naturalworldorder… What is naturalworldorder? A dream. A gobbo’s dream. A dream that Hitler just sort of… wasn’t the man for the job.
As shamanic consierges of the world, we at Before The Light desided to aid and abet him and his weird friend for some of the most earnest, fascinating and far-reaching musings on the internet.
The rest, as they say, is ashes…
p
Argument for private property [Aristotle]
" Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business… And further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state. " [Aristotle, Politics, book II part V]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_…#Aristotle
socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll…litics.pdf
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12-29-2012, 03:08 AM Post: #2
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
I agree this is profound.
I will have to think on why.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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12-30-2012, 12:27 AM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2012 12:27 AM by Dannerz.) Post: #3
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
In my astral travels I feel I have seen many types of economies and governments.
So from what I’ve seen, I conclude that everyone at birth should be granted a small portion of free personal property. Then when they are older, they can get the means to being productive. This should be free, because it is the means of productivity, which is what is needed for a strong economy. Some types of things should be allowed to be owned on a large scale by a owner, but other things should not be monopolized or ever owned in a large quantity by an individual owner. Each society should have a sense of love and fairness. It is easier to treat corruption with love than it is to attack it like a disease and use a militant system. The militant system will become corrupt itself, often. Not every race is exceptionally loving, but in place of love, honor is also good. Honor can replace love in the races which cannot feel much love.
It is ok to own large amounts of something which you can use entirely, but it is bad when someone has more than they truly need, or when they own what many need, then use this to the disadvantage of the group.
@ Excessive unification of the state.
I believe we are meant to be city states, and tribes. This is what we are naturally meant to be, and the means to an over unified state and system misses the personalization that society needs.
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01-02-2013, 06:25 PM Post: #4
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
Like so many arguments for private property, this is just a rich guy trying to consolidate his position. Freedom and private property for the view, subsidised by slavery for the rest. That was the world Aristotle lived in and is defending here.
It is an abominable argument, not just untrue but thoroughly deceitful and immoral.
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01-04-2013, 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-04-2013 04:48 PM by JSS.) Post: #5
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
(12-30-2012 12:27 AM)Dannerz Wrote:
I believe we are meant to be city states, and tribes. This is what we are naturally meant to be
I believe that to be a rationally provable fact, not merely a proposition or assumption.
…{{what else to expect from Aristotle}}
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01-04-2013, 10:25 PM Post: #6
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
I agree we were meant to live in locally sustainable ‘tribes’
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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01-04-2013, 10:26 PM Post: #7
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
But then I also embrace globalism.
Not the NWO version, but I want us all to be in an internet cool zone.
“I said I was going to get to your calls but…look.”
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01-05-2013, 06:41 AM (This post was last modified: 01-05-2013 06:42 AM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #8
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
Tom, I think that is a deeply shallow judgment of Aristotle. It also seems illogical from a psychological point of view. What reason would the guy have had to operate like that, if he was already rich and powerful in the first place? He was under no threat from poor people trying to take his possessions. Besides, poor people could not read what he had to say.
I don’t like movements that make claims to everything on account of a so called common good. I prefer privates who make claims to certain things on account of their own good. A matter of honesty - they don’t pretend to speak for me.
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01-05-2013, 06:44 AM (This post was last modified: 01-05-2013 06:47 AM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #9
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
Does nature ‘mean’ for us to be anything other than it has caused us to be? That does not seem true. I will believe that some people mean for us to be tribes, like Dan and James. Maybe I could get behind the idea that many people will be happy like that. I don’t think that I would be happy personally, being restricted to a tribe, as I like to travel and live in different worlds.
Also, the atomic bomb has made the idea of autonomous city-states obsolete. We are forced to consider a world order, even if it is a non-singular one, where different superpowers live in strained balance.
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01-05-2013, 06:46 AM Post: #10
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
To elaborate on my previous statement: I understand that a lot of the stuff that gets done in the world gets done because of people’s desire to improve their lives, often in material ways. But I do not accept the capitalist argument that this is human nature, or that this is all there is to human nature and that this is how all work gets done, how all improvements to life are motivated.
For one thing, it’s because I know it isn’t true. I know that other things get done for other reasons, that human nature is multiform. I know that I am not solely motivated by that. For another thing, look at Bill Gates and the like - they are clearly motivated by things beyond money, because they have more money than ordinary people could ever dream of, they could accomplish any material improvement in their lives that they might desire, except perhaps immortality (and they are seeing about that, or trying to).
