are going to stop being people at some point and simply be cells performing in a larger organism.
I think you're missing what happens when there's just "more people". People will not stop being people, but how people behave when they're crowded together (subway station, train station, apartment complex) is different from how people behave when they're pretty well isolated (at home, camping, etc.).
In the same way that strong private property protections are a bedrock of western civilization, you can throw in "decent behavior in public"; we don't throw chamberpots out the window and we look askance at the noisy and smelly in crowded public settings...and westerners generally are terrified by images of the crowded Indian or Asian urban environment.
Even if you stick to garden-variety "negative rights" language, being in public "inverts" the dynamic:
- out on a farm in the boonies, any restrictions on your behavior seems unnatural and invasive (with good reason: who else is around)
- out in a crowded public place, to have any semblance of "freedom from" unwanted actions from other people involves praying that the other people aren't uncouth assholes; it starts looking very attractive to insist on adopting -- and violently enforcing, if need be -- some code of behavior in public
Even if you're still out on a farm somewhere, the outlook and expectations of everyone else will be increasingly "urban" with the corresponding assumption that you're being the inconsiderate ass (by acting with insufficient concern for your neighbors)...just like the dude with the loud boombox is being an ass -- making the judgment that his pleasure in hearing his tunes outweighs everyone else's annoyance -- not some kind of principled hero standing up for personal freedom.
That's the way the wind is blowing; there are countervailing trends (momentum gaining for eg gay rights and drug legalization show the populous has some inherent interest in not being unduly restricted in one's personal freedoms) but for issues of "health" or general wellbeing I can't see a trend reversal in the cards yet.
And so this is why the property rights resting on the consent of everyone else is important, not just a nit:
- since the boundaries of personal property are always and everywhere ultimately a political thing, you have to win at the political side, too
- the world of the future is crowded and urban, with the corresponding difference of outlook (behavior restrictions are necessary in crowds to maintain some semblance of freedom; not indicating that you understand that makes you look unhinged to native urbanites, even if they can't articulate it)
- my prediction is that that pro-property rights types in the usa will lose the game, hard, if they fail to address the political side, and to win at the political side they need to deal with reality, not simply insist that their particular abstractions are best
- I don't see that happening any time soon. The human animal simply won't fit into the little box that you'd like them to fit into.
Eh, I hate boxes and being in boxes, but I see nothing stepping in to check present trends and as present trends continue everyone's going to be in a box (whose walls are your neighbors, and your neighbors' neighbors, etc.) like it or not; trying to win the pro-property-rights argument by insisting you aren't actually in a box is just going to help lose the game.