Property Rights Arguments, Recreated

I've been studying--not just reading, but studying--a series of blog posts by Matt Breunig. Wikipedia describes him as "an American lawyer, blogger, policy analyst, and commentator." He says "I write about politics, the economy, and political theory, primarily with a focus on the set of interlocking issues that affect poor and working people.'' Here's his blog. And here's the People's Policy Project, the think tank he's started. Funded by donations on Patreon

The topic I'm studying is property rights. A couple of years ago, I read Breunig's post on "Violence Vouchers" and found it complementary to some ideas that I'd expressed in my own post: "Violence Markets and Government Monopolies."

He says:

When a state (or state-like entity) establishes a system of private property, all it really does is hand out violence vouchers to people who we call owners. This can be done through direct grants to individuals or by establishing some set of rules, the following of which entitles the follower to a violence voucher.

I said:

Governments arise because increased production makes theft and chattel slavery profitable. Both depend on violence, so violence becomes valuable and a competitive market for violence emerges.
...the dynamics of a free and open market for violence leads market participants to strategies the reduce both wealth and theft opportunities. As a result, participants come to prefer monopoly violence and theft over free market violence and theft, and thus to accept tax theft rather than outright theft as the cost of that preference.  

But my analysis was incomplete. I neglected the fact that violence markets began before theft and chattel slavery was profitable and violence was to establish property rights.

So I'm rewriting that post. Here's the first part.

Limited government

Conservative and libertarian theory says that government should be limited. Its only legitimate jobs are national defense, enforcement of voluntary agreements, prevention of violence against persons, and protection of private property. All else is an overreach and is both immoral and counterproductive.

Let's start with the moral argument. The theory proposes that property rights are "natural rights." But what does that mean? Surely these natural rights don't proceed from nature. No tree has a right to the ground on which it stands. No squirrel has the right to nuts or a bee to nectar--or even honey. Bacteria have no right to invade your body yet they do, and white blood cells don't have the right to repel such invasion. It's just what they do. In nature, there are no rights, only powers.

But, goes the argument, property rights proceed from the following principle: because one owns oneself one has a right to possess the fruits of one's labor. Therefore if one "mixes one's labor" with some natural object, then one has a right to that object. Of course bees mix their labor with the natural world to make honey. And that means that bees have a right to their honey. And it's wrong to take honey from a hive without paying them for it. Right? No? Well, maybe the rules are different for humans. Why? Becuase we make the rules.

Or because of God. The rights of people are God-given. That's a tough argument if you don't believe in God. And it's also a tough one even if you do because none of the holy books that reveal God's rules talk about rights. Mostly they talk of obligations and prohibitions. But you won't see any granting of rights.

But rights can be inferred. For example, according to scripture God says that people should not commit murder. That's a good idea, and I agree with God on that point. But it's it's different from God saying saying that anyone has a right to life. A commandment does not grant a right. It forbids an act. God says "don't steal." Why? Because God says so. Not because stealng violates property rights.

But can't we infer rights? If so, you're on dangerous ground.  Exodus 21:20–21 says, "And if a man beats his male or female servant with a rod, so that he dies under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he remains alive a day or two, he shall not be punished; for he is his property.” So if you're into imputing rights not explicitly granted, then people have the right to beat their servants--provided that they don't die in the next day or two. Beat them so that they die in three days? That's clearly within your inferred rights.

No, sorry. Rights are not natural. And they are not God given.

Still, don't we all agree that it's morally wrong to initiate violence. Once someone has some property, there are only two ways for it to change hands: by voluntary exchange or by violence. And violence is wrong. It's as wrong for a government to take--through taxation, backed by violence--what a person has come to own through their own efforts and through voluntary exchange. Taxation is theft by another name.

But let's be specific. How can a piece of property come to be owned by someone? In most cases the answer will be that it was legitimately conveyed from person to person through a series of voluntary exchanges. So long as that's been the process, then the current owner of that property is legitimate.

