> Which seems to suggest that he will argue that "uncoordinated" regulations are OK. Well, that depends on what "regulation" is supposed to mean here. We do have a section on this topic, Part Eight of the book ("Freed-Market Regulation: Social Activism and Spontaneous Order"). The basic underlying point is that if "regulation" is supposed to mean legal regimentation of market relationships (backed by political coercion, etc.) then we are against that, because we are libertarians, not authoritarians. But if "regulation" is just supposed to mean making a process or a network of relationships orderly or regular, then (1) all markets, insofar as they are markets, are regulated (the question is what does the regulating -- whether this is mainly a matter of the peaceful decisions, agreements, and conventions of the people in a self-regulating market, or whether this is mainly a matter of requirements and commands handed down by an outside authority). And (2) there is a broad and potentially very important space for self-regulating markets to be shaped by conscious critique, grassroots cultural developments and nonviolent social activism. And that in particular these offer an important way of thinking about how a number of issues of *public* and *social* concern might be addressed without turning them into issues of *government* control. (For example, we discuss the use of coordinated grassroots activism for addressing concerns about economic exploitation, sexism, racial segregation and environmental sustainability, by means of direct action within a market context, rather than by means of social policing or a centralized regulatory authority.) If you want to call this "uncoordinated regulation," I guess that's OK, as long as it's understood that decentralized social processes may well have their own sorts of spontaneous coordination or conscious development of consensus; the issue is that coordination is not being forced on them by means of orders from a coercive authority.

Co-editor here. There's no one "vision" presented in the book (it is an anthology and is intended to collect a conversation which involves a pretty wide range of different pro-market, anti-capitalist views). But speaking broadly and tentatively, if you'll take a look at the [Introduction](http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/14/markets-not-capitalism-1st-ed/), what folks in this tradition have argued for has nothing to do with "enforcement," but rather with the possible or likely tendencies of market processes. The point is not that we're aiming to outlaw some objectionable set of practices, but that we are aiming to out-compete them. So nobody is going to force you to stop "practicing capitalism." But in a vigorously competitive market, capitalists may find out that they can't find much of a market for what they are trying to sell. As we put it in the Introduction: > Market anarchists do not limit ownership to possession, or to common or collective ownerhip, although they do not exclude these kinds of ownership either; they insist on the importance of contract and market exchange, and on profit-motivated free competition and entrepreneurship; and they not only tolerate but celebrate the unplanned, spontaneous coordation that Marxists deride as the “social anarchy of production.” But left-wing market anarchists are also radically anti-capitalist, and they absolutely reject the belief — common to both the anti-market Left and the pro-capitalist Right — that these five features of the market form must entail a social order of bosses, landlords, centralized corporations, class exploitation, cut-throat business dealings, immiserated workers, structural poverty, or large-scale economic inequality. They insist, instead, on five distinctive claims about markets, freedom, and privilege: > > * **The centrifugal tendency of markets:** market anarchists see freed markets, under conditions of free competition, as tending to diffuse wealth and dissolve fortunes — with a centrifugal effect on incomes, property-titles, land, and access to capital — rather than concentrating it in the hands of a socioeconomic elite. Market anarchists recognize no *de jure* limits on the extent or kind of wealth that any one person might amass; but they believe that market and social realities will impose much more rigorous *de facto* pressures against massive inequalities of wealth than any *de jure* constraint could achieve. > > . . . Our reason for believing this is based in a number of other, background claims that we make about economics, and in particular about the structures that hold up actually-existing capitalist business models (for example, on a rather strong version of Tucker's claim that [existing patterns of ownership depend on legalized monopoly privileges](http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-many-monopolies/)), and about the available alternatives (for example, that in a vigorously competitive market without those politically protected monopolies, ordinary working folks would be able to develop a lot of viable options and grassroots alternatives and small-scale fallbacks available for work, housing, health care, mutual aid, et cetera). And I'm just detailing the conclusion here rather than providing the background claims, or the arguments for the background claims, that support it. The arguments are what the book is for. But if your reactions to the book are based on the idea that they are about enforcing an anticapitalist "vision" on unwilling traders, then I can only suggest reading the book, since it will hopefully disabuse you of that misunderstanding.

Right, but the question is why it seems that way to you. Saying that (C) self-ownership seems to you to be impossible because (P) the ownership relation is necessarily asymmetric seems just to be restating your conclusion, not providing a reason for it. (The way you define "asymmetry" in the sense you are using it is necessarily caught up in what you say about the possibility of something's having that relation to itself. It presumes an answer to that question; it does not provide it.)

Suppose I said that I think (P') ownership is antisymmetric but not irreflexive. Then it would among other things follow from that premise that (C') self-ownership is indeed possible. But have I given you any non-question-begging reason to believe that (C') is true? Did putting the debate into this kind of terminology even help clarify anything about where we disagree or what kind of evidence we might point to to settle the disagreement?

