Rehabilitation 10.6: Property Rights vs. Property Reichs
"You know…" said Riddle in a thoughtful voice after her declaration had hung in the air for a time. "Hearing you speak… saying nothing about whether I agree… it almost reminds me of Merlin."
"Merlin?" echoed Luna. "What is that?"
"The greatest wizard of all time. That history records," Riddle addended.
There may have been even greater Atlanteans… or there may not have been, for their society left behind but one known artifact.
Merlin passed down his wisdom, his Halls, his Line, and his Interdict, all of which remain to this day. And unlike the Atlanteans working on the Mirror, Merlin did his work alone, and his legacies are elegantly simple and idiot-proof.
"What did he do?" asked Luna.
Riddle could have answered that in many ways, but since they were talking about free will anyway…
"He wished for witches and wizards who were being pushed about by the whims of fate to at least know the stories of their prophetic enslavements. Thus he erected the Hall of Prophecy, which recorded all seer speech within our country's borders. A gift to their free will, he called it, even as he hated Time for repudiating free will in such a blatant fashion."
He paused to gauge Luna's reaction, but she was simply listening patiently. "That sounds impressive," she offered when she noticed his pause. "Very impressive, and very considerate to his fellow wizards. But in point of fact, I know a being who once did something similar for Equestria. Has 'Merlin' done anything else on that scale?"
"He did something even greater," Riddle said reverently. "Despite everything he believed, Merlin imposed an Interdict – a restriction on the very nature of magic itself, and thus a restriction on the free wills of all future wizards: that the knowledge of powerful magics may only be transferred by word of mouth, from one living mind to another. In order to impose it, Merlin sacrificed his life, his magic, and possibly even his remaining Time, but some scholars joke that he croaked of sheer hypocrisy. Today it is widely recognized that the world would have ended at least thrice over if not for his Interdict, so it is widely theorized that a prophecy told Merlin of the world's destruction, and in the end, Merlin violated his most sacredly held values to save it. Although it was not too egregious a violation. It is widely agreed that any other wizard in his place would have forbidden a wider range of actions, to the detriment of everyone. Your remarks on how morality should restrict free will as little as possible are similar to that particular aspect of the legend. If not for Merlin's healthy respect for free will, we would all be worse off. Wizards are still free to pass down their powerful knowledge to their apprentices, just not stupidly."
"I can see why he was the greatest wizard of all time," Luna said. "If only his second favorite concept was universality," she sighed wistfully.
Riddle's eyebrows rose in surprise. "It was, actually. The Interdict of Merlin applies universally, to all wizards, all magic, and all Time. He sought to understand as many universal truths as possible. His favourite artifact was a Mirror that treats everyone with the same universal ruleset. He made a hobby of mathematics and hard logic. If you could simplify his philosophy to two concepts, they would be universality and free will. He once described the Unbreakable Vow as the single darkest ritual in existence, especially when imposed upon those who do not consent."
"I think you have sold me on him." Luna smiled a wide and genuine smile. "Based on what you have told me, he might just be my favorite human wizard. No offense."
"None taken," Riddle shrugged. "He's my favourite too."
Even more than Slytherin, for Riddle proved Salazar's folly by slaying his beast, among other things, while Merlin's wisdom has yet to be proven wrong. The only point against Merlin, in Riddle's eyes, is the suicide, but even that can be viewed in the light of Mr. Potter's suggestion on how wizards on their deathbeds should bind Unbreakable Vows to leave an inheritance for their children. Merlin was old anyway, and not immortal. That he left a legacy of unmatchable value with his inevitable death was a sensible act, under the circumstances.
"Have wizards inherited Merlin's morals?" Luna asked. "Do they also consider the Vow unspeakably dark?"
Riddle scoffed. "Everybody reveres Merlin, but nobody holds themselves to his standards. Most wizards are closer to your sister. They, like she, regard the Vow as one of the least dark rituals in existence, to the point where it's legal in every magical country I know about."
"Disappointing," sighed Luna. "If a bit predictable."
"You didn't object when I proposed my own Vow," he pointed out. "Or when I carried it out."
"Because you freely chose to restrict your own free will, as did Sliver and Memory. I suspect the Vow will see much use in helping repentant addicts overcome their addictions. I do not object when a pony willingly restricts his own free will. I would object if others forced the same restriction without prior consent or truly dire need."
"What about criminals?" he asked. "You seem to have little sympathy in restricting their wills. With prison bars if not Vows."
She shrugged. "That has the potential to fall into the 'dire need' category. The moment you deliberately violate the free will of another, you forfeit the right to complain when your free will is violated. On a level commensurate with your initial violation, of course, and done for the purpose of restoring that which you have destroyed or taken, or done for the purpose of preventing future violations. That is the core tenet of universal morality as applied to legal consequences. If it is in the form of property repossession, or imprisonment and rehabilitation for bodily crimes, or even a Vow in the worst cases, I will not shed a tear. Theft, rape, assault, and murder always infringe on the free wills of others, regardless of circumstance, which is why forbidding those four, or variants of them, is the only hard set of moral rules I have."
"How is petty theft a violation of someone's free will?"
Her tone grew rhetorical. "Has anypony ever willed their own property to be stolen from them?"
"I can think of a plot where I did." And muggle insurance fraud works that way too.
"Then it wasn't theft," Luna said simply. "Theft is when you do not want your property to be repossessed – your wand, let us say – and if someone steals it, they have violated your right to freely do what you will with your own property. Property rights are the essence of free will. Modern ponies say 'your property, your choice'. Catchy, isn't it?"
"The 'catchiness' must be lost in translation," he said in deadpan. "And how is property the essence of free will? Shouldn't the core of free will be the concept of choice?"
"Hmm… yes and no. The ability to choose is merely synonymous with free will, two phrases meaning mostly the same thing. Property rights are more like… an entirely different way of looking at the same concept. Free Will is the abstract model, while property rights are real and actionable, like the difference between a painting of an apple and the actual apple."
"Would you mind explaining that?"
Luna spoke like a professor giving a lecture. "Legally speaking, property rights and free will are one and the same," she claimed. "It is the foundation of modern Equestrian ethics, the earliest written laws that still last to this day. Your property, your choice. And it works. Simply look to history, to other countries. Without property rights, you see little prosperity."
Riddle didn't argue the prosperity point. He didn't know Equestrian history in that sense, but he knew human history.
The ancient Romans were the first (known) civilization to enshrine property rights firmly, explicitly, and carefully into law, with close attention to detail. Theirs was the most advanced muggle and magical society of the ancient world, and they left a lasting impact on future lawmakers, their influence still plainly visible in the names of months, planets, spells, and, yes, legal statutes.
Modern societies, muggle and magical, also pay respect to property. Well, some modern societies pay some respect to the concept of property.
The Soviet Union was one of the biggest 'let's try something else' experiments in recent history, and it collapsed. Mao's China didn't fare much better.
As far as he could tell from roaming both "East" and "West" at a time in history when their respective political philosophies were in full-swing, the primary difference between the two was the quality of life, which drastically derailed as 'rights' were disregarded, including but not limited to property rights. Roaming village after village of pale, gaunt muggles whose minds were wracked by constant paranoia had a way of being memorable even to him. Texas never had that problem, nor the boondocks of muggle Britain, while the Soviet Union certainly did. So did Hitler's Germany, if you knew where to look; he had been too young at the time to confirm it personally, but even the most ignorant muggles know that story. Fascism, like socialism, laughed at the concept of individual rights. 'Nothing outside the state', as Mussolini famously said, does not leave room for property ownership in the long run, and... he had to admit those regimes, ultimately, didn't last either.