The best property model I know of is the one used in, among other places, the crofting communities of Scotland. There, the best land was privatised, but within quite sane limits so you couldn’t just turn up and build a fence around more than a few acres for your private croft. The rest of the land was common, for mutual grazing and gathering and whatever. It’s great. I live in Yorkshire, where it is gorgeous but there’s a fence or hedge around almost everything. There are a lot of centuries-old public rights of way though, which override the right to private property to a certain extent along specific routes over the fields. But up in much of Scotland there are lots of little individual private houses with a bit of land fenced up around them, and lots of open space populated by random sheep. They sleep on the roads at night because it’s warmer so you have to be a bit careful, but if the Occupy movement means anything then I think it means that the notion of common property, or simply land that doesn’t belong to anyone, remains an important one.
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
(01-05-2013 06:41 AM)Fixed Cross Wrote:
Tom, I think that is a deeply shallow judgment of Aristotle. It also seems illogical from a psychological point of view. What reason would the guy have had to operate like that, if he was already rich and powerful in the first place? He was under no threat from poor people trying to take his possessions. Besides, poor people could not read what he had to say.
Correct me if I’m wrong but poor Greek people weren’t deaf, were they?
His motivation is the same motivation that all aristocracies have for propagating ideas that sustain and enhance their position. Power isn’t something you simply cross a threshold of from ‘unpowerful’ to ‘powerful’ and then sit there being powerful until you die.
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I don’t like movements that make claims to everything on account of a so called common good. I prefer privates who make claims to certain things on account of their own good. A matter of honesty - they don’t pretend to speak for me.
Do you like that air you’re breathing? What could be more natural, or more common, than air and water? It’s all been in and out of more human beings than either of us could count, not to mention lots of other organisms.
If other people are speaking for you, or pretending to, then talk over them.
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01-05-2013, 07:12 AM Post: #12
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
(01-05-2013 06:52 AM)BigTom Wrote:
(01-05-2013 06:41 AM)Fixed Cross Wrote:
Tom, I think that is a deeply shallow judgment of Aristotle. It also seems illogical from a psychological point of view. What reason would the guy have had to operate like that, if he was already rich and powerful in the first place? He was under no threat from poor people trying to take his possessions. Besides, poor people could not read what he had to say.
Correct me if I’m wrong but poor Greek people weren’t deaf, were they?
He didn’t take to the streets with his ideas, like Socrates did. And you had to make a big effort then - as you do now - to be heard by the masses. They do not tend to think very logically either. At least not from what I’ve seen.
Socrates is a good example of how speaking a philosophical mind to the masses is hardly in the philosophers private interest.
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His motivation is the same motivation that all aristocracies have for propagating ideas that sustain and enhance their position.
Forgive me if I don’t take your word on that. I mean that is a very bold statement with absolutely no sort of backing. You’ve not shown me to be an expert on Aristotle, let alone on his underlying psychology.
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Power isn’t something you simply cross a threshold of from ‘unpowerful’ to ‘powerful’ and then sit there being powerful until you die.
If we are talking about wealth, one either inherits or gains it. If one inherits it, in fact it is very possible that one just ‘sits there’. It is often said that philosophy is an aristocratic occupation, as one needs a great deal of leisure to pursue it.
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I don’t like movements that make claims to everything on account of a so called common good. I prefer privates who make claims to certain things on account of their own good. A matter of honesty - they don’t pretend to speak for me.
Do you like that air you’re breathing? What could be more natural, or more common, than air and water? It’s all been in and out of more human beings than either of us could count, not to mention lots of other organisms.
Do you lik the body you inhabit? Or would you prefer that people can just take it because the community has decided a greater number of people than your individual self has better used for it dead?
Do you like having a home, a computer, something to store your data on, a girlfriend perhaps who isn’t shared by any given member of the tribe?
Quote:
If other people are speaking for you, or pretending to, then talk over them.
Count on it.
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01-05-2013, 07:28 AM (This post was last modified: 01-05-2013 07:30 AM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #13
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
In marriage, or partnership, two people decide to be together, to “give themselves to each other”. This is done on the basis of privacy, which is the same principle as private property. One can only give if one has something to give. This is what the Aristotle excerpt means to my mind.