What makes you think that your hypothetical hunter-gatherers aren't transforming the land in living on it? If they are really having no effect on it in any literal sense then I am not sure where you suppose they are getting their food. If you have some standard already in mind about what kinds of use count as dramatically-transformative-enough to count as establishing a claim over the land, then probably we'll need to know more about what those standards are. Certainly it seems to me that we're starting off on the wrong foot if we are presuming a theory on which the only way you can gain a claim to the use of a forest is to cut it down and turn it into a prairie.

What is being "set aside" here? If (ex hypothesi) someone has a legally-recognized title but has not really done anything that would earn them a moral claim over the land that the title covers, then (ex hypothesi) they have nothing to sell in the transaction. Voluntary transactions may transfer claims over things you already have a valid claim on. They don't transfer claims over something that you never had any claim on in the first place.

Now, in many cases -- at least, hypothetical ones, although in actual historical cases the issues were much more complicated -- the "buyer" might use the transaction to buy off a legal claimant (such as a colonial authority or the state), and then also go and do some work that would earn them a moral claim on the land that they had "bought." No doubt in such cases the "buyer" does establish a "valid moral claim to this land." But not in virtue of the "transaction;" the claim derives from having done the work.

If on the other hand the "buyer" pays off somebody who (ex hypothesi) hasn't earned any right to the land, and then does not or cannot show up to work it, or arrange with someone else to work it for them, then it seems obvious to me that (granting a labor-mixing theory of the basis of ownership *)  they have not earned any more right to the land than they had before the "purchase." (So, for example, suppose that Norton, as Emperor, claims legal ownership of the entire Colorado River valley; and Twain pays Norton for a parcel of it, but does not or cannot take possession of it. At the same time, or some time later, an old prospector shows up and squats on the parcel. Now, on Roderick's theory Twain is not going to have any right to grab the land out from under the old prospector; he made a transaction with the "legal owner," but the "legal owner" didn't have a claim on the land, and didn't have right to grab the land out from under squatters either, and they can't transfer claims or rights that they don't have. You seem inclined to say that Twain does have a right to do this; but if so you'd have to explain what got him the right. The law? If so, I hope you can anticipate why Roderick's not going to be moved by that suggestion.

(* Which you may of course want to reject. But then you can hardly claim to be asking Roderick a question about what happens "on his theory;" your suggestion is rather that he ought to give up his theory and adopt yours instead.)

is kind of psyched to have run into a lightbulb joke I made up being reposted on Facebook without attribution. I’m famous enough to become anonymous.

Derek Wittorff via Alex Strekal

April 10 at 3:32pm

‎Boinks Ayn Rand

http://anti-libertarian-libertarianism.blogspot.com/2012/04/rand-as-philosophical-fascist.html?spref=bl

Charles W. Johnson

There are many different ways to respond to Ayn Rand and her legacy. I’m not sure necrophilia is the best.

April 10 at 3:32pm

Nick Ford

“I’m not sure necrophilia is the best.”

What?

April 10 at 3:33pm

Derek Wittorff

lol

April 10 at 3:33pm

Charles W. Johnson

“Boinks” is sometimes used as if it means the same thing as “Bonks.”

It doesn’t.

April 10 at 3:33pm

Daniel Patrick â’¶

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=boink

April 10 at 3:34pm

Nick Ford

Oh yeah, right I knew that but I’ve used it in the Strekelian sense so long I’d forgot about the other connotations.

April 10 at 3:35pm

Derek Wittorff

Its a great analysis.

April 10 at 3:41pm

Charles W. Johnson

I can’t say I agree. Most of the things that Alex finds troubling or flat wrong in Rand are also things that I find deeply troubling or flat wrong, but as far as the article goes, there’s not at lot of analysis there; mostly polemic. Some mention of conclusion, none of arguments, not even any quotes. If anything, what it reads most like is one of Rand’s own sweeping rhetorical assaults on, say, Kant or Plato. Those may or may not be correct on any given point, but they are certainly not the place to go to learn very much what Kant or Plato is about.

April 10 at 3:53pm

Daniel Patrick â’¶

It’s true. I have trouble being open to Kant due to exposure to Rand’s ideas at an impressionable age.

April 10 at 3:56pm

Charles W. Johnson

Utah had a story about alternative health in northern California around Nevada City: “You gotta be open to these things. If you don’t they’ll pry ya open.” Which is about how I felt about Kant after the second half of my 18th Century Philosophy course.

April 10 at 4:01pm

Derek Wittorff

‎”I can’t say I agree. Most of the things that Alex finds troubling or flat wrong in Rand are also things that I find deeply troubling or flat wrong, but as far as the article goes, there’s not at lot of analysis there; mostly polemic. Some mention of conclusion, none of arguments, not even any quotes. If anything, what it reads most like is one of Rand’s own sweeping rhetorical assaults on, say, Kant or Plato. Those may or may not be correct on any given point, but they are certainly not the place to go to learn very much what Kant or Plato is about.”

