Anarcho-capitalism

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Talk:Anarcho-capitalism/Archive 28
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Misuse of terms in natural law

When I read the page I read “author X believes natural law would be
enforced... author Z believes natural law would be enforced...”

there is a difference from positive law and negative law (natural law)

while positive law requires rights to be enforced, it is impossible to
“enforce” a natural right, natural rights can only be protected or
harmed, but never enforced

I suggest changing all the occurrences of “author X believes natural
law would be enforced by...” to “author X believe natural law would be
protected by...” Iron Capitalist (talk) 06:02, 1 June 2021
(UTC)[reply]

    @Iron Capitalist: I tried looking for examples of phrases that say
natural law would be enforced but can't find any, could you point at
the sentences you have in mind? Thanks! BeŻet (talk) 15:23, 1 June
2021 (UTC)[reply]

here are the ones I found

“Anarcho-capitalism is a political philosophy and economic theory that
advocates the elimination of centralized states in favor of a system
of private property enforced by private agencies”

“In a theoretical anarcho-capitalist society, the system of private
property would still exist and be enforced by private defense
agencies”

“The latter advocate a night-watchman state limited to protecting
individuals from aggression and enforcing private property.[14] “

“Kosanke believes that in the absence of statutory law the
non-aggression principle is "naturally" enforced because individuals
are automatically held accountable for their actions via tort and
contract law.”

“The system relies on contracts between individuals as the legal
framework which would be enforced by private police and security
forces as well as private arbitrations.” Iron Capitalist (talk) 03:22,
2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    But this doesn't talk about "natural law", it talks about the
system of private property, contract law etc.. BeŻet (talk) 12:01, 2
June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

yes, these systems from the natural law are not enforceable, they are
only able to be protected or harmed

the notion of “enforcement” would require action from the state to
grant a right to someone, natural rights are rights that requires no
action from individuals (right to property translates to “right to you
not take the action of taking my stuff”, same with slavery “do not
take action of forcing me to work”, rape and murder)

even though the sections don’t talk about the terms specifically, it
is misleading to use them in such way

I suggest we change the occurrences of “enforcement” when talking
about natural law to “protection” Iron Capitalist (talk) 02:34, 3 June
2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Law is something that is enforced, not protected. Likewise, the
system of private property is also something that is enforced -
private ownership of land isn't anything that's "natural" and is only
a relatively recent development that has appeared during the rise of
feudalism. I agree that for this to work you need a state or a
quasi-state (e.g. a private security force) to "grant" ownership to
someone, and that's why we talk about enforcement rather than
protection. The system of private property only existed for a few
hundred years, while humans had their lives, bodies and personal
possessions for as long as we remember. Slavery may have seemed
"natural" at the time to people, just like "owning" a piece of land or
a building that you don't live or work in may seem "natural" to some
people today. BeŻet (talk) 11:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    @BeŻet:, “law is something that is enforced”, that’s the positive
law, yes, negative laws cannot be enforced because of their own nature
of requiring others to not act, that’s why they are called “negative”
rights

take property like the example you used, we say “right to property”,
but in fact the proper structure of the natural right is “right to not
be robbed”, so this right requires you and me to “not take action” to
rob someone

and when we take that action, someone can take forceful action against
the robbery to prevent it from happening, so protecting the owner of
that property

another way to think about it is this: will you have that right even
is humanity stood still?

if humanity stands still, no one is robbing you, so right to property
(same with no one is raping you, no one is murdering you, no one is
enslaving you)

actual positive rights, like “right to healthcare”, do need to be
enforced like you pointed out

if we try to input “right to healthcare” in the stand still logic, we
would have this: will you have healthcare if humanity stands still? if
humanity stands still, means no physician is providing you with
healthcare, and if no one is provinding you healthcare, the state must
force someone to provide healthcare, hence the en-force-ment of the
positive law

also, natural rights do not come from what “seems natural”, they come
from reasoning and are above states, they are permanent and cannot be
changed

