Reply To Stupid Angry Canajun

The SAC blog has a rant on individual property rights where upon he says;

"As much as I respect Mr. Plawiuk, I disagree that the right to individual property ownership is evil."

I never said Property was evil, perse, it is not. What I said was that private property is the origin of capitalism and its state, it is theft as Proudhon called it. He also said it was freedom, that is you have the right to what you possess, but not the right to possess more, that is to become a rentier. Proudhons whole work on Property was against the idea of the rentier class, which by the by Mr. Canajun is exactly the problem with deals made like the example you have given;

"Individual responsibility must return to our lives or we will not have lives worth living. If I sign a great deal with an oil company regarding my property, and I care about my neighbours, I tell my neighbours about the deal."

And if you don't care so what, in most cases of individual responsibility from the right the next phrase used is MYOB. You made a deal there is no need to say anything to anyone about it.

But again your land use is no longer a matter of your own use, but now is subject to being land use by a rentier, whose impact on others may include poisioning their ground water. Which by the by would mean you have a social responsibility to your neighbours to inform them of the deal you made. Once you no longer merely use your property for yourself, but now involve a third party, whose environmental impact goes beyond your property to impact on others, you no longer are a sovereign individual with their own possessions, you are now involved in a contractual arrangement which may have an impact beyond you and your property.

Mr. Canajun goes on to say;

If I sign a deal with an oil company because I am forced to, by way of required association with my neighbours, I undoubtedly end up with a loser of a deal because human nature ensures one or more of the group is corrupt or too stupid to understand the implications of the deal and this person frequently ends up in a position of power over the rest of the group who are too tired, busy or otherwise not motivated to get involved.

There is that force issue, who forced you? Ah right you are required to associate with your neighbours, for a common good. But what if your actions, a private deal with the oil company has the same impact, you are then the corrupt power hungry individual who affects their community without regard of their neighbours property rights. This is of course a straw man arguement, full of typical right wing assertions , that the common good of all is a threat to the individuals rights. Which of course is untrue. The historic case is that the large landowner is a tyrant over his neighbours, he is in effect the rentier with a monopoly, like his aristorcratic ancestors. For an excellent example of this see the movie Missouri Breaks.

The nature of private property is that it arises from the commons, from the encroachment acts of the state which limit the communal farm lands and creates private lands which can be fenced. It is this privatization of farming which creates capitalism in its modern form, and continues to plague the world today with despotism of the landlords/ladowners over the peasants. It is in effect theft of the peasants property both individual and communal that allows you Mr. Canajun to have the right to property.






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