So he didn't argue against Luna's claim of 'no property rights, no prosperity' on factual grounds. But thinking of communism did remind him of a different sort of counter argument. He considered keeping quiet, since he certainly didn't agree with it, but he overcame his distaste in a desire to see how she would handle it.
"Do you consider property to be more valuable than life?" The indignant, accusatory tone that typically accompanied the rhetorical question was not in his voice. He had trouble enough asking it with a straight face. He did at least manage to finish the standard example. "What if I need to steal to save a dying or starving family member?"
"Ah," said Luna, raising a halting hoof. "You will not fool me with trick questions, my fool. Life cannot and should not be divorced from property. Your life is your property. My life is mine. The tangible effects of our labor are also our property, so long as we have not been otherwise contracted, and we have not violated the property of others along the way. When you engage in theft, for whatever reason, you are often stealing past labor, not just property, and appropriation of another's labor against their will is, by definition, slavery. If a griffon spends an hour to catch a fish, and you steal the fish, you have retroactively enslaved that griffon for an hour. If a pony works for ten bits an hour and you steal eighty bits' worth of property from them, you have enslaved them for a day of work. When you deprive somepony of their property, you are also depriving them of the life they spent obtaining that property. You might be depriving them of life itself, depending on what property you take, and how much. A dying family member, as tragic as that is, does not justify the forced servitude of others."
He had never heard it put that way. "Calling theft slavery seems a bit overdramatic, no?"
"No," she said. "It is either true or false. 'Overdramatic' is an insult, not an argument. Either bring a counterargument, or cease being foolish."
Riddle chuckled. "Very well. What about inherited property? You would not be 'enslaving' the work of a pony who inherits property."
"It is less evil to rob the dead than the living, but it is still wrong, my fool. To steal inherited property is to retroactively enslave the ancestor it was inherited from. If a parent passes down the home they built to their foal, you taking it for any reason, even to save a dying family member, would steal years of somepony else's work while also rendering their loved ones homeless."
"What about stealing property that was itself initially stolen?"
"To restore property to its original state is not theft."
"And stolen property that was passed down through generations?" he elaborated. "Or otherwise long separated from the initial moment it was stolen? Doesn't your statute of limitations-" which ponies do have "-interfere with that?"
"If they stole it from you and passed it down to their grandchildren, it is still yours; to take it back is not theft. If their ancestors stole it from your ancestors, the same concept applies, though you must be able to prove it in a court of law, which generally speaking becomes harder to do as time passes- eye witnesses grow forgetful, hard evidence is lost, and trials become longer and more expensive, to the point where the cost of prosecution exceeds the cost of the property itself. It is for this reason- practical necessity, not moral obligation- that the statute of limitations exists."
"And why the exact cut-off date of fifty years?"
"Why is the age of consent eighteen?" Luna countered. "And not, say, seventeen years and three-hundred, sixty-four days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-nine minutes? What difference does one minute make?"
"An excellent question."
She shook her head. "A deliberately annoying question, and not the kind that a good fool would ask. There has to be a cut-off date, and so that date is bound to be arbitrary. When it comes to the statute of limitations, my sister's vast experience in arbitration has led her to choose that date, with exceptions made for cases of significantly hard and undeniable evidence. But we are straying from the issue of property rights. Have I satisfied your questions about inheritance?"
"Not quite. What about excess wealth? Most inheritance is not necessary to survival."
Luna sighed and shook her head. "That does not address anything I have said so far. It is irrelevant to you if someone else's property is not necessary for their survival. Besides, who are you to define what qualifies as 'excess' or 'necessary'? For that matter, who am I?"
"The ruler of a nation," he said. Obviously.
"No," she said firmly. "I am a leader of Equestria, not a ruler."
"You say that as if there's a difference."
One thing that 'socialism' had in common with 'democracy' and 'capitalism' and 'monarchy' and 'fascism' and every other version and style of government was that they were all blatant oligarchies from start to finish. 'Equality' was and shall always be a lie; there will always be those who are better than others, in every field of competence known to man, including statesmanship and resource accumulation and power acquisition. There will always be a small cabal of elites making the important decisions.
"There is absolutely a difference between leaders and rulers," said Luna. "And if I were to declare what constitutes 'excess' property ownership, that would be the height of vanity, for it is an entirely subjective question. Besides, if I did have that principle, my sister and I would be parting with more funds than anypony else, given our own 'excesses'."
"Not if you exempted yourselves from the law," he observed. Like all kings and queens do. The royal family of muggle Britain is exempt from inheritance tax, among other things, because of course they are.
"Hypocrisy is the death of morality," said the Princess of Equestria. "Once again, you are describing rulership, not leadership."
"The difference being?"
"The difference, my fool, is that leaders do not exempt themselves from the rules. True leadership is done by example, and you cannot show how to follow rules by exempting yourself from them."
"Hm," he grunted noncommittally.
Luna studied his expression. "Did you have any other objections to property rights?"
"A few. I will remark that I am only playing devil's advocate. In general, I'm in agreement with property rights as a useful mode of governance. When the state seizes hoarded wealth, it disincentivizes frugality, productiveness, and the ability to delay gratification, and I have seen that sorry state of affairs first-hoof."
"That is an argument from effect, from consequences, not from morality. While completely true, it is not the reason we do not allow theft in Equestria."
"In that case, how does your system address the personality problems associated with inherited wealth?" Like Chrysalis and Blueblood. "That is a moral issue, no?"
"When wealth leads to arrogance, the blame lies with the parents, as do most personality problems. When you pass down your property to your foals, it is your responsibility to also pass down the values that enabled you to obtain and maintain that property."
As Chrysalis's parents must not have done, Riddle thought. And as Lucius did do. "Do most ponies agree with this?"
"Of course. Spare your guidance, spoil your foal, as the saying goes."
"That's similar to a religious saying I know," he observed. "Spare the rod, spoil the child."
Luna's voice grew chill. "The rod? What, pray tell, is that?"
"In the original metaphor," he said with a dry smile, "it refers to a shepherd's rod."
"Shepherd?"
"One who keeps and raises sheep, for the sake of harvesting their wool, and eventually their meat. The rod was a tool for beating away predators and directing the sheep. As your tone implies, you have already guessed that 'devout' families repeat this phrase as justification... no, as validation and encouragement for violence against the least among them. Most are unaware of the phrase's obvious reference to shepherdry, despite that symbolism's prevalence throughout the base religion."
"And if most humans were aware of that metaphor," said Luna, her voice still chill, "is it the case that shepherds use the rod to beat their own sheep?"
"Probably not," he said with a shrug. "It would make the sheep more agitated in situations where they must be swiftly herded. But I would not know for sure, as I've never raised sheep."
"And how common is that phrase?"
"About as common as can be."
"Then I think I might just declare that sentence to be one of the most harmful misinterpretations of ancient wisdom in all of human history. Sparing guidance spoils foals. Not sparing beatings."
Riddle shrugged again. "Perhaps. Getting back on topic... suppose the parents are indisposed to pass down their wisdom." Like his own had been. "Who bears responsibility for rotten offspring then?"
Luna seemed to want to discuss the rod further, but visibly dropped it. "That would depend on the reason they are gone," she answered, "and the nature of those who filled their roles afterwards. Tragedies do happen, but not in the overwhelming majority of cases. Even in the minority of cases it is often preventable. And in any case, regardless of parenting, when a wealthy heir makes poor decisions with his finances, it is not my right to force them to act otherwise. It is their free will to squander their bits, just as it was their parents' free will to allow that circumstance to arise."
"True," he allowed. "But all this still sounds like you value life over property."
She sighed. "Thus we come full circle to your original question. Once again, I do not consider life more valuable than property. I do not consider it less valuable. 'Tis like asking 'what is more valuable, gold or money?' The two are intertwined, inseparable. Attempts to separate them stem from vanity and result in disaster. That is all there is to it."
