Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneCosta
That's humorous. There is no clear and concise way to defend private property beyond bickering about supposed practicalities. Theorists like Rothbard and Friedman agree in complete silence that property is simply a matter of who has the biggest guns. And theorists like Locke and Smith, who had more in common with socialism than capitalism, are ignored whenever it's brought up classical liberals sought to have a community of common producers, where there is enough land of the same worth for everyone wanting it.
Nice bit of logic you have going there. Since you declared copyrights and corporate protectionism necessities for capitalism, I have to accept them. It's quite ironic that we're talking about a luxury tax being acceptable, yet you're not willing to attack a source of wealth that comes about through authoritarianism. Pray tell why I have to accept a contract between two people when I didn't agree to it? Once you start questioning that line of logic, you realize corporations, patents, copyrights, and everything else that centralizes wealth is [insert your negative profanity of choice].
Social liberals have tried to remedy the problems associated with capitalism by implementing burdensome measures like taxation. That is why I am bringing up "Karl Marx." It is better to just wipe aside the source of wealth for these billionaires and multi-millionaires, since they acquire it through legal protection anyhow. I believe in freedom even if it runs contradictory to the market (gift economy - see piracy). Oh darn.
Property, when understood to be land and capital (both having existed long before capitalist relations took over, negating your argument), is just an act of theft that was legitimized at a certain point along the way. Evidently you don't know much about the progression of land acquisition. In China, common land which had existed for thousands of years was made private property just so it could be bought off and the people turned into wage workers. Capitalism doesn't come about voluntarily. People lose everything where they are, so they move into the cities and work wherever there is an available job. Industrialization is actually a process worse for most people than agrarian living. Whereas peasants toil for about 10 hours a day, many workers in China toil for up to 18. When looking at the United States, there was no noticeable difference between the Southern farmer and Northern workman until the later part of the 1800s
Furthermore, I don't remember attacking people for owning their own house, personal items, or even business.
Point me to one civilization that hasn't stolen its land from a previous civilization, and I'll point you to a civilization that doesn't believe in private property rights.
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I am not saying that
all existed property rights should be supported to the upmost, but that the
majority of property rights will create the most amount of wealth.
How does the fact that the idea of capitalism was invented late in human history disprove that property rights are needed? The idea of people keeping what they owned has existed since people moved away from tribal villages, even if it was not considered capitalism. The name of the term "capitalism" is much less important then its practical applications through time.
How is smith a socialist anyway?
Corporate protectionism isn't at all needed for capitalism to exist... when did I say that?
However copyrights are important to give individuals with a large amount of capital the reason to invest in tecnologies to try and make a profit. If there was no property rights then there would be no reason for people, or a group of people, to
risk their capital for a scientific advancement if they would not be the ones to recieve a large amount of the benefits. Capitalism and the investments in tecnology and copyrights or investments in companys in general need to have real benefits because of the risk of investments in anything. If there wasn't a real benefit for people to invest in their financial industries then there would be no reason for them to risk their capital on increasing their production for the future.
The point of a few people having large amount of capital is so there is a direct reason for them to invest in their society. If everyone pooled their money and attempted to invest their money, everyone would first sap huge amounts of the capital out to increase their standard of living, which may be acceptable in some instances, it just reduces the standard of living on people over the long run.
Capitalism may be harder in the short run for laborers, but the investments that are forced to be added to the companies in a capitalist country increase the standard of living over the long run.
Did you know that South America had an industrialized economy with navies during the 19th and part of the 20th century? The only reason that is ever given for the destruction of their economy was the spreading of socialism and the hampering of their economic growth. Do you have a guess why America became a superpower and the Soviet Union's economy had stagnated during the last years of the Cold War? the economies of capitalist countries grow faster then the economies of socialist countries. Regardless of what you feel is ideal and what
could happen those are the facts of history.
China's property rights still brought millions of people out of poverty. Originally, the people in China were much poorer because there could be made no money in that society because there was no property rights. However, after property rights were added, rich investors saw that they could benefit themselves from investing in the country, which created jobs and
added wealth for the laborors of China.
Regardless of how hard the people had to work, the point that I am making is that they were no longer in abject poverty. The only reason that you can't make the statement that the people living under socialist China had a very long working day, is that many of them just didn't have a job because there was no investment capital to create their jobs. I would rather work hard and get a living then live in poverty and not need or be able to work.
In America the country was very agrarian and in the tecniological backwaters of the world so it would take longer for those people to feel the advantages that were created because of capitalism. However, when machines in fields and factories were created and spread through capitalist mechanisms, those people did experience increased standards of living. The advancements came in the 1830's or 1840's so it was actualy in the earlier part of the 19th century.
Property rights only exist in a certain country or in a certain setting. invasions and destructions of property rights of another country is never done to increase the economic output of the invaded territory, but to sieze it for the invading country. Therefore there is no comparison for invading countries not recognizing the property rights of another countrie's citizens.