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Author
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Topic: Uniting the Left and the Right
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Benoit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15667
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posted 07 November 2008 04:22 PM
I think implementing the Lockean proviso would unit the Left and the Right.
In the Second Treatise of Government (1690), John Locke puts forward his account of how a man may legitimately appropriate goods from the state of nature for his private use by mixing his labour with them: Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property. It being by him removed from the common state Nature placed it in, hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other Men. For this Labour being the unquestionable Property of the Labourer, no Man but he can have a right to what that is once joyned to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for other."At least where" means something like "certainly where". To Locke, it's so easy for a worker to make sure he doesn’t make the life of anyone worse off because of his work that he writes his "proviso" as if it was a no brainer and almost a (involuntary) matter of fact. For Locke, implementing the condition seems automatic because he conceives private appropriation as a reduction of the pressure that those living out of the common encounter. Locke wrote: He who appropriates land to himself by his labour, does not lessen but increase the common stock of mankind. For the provisions serving to the support of humane life, produced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land are... ten times more, than those, which are yeilded by an acre of Land, of an equal richnesse, lyeing wast in common. And therefor he, that incloses Land and has a greater plenty of the conveniencys of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred left to Nature, may truly be said, to give ninety acres to Mankind. Basically, Locke was trying to be a good Christian. A Christian in possession of a surplus has a duty to help the needy, whatever the origin of his surplus (hard work, thriftiness, etc.) and whatever the cause of the vital need (laziness, parasitism, etc.). Implementing this duty is favourable to economic growth and development through international stability and cooperation; in other words, implementing this duty is keeping at bay the law of the jungle where killing to survive is the utmost natural right. Where and when there is not enough for others, stealing a property and parasitism of workers can become a natural right to take what one needs to self-preservation. Hobbes wrote: Similarly, if individual subjects make private judgments of right and wrong based on conscience, succomb to religious enthisiasm, or acquire excessive private property, the state will suffer. Even a well-designed commonwealth may, over time, cease to function and will be dissolved. And Plato wrote: In fact, Plato held that guardians should own no private property, should live and eat together at government expense, and should earn no salary greater than necessary to supply their most basic needs. Under this regime, no one will have any venal motive for seeking a position of leadership, and those who are chosen to be guardians will govern solely from a concern to seek the welfare of the state in what is best for all of its citizens. And also in Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas insisted: ... whatever some have in super-abundance is due, by natural law, for the purpose of succouring the poor... Each is entrusted with the stewardship of his own things so that out of them he may come to the aid of those in need. But if the need be so manifest and it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means are at hand ... then it is lawful for a man to meet his own needs by means of another's property, by taking it either openly or secretly, nor is this theft or robbery. We also find a closely related proposition in Agrarian Justice, written by Thomas Paine (Published in 1797). This work was based on the contention that in the state of nature, "the earth, in its natural uncultivated state... was the common property of the human race." Yet to better cultivate the land, private ownership was established. Thus Paine views private property as necessary, but that the basic needs of all humanity must be somehow provided for by those with property. This is in some sense is their "payment" to non-property holders for the right to hold private property. Paine proposes a detailed plan to tax property owners to pay for the needs of the poor, what could be considered as the precursor of the modern idea of citizens or basic income.
From: Montreal | Registered: Oct 2008
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 07 November 2008 09:54 PM
Ya, and political liberals from the west advised Kerensky not to permit Bolsheviks political representation in the Duma. "He ruled the russian land and never mind the czar But the kasachok he danced really wunderbar ra ra Rasputin lover of the Russian queen There was a cat that really was gone" Boney M
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Benoit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15667
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posted 08 November 2008 01:14 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
How does changing someones relationship to the social order necessarily equate with "exterminating" them?On second thought, please don't answer that.
I know your own "answer" to your question: what if capitalists don't want to change their relationship to the social order.
From: Montreal | Registered: Oct 2008
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Benoit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15667
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posted 08 November 2008 01:26 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
Right. Change the formulation of some adminstrative procedures, add some legal blocks to the massive accumlation of personal wealth and so on and so forth. Don't see that there is much they could do about it frankly.
After having write "and so on and so forth" of course you don't see what they could do! [ 08 November 2008: Message edited by: Benoit ]
From: Montreal | Registered: Oct 2008
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Benoit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15667
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posted 08 November 2008 01:52 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
Besides most wealth is actually not associated with actual physical property, as such, in the post-enlightenment period, it is mostly imaginary and reified by the social institution of the stock exchange and commodities markets, etc. It would be simple enough just to trim some zeros off at the end of some figures in some bank accounts, and do a lot of good.
Seignorage applies just as well for natural wealth than for financial wealth: http://economics.about.com/od/economicsglossary/g/seignorage.htm
From: Montreal | Registered: Oct 2008
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Benoit
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15667
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posted 08 November 2008 02:04 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Cueball:
My point is that no one has to be tossed out of their houses and into the streets, so that they can be occupied by the downtrodden. Farmlands do not have to be siezed either, since the consortiums that already manage the farms siezed that property long ago. This in itself is already very much already a centralized communalizing organization, where the property has been communalized and centralized, and the work also communalized and centralized. What has not happened is that ownership, and the wealth that is accured has been distributed.There is no need for an agrarian reform, since it has already been done. [ 08 November 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]
The sub-prime mortgage mess is the product of a centralized organization communalizing only the losses.
From: Montreal | Registered: Oct 2008
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