"And what does it mean practically? What 'ought' may be drawn from that 'is'?"
Luna smiled. "Practically speaking, life beyond a state of nature cannot exist without property, and in many ways life is property- property which we ought to do our utmost to respect and preserve. Do not murder, do not rape, do not assault, do not steal. Those are the only four instances of moral 'rules' in Equestria, the only instances that justify the use of force to prevent. Outside of consensual duels and such, force may only be used to prevent violations of property rights- especially your right to the property known as 'your body'. Phrased differently, we do our utmost to prevent violations of free will. Do you have any further advocation to do on evil's behalf about Equestrian property and free will?"
No further automatic rejoinders came to Riddle's mind, so he considered what he'd heard.
Life is property… no, life is free will… conceivable as property rights…
It was an interesting argument – spoken far better than Riddle himself could have said it because he doesn't speak 'moralizer'. As far as he could tell despite his lack of expertise in the field, she had managed to maintain the moral high ground in the face of an argument that typically strips it away. And she did so without compromising her own principles. She didn't concede a single inch of ground.
He was certain a true moralizer would sink to slimier arguments at this point.
The obvious 'you justified slavery because you called life property' came to mind, but that would have been obnoxious, especially with all the qualifiers she added to prevent such a stupid misinterpretation.
Instead, he decided to give one last counter, not from the communists this time, but from the opposite camp.
"What of taxation?" he asked. "Does that not constitute a violation of property rights? I have heard-" many a moron "-certain human thinkers refer to it as theft, given that it is not a consensual repossession of one's property."
"I would not be surprised if that claim was completely and utterly justified all across the human world," said Luna. "And it would have been justified here in Equestria for the longest time. It is still justified in, say, Griffonia. But my sister has done her diligent best to adjust taxes over the centuries. As the city's acting governor, she taxes only Canterlot citizens, and that money funds the maintenance of public places, services, and the guard. If a pony comes of age and they find Canterlot taxes not to their tastes, they are free to search the country for a tax system they like better. In order to reside in most cities, all adult ponies sign a tax contract along the lines of 'I agree to pay this city's taxes as long as I am its resident.'"
"And if, hypothetically, a pony chooses not to reside in any city, and commutes from the wilderness?" As portkeys might soon start to facilitate.
Luna gave him a knowing look. "Hypothetically, hmm? Well, as I have said, different cities have different tax systems. You could easily circumvent Canterlot taxes that way, as we tax per square foot of city floor space owned. You could evade Manehattan and Crystal Empire taxes that way too, but good luck avoiding the income taxes of Cloudsdale, or the sales taxes of Ponyville."
"Those don't sound like systems in which consensual contracts are signed," Riddle pointed out.
Luna nodded. "By choosing to be employed in Cloudsdale, you are choosing to have your income taxed. By choosing to buy products in Ponyville, you are choosing to have your purchases taxed. By choosing to live in Canterlot, you are choosing to have your property taxed. And of course, we try to make exceptions for those who cannot make such choices. The disabled, for example."
"Are government actors exempt from taxes?"
"No. My sister pays our taxes, for instance," Luna answered easily. "As I said, we are leaders, not rulers. And since the palace and its grounds take up more space than anypony else's property in Canterlot, she also pays the most in taxes."
"And that money is not deposited right back into the royal vaults?" he asked skeptically.
Luna looked scandalized. "Of course not! The city treasury and the royal vaults are two very distinct accounts. Nopony, especially not my sister, may freely withdraw city funds – it pays for set salaries and purposes, and while there is a tax surplus, it is meant for disaster relief. Otherwise it runs at net neutral."
"Supposing a disaster is in need of relieving-" like Discord and the Changelings "-who controls the funds if not your sister?"
"Adjustments to tax usage are voted on by a committee of the largest tax contributors, or their representatives, with votes weighted proportional to their contributions, though my sister does have final veto power as the city's governor and largest taxpayer, and it requires a significant majority to overturn her veto."
"So your sister may only freely use funds from the royal vaults, not the 'city treasury'?"
"Precisely."
Riddle noticed a potential source of hypocrisy... or perhaps privilege would say it better. "Do taxes pay for the palace staff and royal guard? I do not see other citizens with so many personal protectors and servants."
"Most of the royal guards here in the palace are funded privately, not publicly, as is the staff. There are some exceptions. Just as there are some rooms in the palace that are exempt from property taxes, like those devoted to foreign diplomacy. Much of this was voted on long ago. And when it comes to that which must not be publicly known, like those who guard the mirror, and the mirror room itself, my sister makes her decisions as if the public did know about it. She tries to err on the side of caution, which means she tends to pay out of royal pocket."
"In that case, how was that pocket filled in the first place? Hoarded wealth from the past?"
Luna shook her head. "My sister and her nobles are widely agreed to be the best dispute resolvers in the Equestria. Which isn't to say she is perfect, but her Day Court is a significant source of income, split among the nobles who help, of course. You have seen the prices to petition yourself. And my sister owns or co-owns a number of ventures across the country. Her school and the university do not seek profit, but the royal enchanters do, not to mention the gold mines. When she pays property tax on the palace, it is with money she has earned. Often in the form of return-on-investment."
"And you?" asked Riddle. "Do you likewise earn income?"
Luna sighed. "I... am afraid I must confess to being a 'useless eater' at the moment. My sister has tried to reassure me that without my proposed principles of property rights and foal protection – policies she diligently adopted as both apology and atonement after my banishment – Equestria would never have seen so much prosperity, and it is only thanks to that growth that the royal coffers are so full in the first place. She has also said that if the long-term benefits of dream-walking and trauma reduction could be measured in bits, it would easily match her own income. To say nothing of beautifying the night sky. But even still, I have grown less and less comfortable accepting her Generosity these last few years. Tia does not feel as though I am exploiting her, but I am beginning to feel that way."
"The fastest way to build resentment between two parties is exploitation..." Riddle said.
He was almost surprised at himself for remembering that piece of Night Court wisdom and completing the pattern so quickly. He'd known it in one direction, that the exploited resent their exploiters, but Luna made him aware of the reverse. After all, people who allow themselves to be exploited are stupid, and doesn't he himself resent stupidity? Thus, doesn't he resent those he exploits?
"Indeed," said Luna. "Which is why I am no longer spending much of her money. I do not wish to ever resent Tia again. Your own salary is the last major expense of mine, and I am trying to think of ways to pay for it myself. And also pay for my portion of the palace's property taxes. It would be simple if Night Court worked as it once did..." Luna sighed again. "But modern times require new ideas, and I think my own Court is best left free. Not that it could fund much of anything if I charged for it. I am still trying to think of a suitable-"
"You may stop paying my salary," he offered.
"I-" said Luna, surprised. "Truly? Why?"
"The aid you are offering to me is commensurate with what I am offering to you." Perhaps more than commensurate, but he wasn't sure just yet. "I have other sources of income. All legal, of course. And it's not like I have many expenses. But we can address that later. For now, I'd like to stay on topic. Do you honestly believe Equestria's various systems of taxation do not meet the technical definition of theft?"
Luna took a long moment to reply, perhaps to organize her thoughts after another derailment. "It... is still not quite where I'd like it to be... but my sister has helped Equestria come a long way nonetheless. For the most part, yes, I would say taxation in Equestria is not theft. It is not perfect, but it is about as explicitly consensual and fair as we can make it; furthermore, there is no corruption, no funds vanishing to unknown purposes, or known but hated purposes, like warmongering, and I expect it will only get better in the future. That is what happens when property rights are truly respected, and I am glad my sister has read up on my many treatises over these centuries. Or perhaps she came to the same conclusions herself. I haven't yet asked Tia how every last one of her perspectives evolved over the years."