But how did the first owner come to own it? Initially, nothing in the world was owned. Everything was free for anyone to use. If you needed some nuts and berries you could go anywhere that nuts and berries were to be found and you could pick or gather your fill. But somehow, when someone says: "This land is mine and so are all the nuts and berries found here," they have the right to prevent anyone who attempts to eat "their" nuts or "their" berries from consuming them. They have the right to keep them from planting and growing food on "their" land. They even have the right to keep them from crossing over that land. Just by saying "It's mine!" And if someone tries to take their nuts or berries, then they have the right to repell that aggression (yes, it's aggression, because it's theirs) with force.

But that must be wrong. Walking onto land or planting and harvesting produce or gathering nuts and berries are not aggressive acts. Forcibly preventing someone else from gathering nuts and berries, from planting produce, or from crossing a bit of land is the initiation of aggression.

Alright. That argument fails. Using violence to defend something that you have claimed just by saying you have a claim, or because you've made a philosophical argument for your claim does not make your claim just or morally right. To the contrary: by claiming a piece of property you have denied that property to every person who can equally make that claim. You can argue "It's mine! I saw it first." But that's the argument of a five-year-old. You can argue: "It's mine. I made it better.." That might the argument of a seven-year-old.

But consider the utilitarian argument. We are an incredibly prosperous society, and our system of property rights is fundamental to that prosperity. Property right encourage us to invest time and effort in improving property. If someone else could walk in and take improved property, then why should someone improve it? And if no one improves any property, then we're all worse off.

Under our system of property rights, however we've come into the property the owner of the property is the chief beneficiary of the improvement, But in the aggregate, such improvements ultimately benefit everyone. Why? Because of the invisible hand. The invisible hand is not actually a hand. Nor is anything identified by natural law. It's offered as an explanation for why private improvements produce more benefit than collective improvements. But "by the invisible hand" could be replaced with "by fucking magic" with no change in explanatory power.

Now it's true that places where property rights are absent are impoverished. And places where property rights are weaker than the ones that we enjoy in the United States are also worse off than the United States. Except for places like Denmark and Sweden that are equally prosperous and which report greater degrees of freeedom and happiness and cross-generational economic mobility--not that anyone should care about these things.

 But they are the exceptions that proves the rule, right?

But wait. There's another argument. People who labor should get the results of their labor. People who don't work, should get nothing. Or maybe some charity. Isn't that a good rule for creating a just world? Our system of free markets gives us exactly that.

Except it doesn't. For several reasons. First: someone who has no talent and who does not work can make a lot of money if he's inherited wealth. The wealth is invested and the returns on the investment are the same as the returns on labor--sometimes a lot greater. And now skill or sweat are required.

Well, that's not true. A wealthy person has to be smart about where to make investments. That takes a certain amount of skill doesn't it? Well, no. A wealthy person can hire a good investment manager and get a great return on their investment. But doesn't that require that they choose a good investment manager? Yes. They have to be not completely stupid. Or if they suspect that they are completely stupid and can't tell the difference between a good investment manager and a poor one, and there is no one in their family who is smart enough to tell the difference, they can put the money in an index fund and get a market return.

Of course they do have to be smart enough to know whether or not they are completely stupid, don't they? Yes. They have to be at least that smart. And if you think that having that level of intelligence is sufficient to earn them millions of dollars a year because of the fortune that they inherited while someon who is just as smart and far more hard working has to do with less, then you have a very different idea of what it means to deserve what you get.

But wait. They didn't just happen to have the money that they have. Somewhere along the line it must have been earned by someone who then gave it to them--as is their right. Right? Once again, where did that right come from? It comes from the system of laws that we have that decide how property may be distributed. And how did that system of laws come into existence? They were written by people who already had property in order to preserve their property.

And this makes them just? I don't think so.

I like my property. And I don't want it taken away. So I'm not proposing an anarchistic free-for-all. But I think it's wrong to think that the system of property and distribution that we have is the only possible one, or that it's the best one. It might be. But there are other systems that might do was well, or even better. 

