Harry Pollard wrote:
>
> Brad,
>
> Justice and Privilege are opposites.
>
> The the law applies equally to everyone, we call it justice. When the law
> benefits one at the expense of the other it is called Privilege (private
> law - or privi lege). Most of the "law" of today is rally privilege. I
> suspect that Arthur left law school was because "existing property rights"
> are really "existing privileges".
Surely there is much truth in what you write here.
But I do not think it is the whole story. I forge tthe exact
philosophical terms (one, I believe, is "distributive justice"),
but if one gives every persons the same thing, it will be
better/good for some and less good/bad/inappropriate for others.
But if one gives to each *proportionate* th each's needs, then
you get the situation like the survivors of the World Trade Center
disaster who complained that since persons were being given
grants according to need, a person who had been thrifty would get
punished (since they would need little) but a person who was
a wastral would get much (because they would be in a lurch).
All I am saying here is that justice is not simple and may
indeed need trained lawyers/jurists/casuists/....
>
> I commend him, and wish young lawyers would spend more time fighting
> privilege than licking their lips at the prospect of getting a share of the
> ill gotten gains.
>
> Private property is at the heart of a free system.
>
> The classical approach uses the "labor theory of ownership". If you
> produced it, it belongs to you.
There are no self-made persons. Everything any of us
makes is a combination of your "mother nature" (which I
prefer to call: "Es Gibt" -- brute materiality which does
not care one iota about us, although, in its favor, unlike many
mothers, it's not intrusive either... Everything any of us makes
is a combination of "mother nature", the inherited capital base
which none of us made but which all our ancestors made, and our
individual contributions --> and, of course, there is often a
fourth factor: the labor of others who contribute to
what "we" do but don't thereby acquire any ownership
rights to the product of their labor.
>
> There is no "trusteeship" involved. If I produce something, I have complete
> right to use it, trade it, even destroy it. It's the business of no-one
> else what I do with what is mine.
This would we all well and good if, from infancy, you had lived
a la Robinson Crusoe on a desert island and had taught yourself --
i.e., invented -- language, etc. Even
individuality is a social product, as would
immediately become evident if someone aspired to be
a Great Man and nobody showed up to schlep for him or her.
>
> However, there is important part of our lives that we don't produce - and
> that is mother earth.
And that material base of inherited productive capital machines,
books, cultivated land, etc.
>
> The Labor Theory of Ownership doesn't include what was here before we were
> - and will be here after we are gone. This is the area we call "Natural
> Resources".
I have aargued it includes more than just "Natural Resources",
although even "Natural Resources" are not so natural, since we
only can make use of them when we know about them, i.e., when
human labor -- esp. scientific and technical knowledge -- is
addede to mere nature to transform the unknowable "Ding an sich"
into "phenomena" (Kant).
> So, we must establish ownership rights to Natural Resources -
> without access to which we die.
>
> We could say that no-one owns the earth, which means we could grab anything
> we like - and the first to do the grabbing get the best claims. If we do
> take that approach, then when the dust has settled, the lucky ones will
> begin establishing a system of property rights in land that establishes the
> status quo. Then, as has been so eloquently described, most of the
> population become tenants on their own soil.
[snip]
What use are 40 acres and a mule, even to a person who,
unlike most of us, knows how to farm, without a *plow*?
And why should the good fortune of having fallen out of a
Rockefeller birth canal rather than a fourth-world
peasant's birth canal "make all the difference"?
No person
is responsible for the birth canal they fall out of. Although
I once did hear of a megalomaniac who prided themself
on having fought to keep from being born (to keep from
having to take care of themself) --> and they end their
Foetal Odyssey with this unjust denouement: "They" finally
overcame the brave foetus's valiant attempts to keep from
being born --> with a *C-section*! Talk about gross injustice!
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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