"You wrote treatises?"
"On property rights, foal abuse, virtue, and a number of other things."
"Did you think of it all yourself?"
She shook her head. "I had a mentor. Long ago. Long dead by now, I imagine… though I should ask my sister what finally happened to him. It would be nice to visit his final resting place." She had a distant look in her eye. "In fact, I just remembered how he responded to my skepticism about virtue as the only path to happiness, long ago."
Her voice took on a strange, sarcastic, performative cadence. "Become a better person?" she gasped, as if in horror. "Develop virtue? Call out evil when I see it? Oh, no! Please! Oh, stars above, anything but that! Won't someone please give me a path to happiness that doesn't involve deep, difficult change! I'll do anything! Sell my soul, buy your miracle-cure, take shortcuts, commit murder, anything! Just don't say I have to be truly, deeply honest with the beings in my life, I'm begging you!" She was smiling fondly by this point, and Riddle was chuckling.
"There were many a charlatan back in that day," she pointed out. "Guaranteeing happiness with some lie or another. Drug dealers, all of them. Virtue is the only lasting cure to unhappiness… but I am repeating myself."
She cleared her throat. "Free will and property. Your property, your choice. Obviously your property includes your life, your mind, your voice, and your body. This is why I believe you may ignore your 'inner-phoenix'. So long as you are not taking or damaging or deliberately risking another's property in your antics, you should be free to choose what you do with yourself and your effects. That is how free will hinges on property. Which brings me to my final set of questions."
"I'd rather call it a day."
He had more than enough to review already. Morality as a relationship, virtue ethics, emergencies ethics, true apologies, states of nature and his fear of death, the 'black' rule, anger as the 'immune system of the soul', free will = property rights, free will in general…
"You have already given me much to think about."
He's going to write down as much as he can remember as soon as he leaves, and he's going to be extracting the memory as exactly as possible for later review in the Astral Plane. It's not often he is subjected to so much of what he refers to as 'Night Court advice' in a single session.
"You have asked much of me," Luna said. "I would like to ask three quick questions of you and then call it a day. You can answer each in a single word if you wish."
Three more questions… "Fair enough."
"Do you inherently respect the property rights of others?"
"…No," he answered honestly. It's the competent model for governance based on the evidence he's seen, and he can personally bring himself to do it, but it's not an inherent respect in most cases.
"A typical result of growing up in a state of nature," she remarked. "Now, how would you feel if your own important property was permanently removed from your possession by another? The Stone, for instance."
"Annoyed," he answered, again honestly. "Possibly outraged, depending on the property, and if it was merely taken or if it was outright destroyed."
"A typical result of being sapient," she nodded. "Which is why sapience abhors nature – it produces the hypocrisy you have just displayed. You do not inherently respect the property rights of others, and yet you would be outraged if your own property was not respected. Remember that you are not to blame; ponies become hypocrites when they are surrounded by hypocrites growing up, the same as becoming evil. But at the end of the day, and this is my last question: Do you want to be a hypocrite?"
Four years ago, he might have said he tried to avoid it for the sake of logical consistency, but he also might have said that he ultimately didn't care if he was somehow proven a hypocrite, given how little others seem to care about their blatant hypocrisies. Like Dumbledore.
Now…
"No, I do not wish to be a hypocrite." His third and final honest answer.
Now he was at least trying to hold himself to higher standards. In all aspects of mind and body, not just those he found immediately useful.
Dumbledore's hypocrisy had infuriated his younger self, and he didn't even need Luna to point out the obvious inference – that if he allowed hypocrisy to seep into his own actions, he would infuriate himself. He does not quite know how to achieve happiness, but he at least knows that self-loathing, subconscious or otherwise, would get in the way.
Tack one more onto the list for later review: hypocrisy. And on that note...
"Could you give a full definition for that, before I go?"
Not because he didn't know the definition himself, but because he found that asking for definitions from Luna sometimes revealed new information. Later, for instance, Luna would succinctly summarize her stance on anger and rage by defining them: 'Anger is self-defense, rage is destruction of the other'.
As for hypocrisy...
"Hypocrisy is when the content of the message disagrees with the manner in which it is delivered." She took on an angry cadence, in voice and facial features alike. "SHOUTING IS WRONG! YOU DON'T TEAR INTO PONIES! You need to listen!" Her demeanor returned to lecture. "The contents of these moral 'lessons' disagree with their delivery. Shouting is wrong, says the shouting parent. You don't tear into ponies, says the mother tearing into her son. You need to listen, says the father who never does any listening himself. Hypocrisy is the moral equivalent to trying to use language to convince somepony that language itself is meaningless. It is as logically clumsy as it is stupid."
Riddle chuckled, but didn't interrupt, for she didn't seem done just yet.
"It is also hypocrisy when ponies make excuses and exceptions for themselves when they claim their moral rules are universal. The leader/ruler distinction is the quintessential example of the difference between a principled pony and a hypocrite. When a pony's actions are at odds with what they say, when they don't practice what they preach, and in fact do the opposite, that is hypocrisy."
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(... digesting ... all this broccoli...)
Nice chapter
Broccoli can be delicious, if prepared with the proper seasoning. And this seasoning is quite good.
So
Much
Broccoli.
Prepare, for evacuation.
Sam Starfall would have a field day reading this.
I wonder if someone tried that on real world judge.
USSR had personal property protected for most (with complications about land and means of production).
Prosperity of whom?
Comrade Luna!
Proper response to an insult, though.
That'll be a lot of recursive property redistribution. Also, who's conveniently in charge of Equestrian judicial power, by the way?
There has to? Really?
They've probably stolen it from working class, or something. Fix the injustice!
Why, it'll be decided using universal objective laws of moving matter, or course!
Often they didn't exempt themselves.
'Cause deep inside I kiiinda realize my classical antiquity inspired essentialist moral philosophy that is fundamentally unable to deal with numbers is bull, but nah?
That may explain how she's almost lost a war to some village with Eiffel tower in the middle.
No state's taxation system does.
Can one cast avada kedavra with that?
11512048
Don't forget the most important product OF the land: food. If you wanted to do the most damage as quickly as possible to as many people as possible, the property rights that you violate FIRST are land, food, and industry. Saying the USSR mostly respected property rights is like calling a violent mob 'mostly civil' because hey, 99% of the time they're just standing around, as opposed to that 1% of their time spent being violent.
The country and its populace, political elite not included. Median standard of living. Median household income. Average life expectency. Can you literally see the ribs poking through the skins of your average citizen? Take your pick of evalutation metrics.
Yeah, that passage DOES reek of the labor theory of value, doesn't it?
Read: Pony statute of limitations is 50 years. Plus, over the course of the last 1,000 years, crime has all but vanished from Equestria. A side effect of ensuring foals aren't abused. Most remaining disputes are comparitively minor. Very few instances remain of property that was initially stolen and then passed down through generations, and there are even fewer ponies with righteously indignant temperments who would demand a court hearing about events not from their own lifetimes/memories.
If you don't want ponies claiming thousand-year-old artifacts from museums as belonging to their ancestors (and thus themselves), and if you don't want sex between 14-year-olds and 65-year-olds, then yes, there has to be a cut-off-date. Both for the statute of limitations, and for the age of consent.
*Laughs in human history.* In all seriousness, it didn't have to be an explicit exemption, like the British Royals being exempt from inheritance taxes. If the Epstien stuff has proven anything, it's that the powerful still find ways to exempt themselves from the law. Also, check out the Glencoe Massacre sometime. There's a great YouTube vid about it. The crown is found guilty of committing treasonous murder against its own citizens in the worst way. Found guilty twice, because the king demanded a retrial, and was found guilty both times. What retribution was served for this horrible injustice? The dude responsible got fired. But don't worry; he was rehired later.