The Rule of Cui Bono

The rule of cui bono: proponents of any political or economic program will always claim that their program benefits the public. Therefore the claim carries no information. The claim may be true, but it may be safely ignored. The real objective is to determine who else benefits, and who bears the costs.

What is cui bono?
From Wikipedia:

"Cui bono?" (/kwiː ˈboʊnoʊ/), literally "for whose benefit?", is a Latin phrase which is still in use^[1] as a key forensic question in legal and police investigation: finding out who has a motive for a crime. It is an adage that is used either to suggest a hidden motive or to indicate that the party responsible for something may not be who it appears at first to be.^[2]

The cases about which I'll ask "cui bono" will be political and economic--so we'll be using cui bono as a key forensic question to investigate other kinds of crime.

The standard answer is non-information-bearing
When you ask cui bono about a political or economic program, the one answer you'll always get is: "it will benefit the public." That's because the alternative response "this benefits some small set of people, but does not benefit the public" is a non-starter for a political or economic program. It may benefit the public, but it probably disproportionately benefits others.

A simple example
Let's try it out. Who benefits from professional licensing for barbers and cosmetologists? Maine regulates them, and here's what the state's website says:

The State Barbering and Cosmetology Licensing was established to protect the public through the regulation of the practice of barbering and cosmetology in the State of Maine. 

Of course, it's to protect the public. Rule number one if asking "Cui bono" is to ignore the claim that a particular rule will benefit the public because regardless of the real motivation, anyone with an ounce of sense will make that claim. Think about it. If someone wanted a law passed that would benefit them and only them, do think they would say "I want it passed for my benefit," or would they claim "I want it passed to benefit the public" and then figure out why something that was designed only to benefit them would actually benefit a lot more people--and ideally everyone?

This is not to say that a given rule might not benefit the public. Rather it's to say: ignore that argument because it bears no information. Everyone is going to say that. If no one, other than the broad public benefits, and there any costs (there will always be costs) are less than the benefits, then we can rest with that as the explanation.

However, this is never the case. There will always be other beneficiaries. In the case of Maine's licensing:

...The Program creates safety and sanitation rules and enforces these rules through regular inspections of licensed establishments and consumer complaints. In addition, the Program licenses and regulates schools that offer and provide professional practice courses in the field of aesthetics, barbering, limited barbering, cosmetology and nail technology.

There is a case to be made for safety and sanitation rules. Barbers use razors that may carry infectious agents from person to person. Beauticians may deal with chemicals that need more than ordinary care and knowledge. So the public certainly gets some benefit--though at a cost.

But does the rule benefit others? Of course. It benefits the person who is in charge of administering the licensing program. Even if that person carries out their job with complete integrity, their entire current livelihood depends on the existence of the regulation. That's a benefit. Not that such a person can't get another job. Any competent licenser of barbers and beauticians is probably able to get another job. But in the moment, that's their job, and there's a benefit to their continuing to have it and cost to taking it away.

And the rule benefits barbers who already have licenses and disadvantages aspiring barbers who don't yet have licenses. It will cost them time and money to get a license.

But it must be worthwhile. Having a license means that a barber no longer competes with all the people in their local job market and only with "people who already have licenses." Having a license must more than repay the cost of obtaining a license, or people would not get licenses. So licensed barbers benefit.

Bottom line: ignore any claim any program benefits the public. Look elsewhere for beneficiaries.

Epistemic Learned Helplessness

Today my random walk around the web reminded me of a post by Scott Alexander of SlateStarCodex before he was Scott Alexander, and even before he was Yvain on LessWrong, back when he was Squid314 on LiveJournal.

Update: it's gone! Or at least inaccessible. But the Wayback Machine has it here and I've linked to my the recovery process here 

The post is called "Epistemic learned helplessness" a title that was memorable until I forgot it. Sic transit gloria memoriae. (Which took me a few minutes on Google Translate to render. Sic transit hora mea.)

He starts the post:

A friend in business recently complained about his hiring pool, saying that he couldn't find people with the basic skill of believing arguments. That is, if you have a valid argument for something, then you should accept the conclusion. Even if the conclusion is unpopular, or inconvenient, or you don't like it. He told me a good portion of the point of CfAR was to either find or create people who would believe something after it had been proven to them. 

