NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #18/NN_1992_18.iso/spool/sci/econ/6981

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-20 | 5.5 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!oracle!pyramid!pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com!pcollac
From: [e-mail] (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.econ
Subject: Re: The economics of morality
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 20 Aug 92 18:20:42 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.
Lines: 117

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (carl loeber) writes:
|>
|>
First, a wonderfully thoughtful post.  I enjoyed it tremendously.  Thank
you for it.

Some points:
>
> then:
>
> 1) we say that we each have a right to a share of the natural
> resources, and the social resources (unique factors which our being
> a society creates, such as [if we specialize and trade] a market)
> which our society controls,
>

I don't believe that we need to deduce this from other principals.  It
stands before the principals of man.  Clearly the planet was provided by
none of us.  There exists no rational, non-arbitrary basis upon which any
individual can make claim of ownership upon it, particularly to the
exclusion of the claim of another.  Any such claim is allowed to stand
only because we choose to allow it to stand.  Franklin is right to
understand such a choice as being a "Creature of Society."


>
> Another example of the other type of resource, the social resource,
> is a safe, and protected social environment, made possible by such
> things as the police, and the military.
>

There is another kind of safety, more important to 'living' (as
distinguished from 'surviving') which is not as readily seen or protected.
It is a kind of 'inner' or emotional safety -- to be protected from
arbitrary emotional/intellectual violence.  All of us are subjected to it,
most of us engage in it, from time to time, at least.  Children are
unusually vulnerable since they don't possess either the knowledge or the
skill-set to 'protect' themselves without (potentially) acquiring long-term
negative behaviors.

Needless to say, the police and military cannot provide this kind of
protection.

In a "property-oriented" interpretation of the constitution men have a
tendency to spend their resources on the protection of what is physical
rather than what is spiritual.  (It's important to introduce the notion of
a 'life-prioritized' interpretation of the constitution here, and
distinguish it from a property-prioritized interpretation.  What I'm going
to get at is that "Leftish" values prioritize life-in-abundance over
property-in-abundance, a "Rightish" prioritization of values.)


>
> This is then a matter of justice, and not of mere charity, even to
> a libertarian and conservative logic.  The liberal political
> morality in American today has not expressed and taught this, not
> to my knowledge.  I come at it from the initial conservative
> philosophy of autonomy, but the consequences of freely entering
> society, and noting its perversions, are inescapable.
>

Well said.  I wish I had said it.  Your characterization of 'liberal' is
not robust.  This 'liberal' prioritizes 'right to life' over the ownership
of property.  Just governments claim to have agreed to protect the right of
new-borns, those who haven't previously agreed to the legitimacy of the
government, to freely interact with the planet so as to sustain their lives.
If the Planet is already totally usurped, then how can the newly arrived
obtain their just needs without becoming beholden to the whims of the
entrenched (i.e. sacrificing liberty)?  At some level of population, or
property ownership, right to life/liberty becomes denied.  This liberal
(re)-asserts life, and therefore the social agreement of 'Private
property' must be altered to accomodate it.

(On a more radical day, I would go even further and say that the current
consequences of Private Property have enslaved us.  We are forced, for some
time at least, to engage in social relationships that we don't choose.)

> This reasoning, I believe, was understood by several of the
> Founders:
>
> "Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and
> unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so
> far extended as to violate natural right.  The earth is the common
> stock of man to labor and to live on."  Thomas Jefferson, letter to
> James Madison, 28 Oct 1785.
>

Wish I had said that.

> Speaking of vital resources, we could ask; "What is the right of
> private property?  That a man may own as much as he wants?  Or that
> each man may own what he needs?
>

Wish I had said that too.  There is an emerging economics of 'enough'.  If
you're interested, I will tell you more about it.  Look for a book called,
"Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez.

> "Private Property... is a Creature of Society, and is subject to
> ... Industry may occasion in their Circumstances."  Ben. Franklin
> "Queries and Remarks Respecting Alterations in the Constitution of
> Pennsylvania," Writings, X, 58-60.
>
> "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine express much the same as you know.
>
> a fine collection I found in one of my roomates paperbacks,
> _Intellectual Origins of American Radialism_ by Staughton Lynd,
> Harvard Press, 1982. (see esp. Chapter "Earth Belongs to the
> Living")

I'm please to be reminded that the founding fathers were as brilliant as
their constitution suggests.  I will get this book, and dive into this new
"American Radicalism".

Paul Collacchi