I can agree there, but it is a paper about Rand, not Kant or Plato.

April 10 at 4:09pm

Derek Wittorff

A little explanation could help, but it’s more than easy to get off track when you’re engaging in philosophical discourse.

April 10 at 4:12pm

Charles W. Johnson

This is an example of what I would take to count as an analysis of Rand and her philosophy (sometimes a good analysis, sometimes not as good, but always an analysis): http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/rand.htm. The article here is not an analysis or a philosophical discourse; it’s a denunciation. Which may very well be merited, but which is something different.

Why I’m not an objectivist
home.sprynet.com

‎(2) One should always follow reason and never think or act contrary to reason. (I take this to be the meaning of “Reason is absolute.”)

April 10 at 4:12pm

Charles W. Johnson

‎Derek Wittorff: “it is a paper about Rand, not Kant or Plato.”

O.K., I’m not sure what you mean here. Is this a joke about slipping antecedents? Or do you mean to suggest there’s something about Rand that makes this kind of treatment of her more useful or less of an injustice than a similar treatment of Kant or Plato (e.g. that the latter are better or more sophisticated philosophers or something like that)? Or something else?

April 10 at 4:16pm

Derek Wittorff

I see, you think the analysis part is lacking, not the paper itself. I wouldn’t know where to start if I was gonna critique her whole philosophy.

April 10 at 4:27pm

Charles W. Johnson

I’m not sure I’m being clear. My view is that setting out to critique her whole philosophy is almost certainly the wrong goal. I think that if Rand is worth an analysis at all (and I happily leave that as an open question), then everyone involved would benefit more from a focused discussion of a single argument, from premises to conclusion, than from some kind of broadside against the totality of her thought.

April 10 at 4:34pm

Charles W. Johnson

The reason I linked the Huemer piece is because that’s a thing that he does — although he’s actually covering a fairly broad stretch of territory, at each stop he sets out specific arguments in detail and then tries to see, first, how they work on their own, and then, second, whether there’s something wrong with them and if so what a better alternative would be. That’s what I feel like I can recommend as “analysis” of a philosophical position. It is for good or for ill a different thing from assembling a hodgepodge of summaries of her conclusions, wrapping it up in a package, and denouncing that as destructive or poisonous. I mentioned the bit about Plato and Kant because Rand herself is constantly approaching other thinkers this way, and Objectivists tend to eat this stuff up, but whatever value that kind of thing may have, it’s not as analysis, because there isn’t any serious analysis of the philosopher’s arguments, only a denunciation of the perceived downstream consequences of those arguments. But to the extent that there isn’t any analysis of the philosopher’s arguments, there isn’t any analysis of the philosopher, either. Of course whether analysis is really what’s wanted in the first place, or whether something else is (denunciation, disavowal, parody, scurrilous satirical poetry, a sharp whack upside the head, whatever) is a separate question.

April 10 at 4:46pm

Huh. So I suspect the now-current issue of the Anarchist Classics Series is the only instalment that I’ve ever been able to cut with my horizontal paper-cutter instead of my big, 500-sheet capacity guillotine stack cutter. Publishing poetry does I guess make for much smaller booklets.

OK, fair enough, and thanks. I figured that’s about what you meant but wasn’t sure if there was more detail being packed in. My understanding is that real property that law would treat as having those features could in principle be either allodial or fee simple, depending on the breaks (allodial titles are supposed to give more or less absolute discretion to the holder; fee simple is different from non-simple kinds of fiefs in that it is among other things completely alienable and divisible). In practice it is virtually always a fee simple and not an allodial title, because governments usually insist that they, and only they, have allodial title over all the land within their borders.

Of course, all this mumbo-jumbo I guess also emphasizes another important aspect in addition to the obsessive overemphasis on sole, alienable and divisible ownership — all that goes along with a corresponding obsessive overemphasis on highly formalized and legally complex forms of “title,” rather than on messier, fuzzier, more ad-hoc or more conventionally-bounded forms of possession which are mediated more through constantly-negotiated social relationships rather than through charters, contracts or other legal paperwork. States obsessed with legibility love this kind of stuff, perhaps for obvious reasons (their love of it is part of what makes up their obsession with legibility).

Of course these two overemphases, on the most simplistic and atomized forms of ownership claims, and on a legalistic or formalistic picture of title, may have something to do with each other — traditional common ownership may just be necessarily messier and harder to wrap up in precise paper titling than sole ownership is. (To the point that the main form of non-severable shared ownership on offer — corporate ownership — now involves the legal fiction of an invented person, just so you can have some one thing to sit in as the sole owner.) But while they may be related, they need not be the same — legalistic title and arbitrary procedural requirements have certainly been used to fence people off of their commons, but they’ve just as much been used to throw squatters off their honestly-homesteaded freeholds, etc. etc.

is futzing around with PHP 5 Reflection and WordPress custom types. Wee-ha.