And I nodded my head, because it sounded reasonable enough, and it wasn't until a few hours later that I thought about it again and went "Wait, no, that would be the worst idea ever."

Why? Because someone who knows a field thoroughly enough can make an argument that is likely to make total sense to any non-expert. To figure out what to believe takes both a lot of knowledge and a great deal of metaknowledge.

Violence Markets, Redux, Part I

Scars of a whipped slave (April 2, 1863, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. Original caption: "Overseer Artayou Carrier whipped me. I was two months in bed sore from the whipping. My master come after I was whipped; he discharged the overseer. The very words of poor Peter, taken as he sat for his picture." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Violence does not create wealth, but much wealth (indeed I will argue nearly all wealth) is acquired through violence.

Of course, violence has been used to assist the theft of wealth from its creators or current holders; and to enslave otherwise free individuals so that the wealth that they create can be taken from them as they produce it; and prevent slaves from escaping so they can be bred as a stock of wealth separate from the flow of wealth from their labor. 

But violence has also been used to exclude others from fertile lands, hunting territories, and mineral resources so that this natural wealth can be acquired only by those who violently exclude others. This violence-based technique is the source of most historical wealth and remains a potent source of wealth acquisition today.

In subsistence societies, only the violence that is used to lay claim to resources can be profitable. But as societies become more wealthy and productive, new cost-effective forms of violence emerge. Violence in support of theft is unprofitable when there's nothing worth stealing. But once a surplus is accumulated the value of theft can exceed the costs of stealing it, and theft becomes a profitable activity. 

Violence for slavery is unprofitable until a slave can be made to produce more than it consumes. But slavery has marginal economic return until a slave's productivity not only exceeds the ongoing costs of "supervising" the slave and maintaining the slave's servitude but also is enough to pay the cost of purchasing or otherwise gaining ownership of a slave. 

As societies become wealthier and more productive, new violence-enabled means of wealth-acquisiton become profitable. Chattel slavery is still profitable in some market segments, like the delivery of sex services. And in places where chattel slavery is not profitable, wage slavery, facilitated by violence or threat of violence, and yields generous returns. 

Individuals and groups have different abilities and willingness to create and use violence, so some specialize in violence, while others specialize in trading the goods and services they create or that they have appropriated for violence services from specialists. The services can be used to acquire additional wealth from others, to keep the wealth that one has acquired, or to violently prevent others from using productive resources. Violence is fungible, so violence providers are willing to provide violence, on demand, and at a price, for many purposes.

Over time, violence markets develop. In a violence market, violence providers compete with one another to serve the needs of violence consumers. Violence consumers incorporate violence, or the credible threat of violence, in a variety of wealth acquisition and wealth protection strategies. As a result, the market produces a wide range of violence services priced and tailored to meet market needs.

The violence industry was originally free, open and entrepreneurial. Anyone could deliver violence. But over time, like any industry, the violence industry consolidated. In each geographic region a dominant, violence provider arose and used economies of scale to drive out competitors. These were not always unpopular moves. A market might prefer a single well managed, lower cost, more effective and reliable violence supplier, to its less capable competitors. Dominant violence suppliers might merge with some competitors and take others over. The dominant violence supplier in a large geographic region came to be called the "central government" or "national government."

Such violence suppliers decentralize some of their operations to better respond to local market conditions. They grant geographic franchises to local violence suppliers (state and regional governments). Importantly, these franchises are made to conform to quality standards (laws and regulations) set and enforced by the franchiser--under threat that it will use its superior violence delivery capability to ensure conformance. National and local violence providers work to eliminate free-market violence but are never entirely successful; instead, they engage in informal collaboration to control their market and drive small entrepreneurial violence providers--like the Mafia in the United States--to the margins of the market. 

Nation-level violence monopolists maintain market control by preventing external violence providers from entering their market (national defense) and by following one of two strategies to deal with competition within their market. 

