Dr. Ernie says:
> A fascinating question, and a reasonable starting point.
> This sounds more or less libertarian (from my superficial
> understanding of libertarianism), which isn't necessarily a
> bad thing.
Thanks, and yes. :-) Cf. [1] [2] [3]
> First of all, I think the system is incomplete in not defining
> which things are owned in common (or how that's decided).
> As an extreme example, are 'community standards of morality'
> something owned/protected in common?
A fair criticism. With respect to "community standards of morality,"
I'd say that such a system would necessarily deny any legal status to
such abstract notions. The implication of that statement is somewhat
odd: it would suppose that the 'purpose' of morals is to create
generally acceptable social behavior. In my world view, moral
principles are rather individual principals of rational choice, that in
a free market society naturally and inevitably lead to generally
acceptable social behavior. [4] Another way to achieve the goal here
--- commonly accepted standards of interpersonal behavior --- is to
simply codify the minimum subset of those standards in simple law that
can be understood by everyone; that would be how such a system would
attempt to address this issue.
As for other "resources owned in common," assuming there are any, it's
true that this framework needs much clarification of how these are to be
identified and managed. I'm thinking about such things here as
roadways, public lands, natural resources, etc. It's quite possible to
make a case for no public ownership whatsoever. OTOH, I'm not quite
ready to defend that position, so let's assume there is public ownership
of certain things. The point of this statement is just to insure that,
if there is public ownership, management of those things publically
owned is done in such a way as to adversely impact noone and maximize
benefit to all.
In general, this whole system is fundamentally about property law, and
presupposes a sort of radical, neo-Lockeian theory of property. For an
interesting treatment of the theory of peroperty and property law in a
modern context, see [5].
> Second, it is not clear where children fit into this.
Also fair. In fact, this can be generalized. A very large portion of
our law is devoted to special-case treatment of individuals and groups
based on legally recognized differences. We in various laws distinguish
between children and adults, women and men, Blacks and non-Blacks, "SEC
accredited investors" and "SEC non-accredited investors," heterosexuals
and homosexuals, Christians and non-Christians, and so on ad infinitum.
A funny way to interpret "equality," isn't it? My position on this is
that allowing the body of law to draw *any* distinctions between people
on any basis whatsoever is a root cause of many problems, and in fact
creates the very kind of inequality and discrimination it seeks to
insure against. I suppose in an idealized version of the proposed
system, there would be *no* such distinctions, including no distinctions
between children and adults. OTOH, realistically, at least that
distinction probably needs to be made.
We have a very vague notion of "children" in our current American
system. There are several different, conflicting ages of "majority."
You can drive a car when you're 16 or in some cases even 15; you can
vote and (if male) are required to register for military service when
you're 18; but you can't drink until you're 21. In Delaware, you can
engage in consensual sex at age 12, but in other places anything from 14
to 18, often depending on the context. I suppose a better way to deal
with this would be either (a) fix one consistent, arbitrary age of
majority, (b) have a testing-based transition to majority predicated on
demonstrating competence in understanding the minimal system of laws, or
(c) a combination of the two, i.e., "you must be 14 and pass the Basic
Social Competency Test." If there is any distinction between children
and non-children --- or better, "residents" and "citizens" --- then
there needs to be clarification of how the laws deal with non-citizens.
As for education, I believe that it *clearly* can be better accomplished
by privatization, but that's a whole separate debate that I'm not ready
to open just now. ;-)
Geege said:
> You, JB, would be the White Corpuscle of Discontent.
Cool, I like that. You know, Freud's last work was about discontent,
specifically the relationship between individual freedoms and the
demands of society. [6] I don't necessarily agree with his
conclusions, but it's a really rich exploration of this obvious, basic
conflict.
Just some more babble,
jb
[1] For a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard
[2] Capitalism and Freedom, etc. by Milton Friedman
[3] Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Vol. 1, etc. by Friedrich Hayek
[4] Morals by Agreement, by David Gauthier
[5] In Defense of Property, by Gottfried Dietze
[6] Civilization and its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud
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Dr. Ernie says:
> A fascinating question, and a reasonable starting point.
