Human Rights and the Public Good \ stacker news ~libertarian

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1782 sats \ 7 comments \ @Undisciplined 20 Feb libertarian

Human Rights and the Public Good By Wanjiru Njoya

Progressive elites tell us we will own nothing and will be happy. They forget that fundamental human rights are linked to property rights.

I'm really curious how people think about rights. Do you agree that "All rights are property rights" as many libertarians contend?

I liked this quote from a quote in the article:

Human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals to weaken those rights on behalf of “public policy” or the “public good.”

My view is that the point of "rights" is to adjudicate disputes between people and, conceptually, rights need to be consistent with each other. Disputes are about control over the use scarce resources. As such, rights are about who gets to control the use of scarce resources.

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930 sats \ 3 replies \ @elvismercury 20 Feb

At the most basic level there are no rights -- none -- other than those you seize for yourself. If you don't want to live in a perpetual murderous free for all vs other people who want what you have, you band together with a group of others and come up with some rules you all agree to abide by. That is the origin of rights in the only way that matters.

Property is an arbitrary construct that works pretty well in most cases to build law around. There is nothing special about property other than that. Cramming everything valuable in the world into the abstraction of "property" is one of the main reasons Libertarianism has been historically marginalized, and will probably always be marginal.

792 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 20 Feb

At the most basic level there are no rights

At the most technical level, I totally agree with this. "Rights" is such a useful shorthand for something I do believe in that I don't completely avoid the term.

I'd say being useful for building law around is pretty special, but we can disagree about that.

Cramming everything valuable in the world into the abstraction of "property"

This is explicitly not done by libertarians. I'd say we actually have one of the less totalizing world views. Our view is that the purpose of law is to resolve disputes and property rights is the best way to do that. Literally every other valuable thing is outside of the scope of libertarianism.

913 sats \ 1 reply \ @elvismercury 20 Feb

"Rights" is such a useful shorthand for something I do believe in that I don't completely avoid the term.

Same. I try not to be Comic Book Guy about it, but some people are deeply confused about the concept and so from time to time I uncork it.

This is explicitly not done by libertarians. I'd say we actually have one of the less totalizing world views.

Interesting! I suppose I should be more conservative in how I talk about these things -- in my head, I'm thinking of the "libertarians" that I know, who have a hodgepodge of attitudes; but that's presumably as misleading as when people are pwning the dems, or whatever.

Insofar as this is a sensible question: is there a canonical thing that captures the nuances of modern libertarian thought? Such that, if you read it, you could credibly feel like you knew what the mainstream views / philosophy was?

328 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined OP 21 Feb

is there a canonical thing that captures the nuances of modern libertarian thought?

"Nuances"? No.

The conventionally accepted definition is that libertarianism is defined by the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP), which I've also seen called the Zero Aggression Principle (ZAP).

To be a libertarian in good standing you can believe anything you want as long as you reject the initiation of violence against people.

124 sats \ 0 replies \ @Squeeze_every_Sat 21 Feb

There are no such thing as human right. It’s a story.

Much like how the court system is a story that uses abstract power to settle disputes over property.

124 sats \ 0 replies \ @Enemy_of_the_state 20 Feb

Yes, property rights are the only "rights".

123 sats \ 0 replies \ @UCantDoThatDotRugged 22 Feb

'Rights' are semantic categorizations of a fundamental natural principle that has nothing to do with words (except where speech has interpersonal implications). Codification of rights is an attempt to disambiguate and simplify the complex and self-evident.

The question above is a question of how to best semantically codify, disambiguate, and simplify to reduce miscommunication and maximize fair judgment and enforcement responding to observed actionable transgressions that occur in interpersonal relations.