They can invest in their own violence delivery resources to can make an internal rival's violence delivery services both an inferior choice and also unprofitable. Or they can lower the cost and improve the consistency and quality of the violence that they deliver, thus creating a market barrier to entry for alternative suppliers. They can also use marketing techniques to raise the perceived quality of their violence, branding what they do as "law enforcement" to distinguish it from other forms of violence.

Violence is a valuable service. The value of violence gives rise to a competitive violence market regulated by provider practices and consumer preferences. Governments are not anti-market. Rather, they are market solutions to problems in the violence market.

Adapted and updated based on insights from reading Matt Breunig. Original post here. 
Part 2 here.

Tired brain, Just Dance Now, and This Post

I hate it when my brain gets tired. Like right now. I'm typing. Words are coming out. Sentences are formed. It's not bad stuff. But there's no joy. It's a chore.

I know that if I don't finish this post and get it out then I'm going to feel bad tomorrow. And that's enough to keep me going. But I don't feel the joy that I feel when I'm in the groove. From the outside, things look the same. From the inside, they're very different.

Tonight, I did find a way to mitigate the problem, though. After dragging through my 750 words, realizing I had made a mistake in waiting until 9:00 to start, I tried to think of a way to get some energy and remembered that I'd downloaded "Just Dance Now" and had paid for a couple months' subscription.

Just Dance has been available on game consoles for years. You choose a song. It plays on the console and you see a dancer dancing to the music. Holding your console controller you try to mimic the moves. The game scores when you do the right thing at the right time.

Just Dance Now is the mobile phone version. You use your phone instead of the game controller, and a computer or a Chromecast device to play the music and show the dancer. I had tried it out--they give you a couple of free songs--and I liked it enough to pay $9.95 for a three-month subscription, which gives me access to their catalog of 300-odd tracks.

So I went up and tried a couple of songs that I'd been working on--and until my Pixel's power went subcritical I listened to music and did some dancing.

It wasn't a complete remedy. I've got a few posts that will require more intellectual energy than this post has needed, and I'm not up to doing them. But it got me through to writing this post.

And pressing Publish.

The story of Angel (6) de la Cruz

In my post "Birthday Activity--Part 1" I said:

Yesterday, while making a list of things to write, I found this item: "Angel (6) de la Cruz." That's the remembered name of someone I met when I was working at SAC Headquarters, Offutt Air Force Base, near Omaha, Nebraska in the late 60's. Angel (6), as I remembered the story, had a grandfather who was in love with numbers. He counted everything. He knew how many eggs he'd eaten. How many stairs he'd climbed. He gave all his sons the same name (Angel) and his daughters the same name (Silvia?) and distinguished them by an appended number. Apparently, Angel (6)'s dad--or mom--had kept up the family tradition.

So I did a little Googling and found an email address, and sent an email. Have I mentioned that I love Google? That I love email? To my delight, I got a response, quoted with his permission:

Happy New Year  - Yes, it is me all right - the only person with a (6) on his name.   Yes - I was in Offutt from 1965 to 1972, assigned to the 544th. ARTW in SAC Headquarters - Bldg. 500.  So wonderful to hear from you after all these years. 

     I left the Air Force in March, 1972, and joined IBM in Puerto Rico, thanks to the Air Force making a programmer out of me, and retired after 30 years with them in 2002.   I went on my own until a few years ago.  Now, retired, am "working" with the Lions Clubs and the Order of Elks here in Puerto Rico, keeping busy and, thankfully, feeling fine.  Just like you, 75 years old. 

     As for my story, yes, my grandfather, Blas C. Silva Boucher was an engineer, graduated in Spain, who kept track and counted everything he could, like nuber of letters written, number of his signatures, steps from one place to another, auto and bus license plates, eggs eaten, etc.  He appeared in Ripley's Believe It or Not back in 1941, as "The Numerical Man". 