Plainer English, please?
If by "no", you mean "every", then correct.
With rage? If it's strong enough, and directed at a single being, then yes.
11512136
Land and industry was owned by
everyonethe state as "socialist property" --- that's the whole idea (there's also cooperative property, but it's functionally the same). I'm not sure what do you mean by food --- food tax on peasants in 20--early 30s?It obviously didn't respect the rights of con-men, thieves and exploiters --- like any other state.
Irrelevant numbers --- you can't prosper while being exploited. Soviet people were free of evil capitalist exploitation and as so did prosper, being a bit poor is just temporary difficulties for greater good (and remember, wanting too much stuff is capitalist-imparted false consciousness).
Of the same overdramatization.
Yeah, I remember from a few chapters ago it somehow happened though the magic power of Stalinist judicial system.
Nobility and businessponies at least? All all that buffalo issues.
Not court hearing
i.imgflip.com/356zn0.png
Bunch of real-life policies on second thing are not that (although not that different). Argument that it's stupid is correct; standard counterargument is that people are even more stupid and otherwise law won't work in a way predictable in advance.
As this dude put it, you may just not write yourself in in the first place:
Although, making law just contingent only on having magic essence inside (which royals have) makes it completely universal with no exemptions.
No country has it's taxation illegal under it's own law (and doesn't have theft illegal) as far as i know.
I mean with anger, other thing is just regular one.
11512577
I really hope you're just trolling in your comments about the USSR. If not, read the Gulag Archipelago sometime. Or better yet, The White Pill, which is infinitely more readable, and was written by the same guy that did Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il. Or in other words, the guy who went to North Korea, memorized their propaganda, and used that to maintain a comedic, light-hearted tone as he descibed the horrible, nation-wide attrocities they commit to stay in power. He's about as anti-authoritarian as you can get, and he made sure to collect all the receipts when he tackled the Soviet Union in The White Pill.
Well of course they're not going to make taxation illegal. My exact words were "taxation meets the technical definition of theft", not "taxation is illegal." Although I suppose it depends on how YOU define theft; if you define it as 'when property is criminally repossessed', sure, taxation is exempt from that definition. The technical definition of theft to which Luna and Riddle were referring, however, was this: taking someone else's property by force, without their permission or consent. I now realize I should have had one of them say that definition explicitly.
If I had a choice, I would NOT give the US government my permission or consent to use my money on drones that blow the brains out of random people in the middle east. But at the end of the day, all laws are ultimately backed up at gunpoint (though to be fair, you do have to go through a lot of dorks before you get to the gun, and when the gun DOES arrive in the form of the cops, you have to resist arrest to risk being shot), and so I do not resist as the tax man takes my money.
And if all that doesn't sway you, I'll try to put it like this. Suppose a man puts a gun to a woman's head and tells her to give him permission and consent to have sex with him. He tells her to spread her legs, jerk him off, whatever. Is it rape? Despite her giving 'permission'/'consent', despite her doing the acts herself, there's no doubt she wouldn't be doing it if a gun wasn't to her head. Same thing with taxes. Make all the arguments you want about it being necessary for society; that's a whole different discussion. I ask only this: when someone forcibly takes property at gunpoint, does that not meet the technical definition of theft?
vary hard questions and amazingly good questions.
this is the kind of stuff everyone needs to stop and think about.
this is a awesome chapter.
11512888
Not exactly: I'm trying to make broader point on how presented philosophy progressively more and more seems to differ from... some other 20th century philosophies (ones with very high body count) by reframing a few words. But unlike with communism or nazism here it's a good thing somehow?
Alright, we haven't seen conflict theory appear yet, if I remember correctly, but historically earlier examples starting with French revolution, going through Christian philosophy all the way back to Plato's Republic show that we don't need full flush-royale for awful shit to happen. Hegel's historicism kinda appeared in Celestia's earlier policy, rationalism, essentialism and a few of Plato's ideas --- definitely.
And you seem to assume that my previous comment was pro-soviet in any way?
(which, if is, kinda works towards the conclusion about a few reframed words too)
Well, I've just read first 6 chapters, and while being a bit sloppy with small details says basically what history text book says on main events (and where he discusses soviet ideology, he more or less says what I've written earlier). Does this change later?
Practically it's how judge defines theft
Not a partucularly useful question to ask
Hmm So... what is the definition of Property? How does one go getting ownership of something? You DO have conmen and being quite bad in debt (See The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000). A bad year of crop can be deadly and end up with ownership of a farm going to someone rich, who has not gotten there through work but just being born in the proper place AND his ancestors conquering that money throug violence and war. That is the problem specific to capitalism... There are basic necessities that trump others AND if left to contracts end up BADLY skewed... I can get a contract that say that you will give me ALL you work in my factory for the next five years in exchange of water and food barely enough to survive, and you are starving right now... Do you accept or not? Is that a valid contract? All the houses in Ponyville are mine aquired in time by buying them or having them from the founding of the town through inheritance through marriages and similar, I do not sell and charge ridiculous rents with a scheme for debt management... All of Ponyville is indebted to me. Throug investment I've managed to own ALL the road, mail service and shipping industry in Equestria, to make a point I stop EVERYTHING, you are suddenly without an infrastructure for the country.
11512888
About the issue of rape... Is it theft if instead of the gun to the head the issue is of starvation? Lone settlement and the guy has food & water, the woman is starving and dying of thirst, he agrees in giving her food is she spread her legs, is it not practically the same as pointing a gun to her head? Because IT IS a transaction even the other way, I offer you NOT to shot you in the face in exchange for a blow job. Unless you address the basic needs you end up with poor people being blakmailable.
11515171
I try not to rely on dictionary definitions, so this is what I've come up with after considering the question: That which a person or group of people claim/possess/own. Practically speaking, this means they may do what they will with it so long as they do not violate the claims/possessions/ownerships of others, and they may defend their ability to do so with violent force if necessary. In short: something you own, something you can choose how to use, and something you may use force to protect.
The standard example is a fish swimming in a lake. In nature, it isn't property. But the moment someone fishes it up, the moment someone renders this natural resource into a usable good, it has become property, belonging to the one who fished it up, or the one who contracted them to do so, etc. This goes all the way back to hunter-gatherer times. If one tribe shoots a deer in the woods with an arrow, killing it, and the tribe goes to collect it, but another tribe comes along and takes it before the first tribe can get to it, that's theft. The first tribe rendered the natural resource usable, they have ownership. They would be justifiably pissed off, and probably attack the thieves. Same with chopping down a tree. If you chop down a tree, then go to get your family to haul it off, and then some other family is hauling it off by the time you get back, they're stealing it.
From there, trade, gifting, and inheritance are the ways to go about exchanging ownership consentually, without force. There are other, more complicated situations, like items lost and later found by others, or items where ownership is renounced, but it's easy to get lost in those weeds. Follow the chain of trades and inheritance (or theft and war and violence) backwards long enough, and you could theoretically trace all property back to the moment it was an unclaimed resource, just like you can theoretically trace matter back to the big bang. This is, of course, ignoring the property known as "your body", which (in my view) simply cannot be repossessed in a moral way while you are still alive, whether through contracts or anything else. If, in advance, you want to contract the repossession of your own remains after death, that's fine. You can also contract out your labor, with the asterisk that you always have the option to STOP laboring, if you chose. There can be pre-described penalties for doing so, of course, but the option to stop always has to be there.
When it comes to the BIG moral questions, it always boils down to this: "Is the use of force justified during an intervention?"