The opposite is common sharing of every aspect of life. In a totally ‘commonist’ society there can be no trust between people, individuals can not set boundaries, can not have their own space, there can not be any depth or meaning to any kind of bond or commitment.
Perhaps for many people such a state seems desirable. For me it would be hell. I would have to kill everyone except the person I’d want to be with.
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01-05-2013, 09:49 AM (This post was last modified: 01-05-2013 09:50 AM by JSS.) Post: #14
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
Despite the very many things to object to throughout this exchange, I will contain myself to this one simple thought;
“Tribal life” does NOT exclude Global exploration or experiences. It merely limits the permitted influence upon the tribe and its members.
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01-05-2013, 10:46 AM Post: #15
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
Quote:
“Tribal life” does NOT exclude Global exploration or experiences. It merely limits the permitted influence upon the tribe and its members.
I’m 100% on board with that.
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01-07-2013, 12:58 AM Post: #16
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
(01-05-2013 07:12 AM)Fixed Cross Wrote:
He didn’t take to the streets with his ideas, like Socrates did. And you had to make a big effort then - as you do now - to be heard by the masses. They do not tend to think very logically either. At least not from what I’ve seen.
Socrates is a good example of how speaking a philosophical mind to the masses is hardly in the philosophers private interest.
Come off it. The point is that one doesn’t have to be able to read in order to be influenced by ideas. One philosopher being killed for speaking his mind does nothing to prove that other philosophers could not gain advantages by speaking their minds. You know as well as I do that a huge amount depends on which ideas you espouse, and whether they are conducive to the existing political power structures and dynamics.
Otherwise why would they have gone to such efforts to create celebrity intellectuals like Ray Kurzweil and Richard Dawkins?
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His motivation is the same motivation that all aristocracies have for propagating ideas that sustain and enhance their position.
Forgive me if I don’t take your word on that. I mean that is a very bold statement with absolutely no sort of backing. You’ve not shown me to be an expert on Aristotle, let alone on his underlying psychology.
Fine, to clarify: His motivation for writing the argument being discussed in this thread, not his motivation in its totality which no one can know because we simply don’t have the information on which to make such a judgment, is the same motivation that exists in all aristocracies. Private property, free will, the free market - all have been more commonly used throughout history by people who already have wealth, as a means of protecting what they have. More commonly than they have been used as founding ideas for genuine revolutions, rather than factional coup d’etats, at any rate.
The fact that this argument is come from a man whose very name reeks of aristocracy, and who argued that slavery was a natural phenomenon, should tell you something about the limited class of people to whom he is seeking to accord the right of private property.
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Power isn’t something you simply cross a threshold of from ‘unpowerful’ to ‘powerful’ and then sit there being powerful until you die.
If we are talking about wealth, one either inherits or gains it. If one inherits it, in fact it is very possible that one just ‘sits there’. It is often said that philosophy is an aristocratic occupation, as one needs a great deal of leisure to pursue it.
It is often said, but I don’t believe it. Academic philosophy, the kind practiced in the period in Ancient Greece that includes Aristotle’s life and education, is an aristocratic occupation. But given the time the modern non-aristocrat spends in being schooled and in watching TV, they’ve had more than enough time to read some books and think about them. It isn’t a lack of time or even opportunity (at least for those with the internet) that means they don’t do it. Again, you know this as well as I do.
Even those that inherit wealth have to conform to certain standards, otherwise they tend to suffer from accidents while hunting. And I said they don’t just get it then have it, without struggle, for the rest of their lives.
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Do you like that air you’re breathing? What could be more natural, or more common, than air and water? It’s all been in and out of more human beings than either of us could count, not to mention lots of other organisms.
Do you lik the body you inhabit? Or would you prefer that people can just take it because the community has decided a greater number of people than your individual self has better used for it dead?
[/quote]
There are better arguments against the tyranny of them killing me and eating my corpse than that my body is my private property.
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Do you like having a home, a computer, something to store your data on, a girlfriend perhaps who isn’t shared by any given member of the tribe?
I don’t own the home where I live. I do own my computer and associated equipment, and yes I do like it, but it’s not as though I can live without air and water (things that are inherently shared amongst us and which any attempt to privatise is both horrible and insane) as easily as I can live without my computer. And as above, I certainly don’t think that claiming a girlfriend is my private property is anything close to the best argument why she isn’t just shared around the tribe. The positive virtues of monogamy, the bond of trust that exists between faithful lovers, is far more important than any notion of ownership when it comes to ladyfolk.