a state cannot write in a paper that it has the right to kill millions
of people because of their race without infringing the natural law
Iron Capitalist (talk) 05:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    ""negative laws cannot be enforced because of their own nature of
requiring others to not act"" - if you say that the land between the
river Ouse and river Aire "belongs" to you, and if someone trespasses
they will be faced with violence, you are enforcing your "ownership".
If you tell someone that they can't collect rainwater, because rain
"belongs" to you: again, you are enforcing things, even though you are
"requiring others to not act". It seems strange to think of something
as "natural" if it requires large scale violence to "protect" - an
individual can, on their own, protect their life, the dwelling they
live in, the clothes they wear, the tools they use, a small plot of
land they cultivate etc.. This more or less can seem "natural", or at
least reasonable. But when you're talking about massive swathes of
land "belonging" to an individual, or large buildings like factories,
or simply any place they don't live or work at, it becomes a lot less
"natural" or "reasonable". Ownership only makes sense if it is
self-evident. Moreover, I think you're confusing "negative laws" with
"negative rights" (the former is not a real term). In terms of "having
rights if humanity stood still", it's not very clear what you mean by
that. If someone's a prisoner, or a slave, and humanity "stood still",
surely they would remain a prisoner or slave? If not, why would land
remain privately owned then? Finally, please remember that the concept
of natural law is just that, a concept that some, but not all, believe
in, and even fewer people include private property within them.
Therefore, the article needs to be written from a neutral point of
view, and not that of an anarchocapitalist. Anyway, this is turning
into a forum discussion, so we should focus more on the article
itself. BeŻet (talk) 11:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@BeŻet: sorry for taking a while to answer “ if you say that the land
between the river Ouse and river Aire "belongs" to you, and if someone
trespasses they will be faced with violence, you are enforcing your
"ownership".” That’s not how it works, but even if we assume it is, if
humanity stands still, no one is trespassing the property, that’s why
right to property is a natural right

ownership is not given by “claiming”, labor needs to be mixed with it,
hence why you cannot claim that “someone cannot collect rain water”

also, we need to talk about the word “violence”, not all usages of
force are violences, self-defense is a type of usage of force that is
not violence, you seem to confuse both

“ it becomes a lot less "natural" or "reasonable".”

well, “natural” in “natural rights” doesn’t come from “what makes
sense”, it comes from the notion that humans did not intervene for it
to happen, not “what makes sense

“negative law is not a real term”

you are 100% correct, I only use the term to stress the contrast
natural law has to the positive law (since the opposite of positive
would be, well, negative)

“surely they would remain a prisoner or slave?”

if humanity is standing still, there is no one pointing holding a
slave to be free, if you stand still, you are not trespassing land
(because it requires action)

“natural law is just a concept” yes, and that’s included in the
concept, they are rights that all humans and cannot be revoked even if
a bunch of politicians wrote on a paper that they revoked it

“the article should be neutral, not from ancap point of view” yes,
that’s a neutral point of view because of what natural rights are,
rights that cannot be enforced, only protected

“we need to focus on the article” well yes I agree but we will end up
having different understandings of what the content of the page is and
what to include or exclude from it like we had o the “why socialism is
when gov” section, so I believe a little of theoretical discussion
between us would be healthy for the article and for ourselves as well,
but just a little, like you said, focusing on the page

as a final thought, I still believe we should change the occurrences
of “enforcement” to “protection” because that’s what the natural law
itself is, not what ancap’s point of view of it is Iron Capitalist
(talk) 02:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    A quick point "we need to talk about the word “violence”, not all
usages of force are violences, self-defense is a type of usage of
force that is not violence, you seem to confuse both" Well, what if I
disagree about what's self-defense? Defending / protecting my property
isn't violence? Well then what is or isn't violence depends on how
property is defined. Speaking practically about the world as it
exists, property is a convenient concept that is enforced by other
people, the police. Is it still not violence for the police to injure
people who are trespassing on my private property? I think that
including "defense of property" in the nonviolent umbrella of "self
defense" is not neutral, and it's in fact a highly capitalist
perspective. Leijurv (talk) 06:56, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]


    "ownership is not given by “claiming”, labor needs to be mixed
with it" - but who defines how much labor, and what form of it is
required? Who decides this, who defines this? Also, Rothbard believes
that land would belong to you forever, and that you could "give" it to
someone else, so it would suddenly "belong" to someone who didn't mix
their labor with it. At that point everything is just based on a
claim.
    "if humanity is standing still, there is no one pointing holding a
slave to be free, if you stand still, you are not trespassing land
(because it requires action)" - in that case any status quo can be
justified. If humanity stood still, if you are in a prison cell, you
are still a prisoner because breaking out of the prison cell requires
action. If humanity stood still, and a king "owns" a whole kingdom,
they keep "owning" the whole kingdom because any negation of the
status quo would require action. But now look at this way: if you are
renting a house from a landlord and live in it, if humanity stood
still, wouldn't the house belong to you because you wouldn't be paying
rent and any attempt to evict you would require an action? Likewise if
you have bunch of workers working at a factory and humanity stood
still, wouldn't the factory belong to the workers working there,
because any attempt to force them out would require an action?
    "I still believe we should change the occurrences of “enforcement”
to “protection” because that’s what the natural law itself is" - but
most people don't believe natural law exists at all, or that private
property is part of natural law etc.. It's like saying we should write
in every article about animals that they were "created to do"
something, not "evolved to do" something, because of the belief that
God created all animals. Natural law isn't a universally accepted
concept, just as the belief that God created the universe and
everything living in it.
    As mentioned by Leijurv, describing enforcing land ownership and
territorial claims as "self-defence" is a very right-libertarian way
of phrasing things. BeŻet (talk) 13:44, 7 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]