Can you force the factory owner to part with his resources (food and water) at gunpoint and redistribute it to the starving person? In my view, no. Can you force the factory owner to NOT offer a contract to a starving man saying: "Here's the pay for working at this factory: such and such quantities of food and water per hour."? In my view, no, you can't stop him from making that offer, and you can't stop the starving man from accepting it. The only thing, I think, that you COULD use force to prevent is the mandatory five years part, because that crosses the threshold into obvious slavery. If the guy can quit and leave at any time, and the factory owner isn't forcing him to be there... I'll put it this way. It's a terribly shitty situation, the factory owner is an exploitive piece of shit, but you don't solve it with a gun to the factory owner's head (unless obvious slavery, etc.). You solve it by making a better offer to the starving man, which he would leap for.
And to be perfectly honest, your hypothetical isn't very realistic; situations like that rarely DON'T involve the constant use/threat of force - I imagine the factory owner has an unnatural (i.e. gun-backed) monopoly on literally all the resources, if he's the only one able to make an offer to the starving man. In the real world, you don't typically find factories in the middle of nowhere, with no other businesses capable of making employment offers to starving men. In a free market, people who do dick moves like the factory contract you just described tend to get out-competed fairly quickly by contractors who make better offers. Especially in large population centers, which is WHY people flocked to population centers in droves during the industrial revolution.
11515178
No, exchanging resources for sex is not "practically the same" as rape. No, you do not get to frame rape at gunpoint as a transaction. Otherwise, I'm going to define a library as noisy (it has SOME noise, after all), I'm going to define war as mostly peaceful (because the number minutes occupied by violence are not exceeded by the number of minutes occupied by tense periods of 'peaceful' waiting), and I'm going to say that North Korea doesn't have internment camps. After all, they don't use that word, so they do not have them.
Remember that Harry's Slytherin side tried to redifine theft as an economic exchange when PQ was tempting him with Roger Bacon's diary, and that was OBVIOUS BULLSHIT.
11514668
Personally, I don't take Yudkowsky's word as gospel. Philisophical debates START with definitions because otherwise all you have is "common sense" and consensus. "Common sense" suggests that taxation isn't theft, so anyone trying to argue to the contrary (me, in this case) has to present the definition of theft and show how and where it overlaps with taxation.
You can disagree with the definition, or disagree with the overlap, but don't just link an article of Less Wrong whining about "by definition" and call it case closed. I've presented an argument about how taxation is theft, starting with definitions, then moving on to examples and analogies. I didn't stick to definitions only, and linking that article implies that I did. I harped on the point more than usual, but when you are literally asking the question "Is it the case that X is Y?", you HAVE to go to definitions more than in other arguments.
Exactly the problem. Judges are fallable, bribably, corruptable, potentially arrogant, limited humans like all the rest of us, and their edicts are backed by the state's monopoly on the use of violent force - literally the most corrupting and dangerous force in human history.
11515359
That would be roughly what is called "nominalism" (as opposed to "realism"). Historically (and I suspect still) bunch of very influential philosophies taught not only that words have intrinsic meaning but implicitly believed that (some) stuff has magical essences inside. As so, right definition is one that captures essence correctly (or at least as good as currently possible), and it represents the most fundamental and important kind of knowledge. That is "essentialism" (and also why we have hundreds of years of debates about incredibly deep stuff, like are humans with only one leg really human). Thus debates often _ended_ with definition.
But ancient Greeks probably could agree that nominalist definition are sometimes useful --- they at least used "ad absurdum" and conterfactual reasoning (if I remember correctly). So enter second thing --- "rationalism", which says that there's "lame" knowledge that you get from interacting with world around and there's "cool" knowledge that you can be absolutely sure of, that is universally eternally true regardless of any context and that is derived with no suppositions using pure reason (see every bad philosophical argument on Gödel theorem). Obviously, self-respecting philosopher should be foremost preoccupied with "cool" knowledge and any statement about morality should be "cool".
I don't know what to say here, for me under the state of knowledge of 21st century it's pretty obvious that both of these things are utter bunk.
Under nominalism you can't, at least without bringing up additional context, like your preferences and expected social consequences or adopting it.
Yudkowsky's point there is that it's really bad question to ask in the first place since neither positive nor negative answer constrains your expectations of reality in any way. But Greeks would love this question since the answer clearly says something about essences of X and Y and it's something that may be universally and eternally true and derived with logic. Millenia of bad philosophy tradition aren't going anywhere.
That's purely Platonic argument --- there's ideal perfect eternal Form of Judge hanging out there in the world of ideas, and real judges are merely shitty imperfect copies of It. More imperfections --- worse.
In reality, people dislike their legal system not because it doesn't follow the Form, but because of how it behaves and social situation.
Just behind Platonic philosophy
11515324
Well... about the fishes... what if I own the lake? And all the land around it. And your house. And so on and on.
And if it is NOT owned... you go into tragedy of the commons, where as it is economically convenient for each user to use a little bit more of the resource and individually they would NOT destroy the resource, but if EVERYONE does that it becomes depleted.
But you are saying that it IS right to defend by gun your property. And it IS easy to ammass enough property to be de facto single provider in a zone. It DID happen. The power balance is INDECENTLY skewed to the rich that get richer as times goes on.
And how do you do that? There are typically HUGE entry barriers in a lot of moderately high tech situations, an estabilished provider CAN take an hit early on to price you out of the market.
11515333
Well as you said you can defend your property by gun said starving woman has the choice of dying by gun while trying to get the food there, dying of hunger, or submit to the request of sex. Is it a corner case? Obviously, but it's those you have to check and address.
11515511
My argument isn't that judges should have a perfect Form or any crap like that. My argument is that arbitrators should be divorced from state power, and provably bad decisions and corruption should come with more severe consequences than mere disbarrment (i.e. getting fired). Positions of the highest authority, which inflict the most severe consequences, should be held to the highest accountability, but with state power you get the opposite of that, and nothing to do with stuff about Plato's Forms. If a monopoly on oil is a terribly corrupting force in the market, how can a monopoly on the legal use of violence (or ordering thereof) NOT be a corrupting force in governments?
As for the definitions stuff, I'm getting tired of arguing about the nature of arguing. Perhaps it's a drawback of the medium, and this is easier with spoken debates. The reason for bringing up definitions at the START of proper philisophical debates is the same as in math: you have to establish that both sides accept the core premises of the debate. If you can't even agree on those, debate and proof is pointless.
You haven't refuted the argument I've made on taxation and theft. I'll give one last analogy, and I'll even completely ignore definitions, and leave it at that.
Think of the mafia, going around collecting "protection" money. The mafia itself certainly wouldn't (and doesn't) call it theft. The people who "give" them money do it "willingly" (lest their legs be broken, or their shop), and don't call it theft out of fear. But ignoring what the mafia calls it, ignoring what the Stockholm-Syndromed people might call it, do YOU call that behavior theft? At the very least, do you call it wrong? Even supposing there's tangible benefits to the mafia's presence (speakeasies during prohibition, genuine protection from robbers and other gangs) which you can only get by paying the protection money, is it morally acceptable for the mafia to FORCE you to pay them for those benefits?
I'll even put it into Yudkowsky terms. In a universe of empirical clusters of similar things, do mafia protection money collection and government taxation qualify as "similar things"?
11515559
If you own the lake, you own what is in the lake. Same with farming. If you own the cows, you own what is produced BY the cows, including their offspring. Same with land ownership and deer, for instance, though most deer preserves are rented out by the hour to hunter hobbyists, nowadays. When land isn't owned, those who put in the labor to render a natural resource usable have property claim OVER that now-usable resource. When "common" land is sparsely populated, this model is often sufficient, and the most efficient. When "common" land is heavily populated, this leads to a LOT of disputes. Thus the tragedy of the commons is solved by eliminating the commons (i.e. building a fence around it and defending it). The wild west, which was a de-facto tragedy of the commons, in that cowboys hired by seperate farmers herded livestock onto the best grazing land regardless of who claimed to own it, was solved by barbed wire denoting which property belonged to which farmer. Who'd have thought it'd be that easy?