And herein lies my problem with private property as a liberation philosophy, or part of a liberation grand narrative - all too quickly it goes from owning a house that you live in to the exclusion of others (a very good thing) to owning people. Aristotle. The Founding Fathers. Your comment about girlfriends. Can you see why I have such a problem with this idea, when it so readily ends up in an advocation of slavery? Even in the hands of very intelligent people, like you, or Aristotle, or the Founding Fathers. The speed with which you went to the idea of owning another person (completely contrary to the argument you started out making, which I essentially agree with) when provoked should tell you something about the collateral damage of that idea.
I’m right with you that Marxism as a philosophy has been proven to be a failure by the passage of history, but that doesn’t mean capitalism, private property and the individual have been proven to have triumphed. All three were critical in bringing the West to the verge of bankruptcy. That in turn has made possible the sort of political dialogue we see in the UK, where the achievements of collectivist movements are under attack in the name of protecting the private property of the few.
If you see nothing wrong in this then it is a point at which we fundamentally differ.
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If other people are speaking for you, or pretending to, then talk over them.
Count on it.
I will.
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01-07-2013, 04:27 AM (This post was last modified: 01-07-2013 04:29 AM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #17
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
I will go into all of that in a following post but for now: my comment was not about you owning your girlfriend but her owning herself, and thereby her freedom to give herself to you. Not as property, but certainly as a dedication, a commitment. I said:
“In marriage, or partnership, two people decide to be together, to “give themselves to each other”. This is done on the basis of privacy, which is the same principle as private property. One can only give if one has something to give. This is what the Aristotle excerpt means to my mind.”
I think that you have missed the logic of my argument so far. As valid as your objection to the privatization of naturally common things is (and this does not conflict with Aristotle), you seem to claim that everything should be common, that nothing can be privately owned or determined. At least that is how it appears so far. I disagree with that completely and am wholly with Aristotle when he says:
" Property should be in a certain sense common, but, as a general rule, private; for, when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because every one will be attending to his own business… And further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friends or guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. These advantages are lost by excessive unification of the state. "
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01-07-2013, 07:37 AM (This post was last modified: 01-08-2013 12:45 PM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #18
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RE: Argument for pivate property [Aristotle]
(01-07-2013 12:58 AM)BigTom Wrote:
(01-05-2013 07:12 AM)Fixed Cross Wrote:
He didn’t take to the streets with his ideas, like Socrates did. And you had to make a big effort then - as you do now - to be heard by the masses. They do not tend to think very logically either. At least not from what I’ve seen.
Socrates is a good example of how speaking a philosophical mind to the masses is hardly in the philosophers private interest.
Come off it. The point is that one doesn’t have to be able to read in order to be influenced by ideas. One philosopher being killed for speaking his mind does nothing to prove that other philosophers could not gain advantages by speaking their minds.
No, but nothing here proves that Aristotle was not just saying what he honestly believed. And since I agree with him and own no slaves and extort no people, since I am not an aristocrat, it is hardly evident that he said what he said for the sake of his aristocracy.
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You know as well as I do that a huge amount depends on which ideas you espouse, and whether they are conducive to the existing political power structures and dynamics.
Otherwise why would they have gone to such efforts to create celebrity intellectuals like Ray Kurzweil and Richard Dawkins?
By your rationale, I should only be saying things that benefit my position in society. That is not how my mind, how a philosophical mind works. I think in order to clarify. Sure, I consider the consequences sometimes and soften my words now and then. But I do not invent false theories in order to suit my interests. And as I now have shown, I have no reason to assume that Aristotle would do this.
I would actually challenge you to show me how you see it - how goods need to be distributed, by whom, by what standards, etc. I’d ask you to attack (as in analyze) the logic of Aristotles proposition.
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His motivation is the same motivation that all aristocracies have for propagating ideas that sustain and enhance their position.
Forgive me if I don’t take your word on that. I mean that is a very bold statement with absolutely no sort of backing. You’ve not shown me to be an expert on Aristotle, let alone on his underlying psychology.
Fine, to clarify: His motivation for writing the argument being discussed in this thread, not his motivation in its totality which no one can know because we simply don’t have the information on which to make such a judgment, is the same motivation that exists in all aristocracies. Private property, free will, the free market - all have been more commonly used throughout history by people who already have wealth, a means of protecting what they have.