> This sounds more or less libertarian (from my superficial
> understanding of libertarianism), which isn't necessarily a
> bad thing.
Thanks, and yes. :-) Cf. [1] [2] [3]
> First of all, I think the system is incomplete in not defining
> which things are owned in common (or how that's decided).
> As an extreme example, are 'community standards of morality'
> something owned/protected in common?
A fair criticism. With respect to "community standards of morality," I'd say that such a system would necessarily deny any legal status to such abstract notions. The implication of that statement is somewhat odd: it would suppose that the 'purpose' of morals is to create generally acceptable social behavior. In my world view, moral principles are rather individual principals of rational choice, that in a free market society naturally and inevitably lead to generally acceptable social behavior. [4] Another way to achieve the goal here --- commonly accepted standards of interpersonal behavior --- is to simply codify the minimum subset of those standards in simple law that can be understood by everyone; that would be how such a system would attempt to address this issue.
As for other "resources owned in common," assuming there are any, it's true that this framework needs much clarification of how these are to be identified and managed. I'm thinking about such things here as roadways, public lands, natural resources, etc. It's quite possible to make a case for no public ownership whatsoever. OTOH, I'm not quite ready to defend that position, so let's assume there is public ownership of certain things. The point of this statement is just to insure that, if there is public ownership, management of those things publically owned is done in such a way as to adversely impact noone and maximize benefit to all.
In general, this whole system is fundamentally about property law, and presupposes a sort of radical, neo-Lockeian theory of property. For an interesting treatment of the theory of peroperty and property law in a modern context, see [5].
> Second, it is not clear where children fit into this.
Also fair. In fact, this can be generalized. A very large portion of our law is devoted to special-case treatment of individuals and groups based on legally recognized differences. We in various laws distinguish between children and adults, women and men, Blacks and non-Blacks, "SEC accredited investors" and "SEC non-accredited investors," heterosexuals and homosexuals, Christians and non-Christians, and so on ad infinitum. A funny way to interpret "equality," isn't it? My position on this is that allowing the body of law to draw *any* distinctions between people on any basis whatsoever is a root cause of many problems, and in fact creates the very kind of inequality and discrimination it seeks to insure against. I suppose in an idealized version of the proposed system, there would be *no* such distinctions, including no distinctions between children and adults. OTOH, realistically, at least that distinction probably needs to be made.
We have a very vague notion of "children" in our current American system. There are several different, conflicting ages of "majority." You can drive a car when you're 16 or in some cases even 15; you can vote and (if male) are required to register for military service when you're 18; but you can't drink until you're 21. In Delaware, you can engage in consensual sex at age 12, but in other places anything from 14 to 18, often depending on the context. I suppose a better way to deal with this would be either (a) fix one consistent, arbitrary age of majority, (b) have a testing-based transition to majority predicated on demonstrating competence in understanding the minimal system of laws, or (c) a combination of the two, i.e., "you must be 14 and pass the Basic Social Competency Test." If there is any distinction between children and non-children --- or better, "residents" and "citizens" --- then there needs to be clarification of how the laws deal with non-citizens.
As for education, I believe that it *clearly* can be better accomplished by privatization, but that's a whole separate debate that I'm not ready to open just now. ;-)
Geege said:
> You, JB, would be the White Corpuscle of Discontent.
Cool, I like that. You know, Freud's last work was about discontent, specifically the relationship between individual freedoms and the demands of society. [6] I don't necessarily agree with his conclusions, but it's a really rich exploration of this obvious, basic conflict.
Just some more babble,
jb
[1] For
a New Liberty, by Murray Rothbard
[2] Capitalism
and Freedom, etc. by Milton Friedman
[3] Law,
Legislation, and Liberty, Vol. 1, etc. by Friedrich Hayek
[4] Morals
by Agreement, by David Gauthier
[5] In
Defense of Property, by Gottfried Dietze
[6] Civilization
and its Discontents, by Sigmund Freud
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