Difference between revisions of "What Is Property?"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
(Created page with "Property is a complex set of coercive rights. Most people rely on simple folk models, but at least four fields are important for understanding property: philosophy, law, econ...") |
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==What about Locke and Mixing of Labor?== | ==What about Locke and Mixing of Labor?== | ||
| − | The Lockean fairytale about mixing of labor is a moral story meant to persuade coercive social organizations such as governments that some claims are more valid than others. | + | The Lockean fairytale about mixing of labor is merely a moral story meant to persuade coercive social organizations such as governments that some claims are more valid than others. |
| − | There are innumerable | + | Most major libertarian theorists start with the Lockean "mixing of labor" story: Robert Nozick, David Boaz, Erick Mac, and Murray Rothbard for example. However there are a number of other libertarians who do not credit it at all. |
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| + | There are innumerable problems with the "mixing of labor" story: | ||
* It is grossly ahistorical: it would be extremely difficult to establish that ANY current property in land was not the product of violent theft from previous inhabitants. See: {{Link| Why Do Philosophers Talk so Much and Read so Little About the Stone Age? False factual claims in appropriation-based property theory}}. | * It is grossly ahistorical: it would be extremely difficult to establish that ANY current property in land was not the product of violent theft from previous inhabitants. See: {{Link| Why Do Philosophers Talk so Much and Read so Little About the Stone Age? False factual claims in appropriation-based property theory}}. | ||
* The story does not tell us how much mixing would be essential: if I pee in the ocean, I have mixed my labor with it; is the ocean now my property? | * The story does not tell us how much mixing would be essential: if I pee in the ocean, I have mixed my labor with it; is the ocean now my property? | ||