Not exclusively in either direction - I know you hate Americans, but still they are a valid example of the counterpart. Note for example that the American entertainment industry was initiated by poor Austrian and Hungarian Jews who had nothing but a few puppets, wigs, glasses and dresses. They embraced capitalism and free will (as in self-determination, not as will as separate from the being) because it allowed them to become prosperous.
Note also that the Communist leaders denounced private property, just so that they could have custody of everything in name of the common good.
You should really attempt to argue for the virtues of the communist kind of ethics and politics you suggest, instead of, or rather next to, stating the vices of ownership.
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More commonly than they have been used as founding ideas for genuine revolutions, rather than factional coup d’etats, at any rate.
I certainly don’t know that that is the case. The right to not be owned, not to be simply part of a common project, but to be a private person, Habeas Corpus - ownership of the self – you may continue to dismiss or ignore this, but it’s central to the idea of private property.
The communist society does not allow for private personhood. Whether it’s in the early Israeli kibbutzes, the European social movements, the Maoist state - every society that focusses on the common good rather than the individual good tends to let the “good” fall in favor of the “common”. And that is because moral values (good, bad) are set by individuals, by subjects. Sometimes groups of individuals gather and compromise, sometimes they just work with, against and/or around each other. There are many forms of group-dynamic, but there is never a pre-fixed common good.
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The fact that this argument is come from a man whose very name reeks of aristocracy, and who argued that slavery was a natural phenomenon, should tell you something about the limited class of people to whom he is seeking to accord the right of private property.
Aristotles argument for the naturalness of slavery is complicated. Principally, his point appears to be that some people are born with leader qualities and some are not. That the ones who are not, are bound to serve. But he also says:
" But that those who take the opposite view [that is, who hold the view that slavery is not natural] have in a certain way right on their side, may be easily seen. For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort of convention-- the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors. But this right many jurists impeach, as they would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject. "
I’d think you would agree with him there.
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Power isn’t something you simply cross a threshold of from ‘unpowerful’ to ‘powerful’ and then sit there being powerful until you die.
If we are talking about wealth, one either inherits or gains it. If one inherits it, in fact it is very possible that one just ‘sits there’. It is often said that philosophy is an aristocratic occupation, as one needs a great deal of leisure to pursue it.
It is often said, but I don’t believe it. Academic philosophy, the kind practiced in the period in Ancient Greece that includes Aristotle’s life and education, is an aristocratic occupation. But given the time the modern non-aristocrat spends in being schooled and in watching TV, they’ve had more than enough time to read some books and think about them. It isn’t a lack of time or even opportunity (at least for those with the internet) that means they don’t do it. Again, you know this as well as I do.
But that is inverting my premise. I am not saying that all people who have time on their hands are philosophers. I am saying that to be a philosopher, one has to have time on ones hands. This is most certainly true, as thinking things through takes a lot of time.
I am not contesting that a working-class person on welfare can be a philosopher. In fact I know that this can be true. In a sense, a person on welfare is an aristocrat. He has other people working to allow him his leisure.
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Do you like that air you’re breathing? What could be more natural, or more common, than air and water? It’s all been in and out of more human beings than either of us could count, not to mention lots of other organisms.
Do you lik the body you inhabit? Or would you prefer that people can just take it because the community has decided a greater number of people than your individual self has better used for it dead?
There are better arguments against the tyranny of them killing me and eating my corpse than that my body is my private property.
It seems a pretty good one to me. Habeas Corpus, the beginning of the modern conception of private property. Before that, a person used to belong to the tribe, to the common good.
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Do you like having a home, a computer, something to store your data on, a girlfriend perhaps who isn’t shared by any given member of the tribe?
I don’t own the home where I live. I do own my computer and associated equipment, and yes I do like it, but it’s not as though I can live without air and water (things that are inherently shared amongst us and which any attempt to privatise is both horrible and insane) as easily as I can live without my computer. And as above, I certainly don’t think that claiming a girlfriend is my private property is anything close to the best argument why she isn’t just shared around the tribe. The positive virtues of monogamy, the bond of trust that exists between faithful lovers, is far more important than any notion of ownership when it comes to ladyfolk.
Again, if your girlfriend did not own herself by law, you could not have such faithful love. She had no power to dedicate herself. The tribe or family would do it for her.