It's right to defend your own property with a gun. It's NOT right to point that gun at others and force them to sign your contracts. It is also not right to point your guns at your would-be competitors, or to order the govenrment to do so, which is the natural instinct and tendency for those who have long enjoyed monopolies, natural or otherwise.
In free markets, the rich can only get richer by providing better value than the competition (cheaper prices, better services, more convenience, etc.). The moment trust is overly abused, the customers will start looking for other options, or they will complain loud enough that other options will move into the area. In government coercion situations, there are a billion other ways to get richer, which is why most rich people looking to get as rich as possible go to the government with a crack team of lobbyists, campaigners, donors, and lawyers. It's also why the suburbs around DC are something like the fifth-wealthiest in America.
The only insurmountable barriers to entry in most markets are the massive infrastructure ones like waterworks, sewers, electricity, and to a lesser extent cable, internet, and phone providers, but wireless solves part of that problem nowadays. This is why most water and electric companies are the only ones in their area, and are heavily in bed with local governments. If you're referring to things like Walmart, just... no. Retail isn't a market with an overly high barrier to entry. If it's NOT profitable for Fred Meyer or Target to move into a location to compete WITH Walmart, chances are Walmart is already offering prices lower than Fred Meyer or Target intend to offer.
Now, if instead you're referring to things like first world oil companies ruining the enviornments of third-world countries in the extraction process, and avoiding legal consequences of de facto genocide because it's the third world, yeah, that's a massive problem, one that SHOULD be solved by the legal consequences in the U.S., but that's what corruption is for.
It's tragic that people can easily envision the problem with market monopolies, but they can't at all see the problem when dispute arbitration, especially MORAL dispute arbitration, is the sole purview of a single entity (the state), and that one entity has a monopoly on the legal use of aggressive violent force. But then again, seeing that problem would require people to criticize the VIOLENT power structures around them, and in PQ's words, that would not be in their own self-interest, in much the same way that getting a bullet to your brain isn't in your own self-interest. It's far SAFER to give a black eye to big-tech and big-corpo and big-capitalist than it is to give a black eye to big government. Just like it was safer for Harry to criticize Dumbledore and Hogwarts and the goblins than it was for him to criticize PQ.
11516438
Not sure about former, but latter thing was extensively tried by comrade Stalin and worked great (for him
). (single example thwarts general statement)
Are we in Warhammer 40K and speaking of Chaos corruption?
It isn't same, since math isn't that. Sure mathematicians sometimes like to argue if math is invented or discovered, but in day-to-day work math definitions are short-hands (and with time short-hands that especially good at shortening statements and proofs tend to get picked up by more and more folks). You may do math in first-order logic, which has neither definitions nor theorems and just plug full alpha-converted proofs everywhere. I even provided in advance an example of folks complaining that math isn't rationalism with Gödel theorem.
Moreover, if philosophy in particular hopes to say something useful about reality, it has to deal with intuitions (among other things, 'cause if it was able to say what it has to say precisely we'd call it "science").
I can not refute that you don't like taxation. Especially, since you appear to not like taxation.
Clearly, for mafia members themselves it's morally acceptable. If you don't like it and want to pitch to a few pals an idea of getting guns and killing them then framing their action as "bad" probably makes sense.
You need to provide _context_ (The. Worst. Possible. Thing.) On which metrics it's similar?
11516939
Yeah, more arguing about arguing. Not fun. This is my last reply before I post the next chapter; for future replies, please go to rehab 10.6 to keep these comments under the appropriate chapter.
My argument isn't that I don't like taxation, my arguments have all been towards questioning the morality of taxation, and whether it qualifies as theft. Saying this just shows you have no interest in addressing them. After responding to your final question, I'm done with this back-and-forth.
You mean besides the ones I already listed? One serving of metrics, coming up:
1. Use or threat of force to extract resources.
2. Consequences to body or property if you fail to comply, often arbitrarily. Mafia moves into your neighborhood, you pay protection money or suffer. You fail to pay taxes, you go to jail, pay a fine, business gets forcibly shut down, and any number of other consequences may apply, depending on how much the government workers cares about the case. For this point, the only difference between the U.S. government and the mafia is you can't escape federal income taxes, even if you can choose local taxes, but you CAN escape the mafia by relocating far enough.
3. The resource extractors (mafia and government) try their damndest to label their actions as morally good/necessary ("protection" money for mafia, arguably the same for government when it comes to police and military, though government has more excuses than mafia).
4. They didn't always exist. At least, they didn't exist nearly at their later levels of severity. Mafia came about due to solve market demand for alcohol during prohibition, stuck around as long as possible afterwards, getting involved in more and more black market industries (and some grey and white market ones too) as they went. Federal Income Tax started in 1862, almost a hundred years after the country's founding, and the government has gotten involved in more and more industries ever since, either directly through regulation or salaried industry jobs, or indirectly through subsidies, grants, and tax breaks.
That's off the top of my head.
11516972
I addressed them. It's my fault for only implying and not saying it earlier explicitly. but morality
and so rationalist argument hath no power over it. Like, at all, since it not only is unable to condition on these things as is, but schools of thought rationalism comes from consider such ability to be anathema (or "relativism"). I've written a tiny essay below on where it comes from historically and how it exploded in politics and philosophy.
(and I probably shouldn't have sassed about context and Warhammer
)
Similar on all four. Although I'm not sure how much in relation to variability among laws of different countries and customs of different mafias.
11520755
Right. To be fair, you're completely correct about morality being socially constructed throughout all of human history. You're also correct that the argument goes that you can't get morality from rationality, the age old 'you can't get an ought from an is'. (Even though people who say that don't realize that they JUST TRIED TO. Is: 'you can't get an ought from an is'. Ought: 'therefore moral relativism,' or any other number of arbitrary moral systems.)
The primary inspiration for this story tried and (in my opinion) succeeded to create a rational proof for secular ethics, writing a whole book about it and having many, many public debates defending it. But that book isn't mainstream, and it's not going to GO mainstream in our lifetimes, probably. Philosophers in academia would prefer to argue about the ethics of AI instead of the ethics of governments, parenting, and relationships. It's much more fun, not to mention significantly less risky to their careers.
11522232
Do you mean rationality (like understood on lesswrong) or rationalism? Similar words but almost diametrically opposed things.
It's attributed to Hume and is literally younger than Newton's laws.
It's as much of moral system as Lenin's "bourgeois idealism" is a philosophical system.
Most leftist philosophers? And even if it's about AI it's more like latest language model being racist or capitalists abusing workers with AI or something.
11512136
Interestingly, modern anthropologists suggest that the emergence of private property as a concept was directly linked to the rise of farming, which was marked by a massive decrease in quality of life (worse nutrition, increased disease, lower life expectancy, etc.) when compared to hunter-gatherers, which typically did not have a concept of private property. Here are some quotes from a study about the topic:
Farming did eventually produce better quality of life with technological adcances, but for most of human history the most prosperous peoples in terms of quality of life were hunter-gatherers with no concept of private property, even up to just a few centuries from today (though the exact cut-off point could be argued). Of course, the modern world (and Equestria) is extremely different, but nevertheless I disagree with the idea proposed by Luna (and the author) in this chapter that private property is necessary for prosperity.
Gun-backed monopolies happen all the time. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rich companies would literally hire private militias and/or bribe the local police/military to use violence on striking workers. In central America, banana companies had their monopolies protected by the military.
