Can we have a civil, thoughtful discussion on this?

of course that's 100% backwards.Liberalism is based in illiteracy. Over production is caused by govt interference while if the law of supply and demand was allowed to operate there would be no over production. Econ 101

 

of course that is beyond absurd. Money is widely available all over the world but only to those who can demonstrate they can repay their loans. The idea that merely printing money solves problems is pure 100% liberal lunacy without a drop of evidence.

 

this is exactly what capitalism does and why China for example was able to eliminate 40% of the worlds poverty the instant it switched to Republican capitalism. If you have something better why so afraid to tell what it is??

 

The atoms themselves are self-evidently not the point because they are more or less immutably atoms. That they are created by natural processes is therefore not of interest. It's a meaningless diversion from the actual issue: how can natural resources rightly be made into private property? When atoms are in their natural places, they are what nature provided, natural resources. Rearranging them is what turns them into a product of labor.

If you are talking about a lawn, it was always a product of labor. If you are talking about mowing natural grass, then yes, mowing it turns the clippings into a product of labor by removing them from their natural places. The grass left standing is still a natural resource.

Rearranging atoms that were already property is a different process. It does not turn something that was not property into property.

 

No, self-evident and indisputable facts of objective physical reality that both you and all readers are well aware of.

And it can only provide them in their natural places. Once removed from those places by labor, they are no longer what nature provided, but products of labor.

 

Which is what we MEAN by "producing something by labor."

Which is what we MEAN when we say that steel in a useful shape was produced by labor. Contrary to your false, absurd, and disingenuous claims, we do not mean it was created ex nihilo.

 

Yes, I understand that this is your opinion. But the fact remains that whether or not you move the atoms from where you found them, you didn't create them. Therefore, you have no right to claim ownership of them and to prevent others from accessing what nature, and not you, created.

 

Yes, I know that when you say "I produced this with my labor", you really mean that you moved Nature's atoms around and now claim them to be your property. But you can't claim ownership of something you didn't create. You didn't create the atoms. Everyone has a right to that which has been created by nature.

 

Muh atoms.

 

So if I were to till a field - using your definition's then simply the tilled dirt would be my property...but the underlying untouched dirt is still a natural resource free for anyone to use. I guess I would ask how then another person is supposed to use the untouched dirt without first violating my property rights by disturbing the dirt that I tilled?

Is the grass left standing not also modified? It was one way before I cut it and another way after I cut it...its atom's were re-arranged.

So re-arranging atom's does not turn a natural resource into private property then?

 

And the occupied space -- the location -- which obviously can't be removed.

That is exactly the problem: how to secure valid property in fixed improvements (products of labor) without creating an invalid property in the natural resource, removing people's rights to liberty. This is not an issue in pre-agricultural economies where land is abundant, everyone is at liberty to use it non-exclusively, and fixed improvements are derisory. It becomes a problem with the advent of settled agriculture and significant fixed improvements, because exclusive land tenure is required for an economy that has advanced past the hunter-gatherer and nomadic herding stages. The quick and (very) dirty solution, which is still in effect, was to create an invalid property in the natural resource and just remove everyone else's rights to liberty, effectively enslaving them while creating unjust profits for landowners at the expense of producers. The real solution, we now know, is to remove both the unjust advantage to the landowner, by requiring him to repay what he is taking from the community, and the unjust disadvantage to everyone else by extending a free, secure, universal right of exclusive tenure on enough of the available advantageous land of their choice to have access to economic opportunity. A democratic, responsible government is the only institution capable of doing this, and the cost of the services and infrastructure it provides should therefore be paid out of the additional location value they create. As the Henry George Theorem proves, that is the only possible way to make funding of government (and therefore civilization) a voluntary, beneficiary-pay, market-based, value-for-value transaction. Those who oppose this solution do so for a single reason: they want to take publicly created location value for themselves, without having to contribute commensurate value in return.

Only the cut-off part has been removed. The rest of the stalk is still where nature put it.

Not when they were already property through having been removed from nature.

 

That is what every honest person means by "produced by labor."

As they are no longer a natural resource.

I did create the product.

Irrelevant. I obtain rightful ownership of them PRECISELY BY removing them from their natural places under the conditions already described, because that does not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have, while they WOULD be depriving me of something I would otherwise have if they took the fruits of my labor from me.

The atoms were not created by nature where they are now, so no one else has a right to them. They only have a right to what they would otherwise have, if others did not deprive them of it.

 

No, it is an indisputable fact of objective physical reality.

Irrelevant, as already proved. By removing them from their natural places, I do not deprive anyone of anything they would otherwise have (unless they also want to remove them, in which case whoever removes them and makes them his property owes just compensation to all who are consequently deprived of the opportunity), and therefore do not violate their rights.

False, as already proved by reductio ad absurdum: if I had no right to prevent others from accessing atoms nature created, I would have no right to breathe. You already know I proved you wrong on that point. Your position is not consistently defensible, so it is incorrect. Until you explain how people have a right to breathe that is consistent with your claims, your claims are known to be false and absurd.

 

I suppose it happened when the first two people on earth decided to respect each other's choice to sleep on a certain piece of property or when they realized they could not both sleep on the same property.

But first came a general respect for the other person such that you were not inclined to kill him, eat him, enslave him or otherwise exploit him. This is natural law according to Jefferson. He said, with other enlightenment thinkers, a person has a natural right to be secure in his person and property.

 

But in fact, we know that didn't happen. They didn't decide to sleep on property, they just kept on sleeping on land that they both knew was not and could never rightly be property.

Nope. Flat false. They knew they were not sleeping on property. It was inconceivable -- absurd -- to them that anyone would claim to own land as property.

No, that general respect didn't and still does not exist, as proved by the existence of landowners, whose intention is by definition to rob, exploit and enslave others.

Which cannot rightly include land, as that removes everyone else's rights to liberty:

“Wherever in any country there are idle lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.” -- Thomas Jefferson

 

wrong alligators and people for millions of years evolved to be secure in their property and land. Its as natural as having eyes.

 

do you have any idea why you quoted jefferson?????

 

No, I am objectively correct and you are objectively wrong.

Yes: their property in the fruits of their labor, and their right to use land that must rightly be available to use, and thus can never be anyone's property.

I guess that must be why private property in the fruits of labor is universal in human societies, but private property in land was unknown in pre-agricultural societies...

 

Of course: he proved you wrong.

 

when alligators and humans used the same piece of land and others of their species respected it it was in effect private property to which they had a natural evolutionary right.

 

if so why so afraid to say how???? What does your fear teach you?

 

Excellent. You just disproved the notion that we have no right to prevent others from accessing what nature created.

 

humans and animals evolved always having private land or territory because they needed it for survival.

 

Flat false. The vast majority of animals are not territorial AT ALL, and private landowning was UNKNOWN to human society before the era of settled agriculture.

 

Right. Which was YOUR CLAIM. So thank you for agreeing that YOUR CLAIM, the whole foundation of your "argument," has been false, absurd, and DISINGENUOUS all along.

What we have no right to do is DEPRIVE others of their LIBERTY to access to what nature created. When I breathe atmospheric air, or use other natural resources others do not want to use, I am not DEPRIVING them of anything, and I am not PREVENTING them from exercising their rights to liberty. When I claim to own land that others want to use, I am.

GET IT????