And yes, to privatize air would be insanely horrible. No one in this thread (at least Aristotle nor I) has argued that this should be done. He did not write that everything should be privately owned. The argument is for the merit of the phenomenon of private ownership. And you have not addressed that argument, only attacked the one who makes it.
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And herein lies my problem with private property as a liberation philosophy, or part of a liberation grand narrative -
Hola, who said anything about liberation? Aristotle did not, nor did I. The motive for it is motivation.
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all too quickly it goes from owning a house that you live in to the exclusion of others (a very good thing) to owning people. Aristotle. The Founding Fathers. Your comment about girlfriends. Can you see why I have such a problem with this idea, when it so readily ends up in an advocation of slavery? Even in the hands of very intelligent people, like you, or Aristotle, or the Founding Fathers. The speed with which you went to the idea of owning another person (completely contrary to the argument you started out making, which I essentially agree with) when provoked should tell you something about the collateral damage of that idea.
Yeah I can see how you read that in the first of yesterdays posts. I made a point of clarifying what I meant in the second, and in what I wrote today. I hope it has been thoroughly cleared up by now that the reason I am in favor of private ownership is precisely that persons should, in my eyes, not be owned by the community. I think that every person should have the right to have his own space along with his own stuff, as the natural circumference to his own being. Subservience to the community is ultimately bestial.
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I’m right with you that Marxism as a philosophy has been proven to be a failure by the passage of history, but that doesn’t mean capitalism, private property and the individual have been proven to have triumphed. All three were critical in bringing the West to the verge of bankruptcy. That in turn has made possible the sort of political dialogue we see in the UK, where the achievements of collectivist movements are under attack in the name of protecting the private property of the few.
If you see nothing wrong in this then it is a point at which we fundamentally differ.
I see no correlation between private property and individualism on the one hand and the bankruptcy of the west. I see the bankruptcy as a cause of owning more than one can afford on a massive scale.
Of course private property should be held to reasonable limits. One should basically not own something without acquiring it via some real-world means. Be it with labor, trade, inheritance, creativity or whatever. What caused the bankruptcy is getting in debts one does not have the means to ever get out of.
Debt, and all ownership that results from it, can with good reason be said to be the antithesis of private ownership. The ownership is not at all private, but owned. Owned ownership - a hidden form of state-ownership.
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01-07-2013, 10:46 AM Post: #19
Dannerz Offline
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RE: Argument for private property [Aristotle]
If people were perfectly moral, one guy owning a ton of stuff wouldn’t be a problem, because he would use it to help everyone. I think economic problems derive from moral problems.
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01-08-2013, 12:41 PM (This post was last modified: 01-08-2013 12:43 PM by Fixed Cross.) Post: #20
Fixed Cross Offline
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RE: Argument for private property [Aristotle]
Tom, I’ve figured out the point where I begin to disagree with you, or where my position becomes fundamentally alien to the idea of commonizing ownership. It’s the point of building, cultivating, creating. I believe that part of a human being is the activity of building, That human life is dwelling while cultivating. Since this cultivating is so directly related to the ontic, existential human activity, so I regard the terrain wherein it occurs, the realm of the individuals cultivation, as a direct part of his ‘private ownership’, which is only axiomatic under the principle of habeas corpus - to own ones most basic value.
To follow, to own the body might reasonably mean also to own the fundamental requirements for this body to function. By this we mean air, and water - it should reasonably also mean food. But since part of the nature of the body is to cultivate, the acquirement of food may be seen as part of the ontic activity of being human, and thus also belong to this ‘property’, the self.
Habeas Corpus, as ‘you shall have your body’, then comes to mean: you shall cultivate your being. From this logic, which I’ll admit isn’t the most obvious form of thinking - Heidegger would like it - we can see that it would be inconvenient to not be able to have private property. One can not really cultivate much if one does not have decisive power over any goods or resources.
BigTom Offline
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RE: Argument for private property [Aristotle]
(01-07-2013 07:37 AM)Fixed Cross Wrote:
No, but nothing here proves that Aristotle was not just saying what he honestly believed. And since I agree with him and own no slaves and extort no people, since I am not an aristocrat, it is hardly evident that he said what he said for the sake of his aristocracy.
For one, he may have honestly believed it. Plenty of aristocrats do honestly believe things that they believe because it is conducive to their interests. The two are hardly mutually exclusive. For another, in global terms you (and I) are aristocrats. You enjoy a better material quality of life than the vast majority, and I imagine you’ll agree our lifestyles are subsidised by the labour of much poorer people. It is no surprise to find that the philosophy of private property is one that is advanced by rich people, that’s ultimately what I’m saying here.