They're called company towns, and there's been thousands of them over the years. Some of them, especially the ones established by coal comapnies, were borderline prison camps.
Also, more competition doesn't necessarily mean better wages for the workers. As you mentioned in this story, companies in a free market often collude to artificially keep prices low, and this applies to wages too. During the Industrial Revolution, wages were so low and working conditions so bad that workers were essentially slaves (by your own definition, in fact, since wages being significantly lower than value produced is a form of theft) and this applied to every company because they all used the same tactics to keep wages down, especially union busting.
11516461
Why can't you just say that market monopolies and state monopolies are both wrong? Why not say that all hierarchy is unjust?
11585146
I tried to choose my words carefully. I'd argue that the ancient hunter-gatherers did not 'prosper', they subsisted. At the very least, they did not prosper in any sort of run-away manner. They were often vulnerable to rape and enslavement from other tribes, they practiced brutal warfare (scalping is tame by comparison), they had around 50% child mortality depending on local climate, local resource availability, local diseases, local cultural superstitions (child sacrifice wasn't uncommon), etc. And hey, there was no unemployment because everyone had to work or the tribe was at risk of dying every year. That's not what I would call prosperity, even if the individual health of a person was better than the diseased populace seen in Victorian England, or the obesity seen in ancient Egypt (and heck, modern America).
Granted, there were many, many problems with early farming attempts and property rights. They were prerequisites, necessary but NOT sufficient for prosperity. Even the study you quoted points that out. But property is the only prerequisite that many countries in the modern day are actively trying to diminish, if not eliminate entirely, largely at the pushing of academic types, largely at the expense of the average citizen, and it's THAT insanity that I'm trying to address. I don't need to extol the virtues of farming because almost everyone accepts it as a given. I DID feel the need to point out what happens when property rights go away, while also pointing out that LV is so evil BECAUSE he utterly ignores them. By the same token, those who RESPECT property rights are, if not virtuous, not actively evil.
Also, I tend to trust academic studies less and less these days, the more so when it comes to history, anthropology, and anything to do with the concept of property. With only 9% of academics self-identifying as 'conservative' in a 2007 Gallup pole (with that percentage only going down since then), it's highly likely that the sort of study you quoted is just rationalization for pre-existing bias. I once saw that the ratio of left to right leaning academics in history departments is something like 30 to 1. And the pre-existing bias of those who lean left when it comes to property rights tends to be "we should ignore them for the 'greater good'".
11585176
Gun-backed monopolies are wrong no matter where they happen. The moment a gun enters the equation, it's no longer the free market, it's a coerced market. I repeat that many people flocked to the centers of industry DESPITE low wages and bad working conditions because when you were born on a farm, you got NO wages and even WORSE working conditions. Unless you were set to inherit the farm, of course, or you were a farmhand for someone else's farm, but food and board tended to be the majority of your 'income' in that case. Which again, is almost equivalent to "no" wages. Which is why factory life was so appealing, despite being so shitty. That's why it's always important to ask, 'relative to what?'
Relative to today, yes. Relative to the alternative at the time (farm life), no. Because being the seventh born child on a farm ALSO amounted to slave work relative to today.
And while competition isn't GUARANTEED to result in better wages and working conditions, like you and I have said, companies can and often do collude, your chances are much better in a market that has competition as opposed to one that doesn't. Otherwise you're at the whims of (a) historical precident - it's easy to propagandize an isolated populace into believing that they have it better than everywhere else, much harder to convince them that they have it better than last year when they don't - and (b) the benevolence of an oligarchy/dictatorship. On the off-chance you DO get a benevolent dictator, what happens when they die and their asshole son takes over? Competition is a hedge against corruption. Again, it's not a guarantee, but it's better than all the alternatives.
As for unions, they're perfectly fine so long as they aren't coerced by force. As for union-busting, THAT'S perfectly fine to do so long as IT'S not coerced by force either. If you HAVE to join a union in order to work somewhere, or if the union prevents non-union members from working by physically barring the way, that's wrong. If a company busts up a union with police force, that's wrong. People refusing to work until conditions or wages improve is perfectly fine in a free market. They're peacefully exercising their rights to do with their labor as they will. So long as they don't force others to do the same, it's just another part of trade. Companies making better offers to non-union members is also fine in a free market. So long as their tactics also remain peaceful, so long as they don't break up a peaceful strike or union at the point of a gun, that's fine too. The problem is that unions and companies often escalated to non-peaceful means, neither side respecting the property rights of the other. And people tend to shrug off the offenses of either the unions or the factories depending on their politics.
11585177
Because not ALL hierarchy is unjust. In particular, competence hierarchies tend not to be unjust. But in general, voluntary hierarchies are not unjust.
Regarding competence hierarchies, the hierarchy of the current chess ELO system that ranks Magnus Carlson at the top is not unjust. The key point here is that Magnus Carlson isn't granted absolute authority over anyone based on his ELO score. But if he were to give chess advice, people would likely listen. Hierarchies that result in authoritative power, orders that must be followed, are unjust IF they are not voluntary. If I choose to work for a company, if I sign on the dotted line when I easily could have not signed at all, I am choosing to enter a hierarchy where someone else has the authority to tell me what to do. Voluntary, so it's fine. If I'm forced to sign, if I'm forced to work, if someone can order me around without my consent, it's a hierarchy that ISN'T voluntary, so it's NOT fine.
COERCED monopolies are wrong and unjust. But if it's not coerced, if people are simply exercising their rights to freely associate and arbitrate their own property, it's not wrong or unjust. JK rowling getting a 'monopoly' on the Harry Potter franchise is NOT unjust because she didn't do it at gunpoint. (Not that she quite does have a monopoly on her own series, but still.) That's the key difference. Sometimes market monopolies are coerced. ALWAYS state monopolies are coerced. The problem is the coersion, not the monopoly.
11585615
My point is that free markets easily lead to gun-backed monopolies because the balances of power are skewed so strongly to those who already have capital. I don't think I made that point very clear in the last comment, but it's what I was trying to get at.
Work hours for the average commoner increased during the Industrial Revolution when compared to farm work because laborers during the early Industrial Revolution had basically no holidays. Besides, people didn't flock to industrial cities because it was a better alternative, it's because their old lifestyle was being made obsolete.
When power is so skewed towards rich corporations and away from workers, union-busting is almost invariably a much bigger problem than the alternative you mention. Historically, union-busting has almost always involved unethical and often illegal activities (escalation) because companies could get away with it in a free market.
I was being a bit facetious with that comment, but I would argue that competence hierarchies are not really relevant to this discussion because they're an entirely different concept unrelated to political power. To quote you:
In order for a hierarchy to be voluntary, one must be able to exit at any time, and this is simply not the case with work. Most people around the globe live paycheck to paycheck so any disturbance in that (such as exiting their work's hierarchy by resigning) is unthinkable. Even if a freer market automagically solves that issue, having to enter a new hierarchy when leaving an old one hierarchy doesn't make either of those hierarchies voluntary. If you want to survive in a capitalist system you need to submit yourself to some hierarchy somewhere because the system is inherently hierarchical, which means it is not voluntary.
A monopoly that doesn't use coersion to remain so might be better, but a monopoly is a monopoly. It's still inherently negative in my view because a monopoly is essentially a dictatorship. Once a monopoly is large enough it's practically impossible to compete with them because of their massive capital advantage, which means the monopoly can get away with murder even if they don't explicitly coerce people. And once again, a "natural" monopoly easily transitions to a coercive one because who's going to stop them?
These discussions are interesting, but a whole chapter of just them can get boring
When I started to read this, I never expected it to be so deep about so many topics. Great philosophy filled story.