Here's the clipping, which Angel sent me in another email:




Angel continues:

    When he got married he wanted to name his first daughter (1), but they would not let him, so he named her Sylvia (1) Silva.  His second son, born on August 2, Day of Our Lady of Angels, was named Angel (2) and his other daughters were Sylvia (3), Sylvia (4) and Sylvia (5). 

     First to marry was my mother, (4), with, by mere coincidence, my father also named Angel (no number, of course), and I was the next one bor, so I became Angel (6).  My uncle (2) was married and he had my cousin Angel (7).  We were only two in that generation, as (1) and (3) never married, and (5) died when she was 10. 

     The family has grown, and we are up to number (22), grand daughter of (7).  The number, like a second named, and officially registered as such, is the sequence of descendants from my grandfather. 

    To make it easier to follow, I have attached the genealogy descendant report of my grandfather for you to read and study at your leisure, and tell the story to your family - an honor for me.  Any questions, just let me know. 

     By the way, I was able to revisit Offutt in September 2012, when my wife and I attended a Lion's Leadership Forum in Kansas City, and a fellow Lion, who lives in Omaha and retired from Offutt, offered to give us the VIP tour, so we drove to Bellevue and were able to revisit the base and the neighborhood, including the house we built and lived in 40 years before.  It was very nostalgic and enjoyable. 

     Well, my friend - it's time to celebrate the coming of 2018, hoping that it will help us to recover from hurricanes Irma and Maria, which caused great damage.  Only about 52% of the island has electric power right now. 

     Again, it is wonderful to hear from you.  Hope you find this information not too boring or long.  Be well, and have a great New Year - in about 6 hours for you.

Angel (6) de la Cruz Silva

Here's the full report of Angel (6)'s family, with all the Angel's and all the Sylvia's documented. Reading it, I learned that his full name is:
Angel (6) de la Cruz Silva Rivera Baez Zayas Boucher Rivera Abril

I have some great stories from that time, and I'll be posting them over the next few days and linking here:

Sgt Eldred and Catch-22
"Now that's data processing"
Negotiations for the card deck
Defense contractor on the weekdays, protester on weekends

Arguing with God

I came across this from Eliezer Yudkowky in my Twitter feed today:

People who call me arrogant must seriously not know anything about Jewish culture. Every Orthodox Jew grows up hearing stories about all the famous Jews who got into arguments with God, and the most admired figures of all are those who, like Moses, won their arguments.

I'd never seen this idea expressed before, but as soon as I did, I realized that this was true for me. Of course, argue with God! Make a good argument. You think God's going to respect you if you don't use the power of reason that you were given? If you don't stand up for what you believe is right?

I grew up knowing that I was one of the Chosen People. That made me special and it also meant that I had special obligations--to study and to acquire knowledge; to fight injustice; to fight for truth; to use my gifts to better humanity. I haven't always lived up to those obligations, but I've always felt that I had them.

I grew up believing that it was important to find out what's right and to stand up for what was right. And if God was wrong, then my job to set Him straight--or have him explain why something stupid was actually smart. When I was a believer, the God that I believed in would have wanted me to do that. Arguing with God was part of my job. I might not win, and I might discover that I was wrong. But I would never be punished for arguing.

I don't believe in God anymore--or at least not in the God that I was raised with. But that's no obstacle. I still argue with God.

Who says that God has to exist in order to argue with Him. Or Her. God? Then She's wrong.

In this post, Miles Kimball says:

I decided that despite my imperfections, I would not punish one of my children harshly for not believing in me.  Therefore, a perfect, loving Father in Heaven would not punish me if—doing my very best to figure things out—I came to doubt that he existed.  Deciding that God—if he existed—would not punish me for my honest beliefs was and is a key ingredient to my being an atheist.

Same for me. The kind of God who would punish someone for rejecting His or Her existence would be unworthy of respect and undeserving of love. Still, if there was a God, then there's no preventing God from being the biggest Asshole ever.  She just wouldn't get my vote.

And if that was Her attitude, then I'd argue with Her, because, I'm sorry, but She'd be wrong.

Eliezer and I are not the only people who feel this way. Here's a book "Arguing with God: a Jewish Tradition"