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By your rationale, I should only be saying things that benefit my position in society. That is not how my mind, how a philosophical mind works. I think in order to clarify. Sure, I consider the consequences sometimes and soften my words now and then. But I do not invent false theories in order to suit my interests. And as I now have shown, I have no reason to assume that Aristotle would do this.
I would actually challenge you to show me how you see it - how goods need to be distributed, by whom, by what standards, etc. I’d ask you to attack (as in analyze) the logic of Aristotles proposition.
I don’t think Aristotle or you are ONLY capable of saying things that benefit your position. I certainly think in this instance that both of you are arguing the case for a philosophy that if manifested would benefit your positions.
Where goods are in abundant supply I don’t have an issue with the free market private property model. It seems to me the best way of ensuring low prices and encouraging innovation in the provision of essentials. Where goods are not in abundant supply I think we simply have to be more rational about it than to continue the globalisation of capitalism as has taken place in recent decades.
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Not exclusively in either direction - I know you hate Americans, but still they are a valid example of the counterpart. Note for example that the American entertainment industry was initiated by poor Austrian and Hungarian Jews who had nothing but a few puppets, wigs, glasses and dresses. They embraced capitalism and free will (as in self-determination, not as will as separate from the being) because it allowed them to become prosperous.
I’m sure there are billions of other examples. I’m not disputing this.
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Note also that the Communist leaders denounced private property, just so that they could have custody of everything in name of the common good.
You mean there are people who pretended not to believe in private property so as to claim everything for themselves, just as there are those who pretend to believe in private property so as to claim everything for themselves?
I’m not trying to piss you off but like the kids say: no shit.
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You should really attempt to argue for the virtues of the communist kind of ethics and politics you suggest, instead of, or rather next to, stating the vices of ownership.
I did point out that without commonly owned property we’d all be dead in seconds. I mean, as far as arguments for there being certain rational limits to the notion of private property and for there being a natural value to the idea of mutually owned or even unowned stuff in the world I think that’s quite a good one. I mean, fuck all this whether or not we’d have computers without private property, we’d simply be dead without the common property of air and water.
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I certainly don’t know that that is the case. The right to not be owned, not to be simply part of a common project, but to be a private person, Habeas Corpus - ownership of the self – you may continue to dismiss or ignore this, but it’s central to the idea of private property.
I have read John Locke, I am well aware of the philosophical tradition here.
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The communist society does not allow for private personhood. Whether it’s in the early Israeli kibbutzes, the European social movements, the Maoist state - every society that focusses on the common good rather than the individual good tends to let the “good” fall in favor of the “common”. And that is because moral values (good, bad) are set by individuals, by subjects. Sometimes groups of individuals gather and compromise, sometimes they just work with, against and/or around each other. There are many forms of group-dynamic, but there is never a pre-fixed common good.
The communist state doesn’t allow for private personhood. Communism can exist beyond the state, and I agree does and necessarily so for us to survive. But you’re right, in a state system communism does pretty much always lead to some elevation of some warped notion of ‘the common good’ above the values of the individual. But likewise, capitalism in a state system ends up privatising things like rainwater. You put either philosophy into a state structure and horrible and incredibly stupid things will happen.
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Aristotles argument for the naturalness of slavery is complicated. Principally, his point appears to be that some people are born with leader qualities and some are not. That the ones who are not, are bound to serve. But he also says:
" But that those who take the opposite view [that is, who hold the view that slavery is not natural] have in a certain way right on their side, may be easily seen. For the words slavery and slave are used in two senses. There is a slave or slavery by law as well as by nature. The law of which I speak is a sort of convention-- the law by which whatever is taken in war is supposed to belong to the victors. But this right many jurists impeach, as they would an orator who brought forward an unconstitutional measure: they detest the notion that, because one man has the power of doing violence and is superior in brute strength, another shall be his slave and subject. "
I’d think you would agree with him there.
So might gives you the right to steal someone’s private property but not to make them your slave? OK, he’s compromised a bit on the issue of slavery but he’s still ultimately arguing that if you can take someone’s else’s property then it is morally justified if you do take it.
I stand by my position that this is an abominable argument.
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There are better arguments against the tyranny of them killing me and eating my corpse than that my body is my private property.