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Starts out by confusing Bakunin with Proudhon, and then conflates "profit" in the sense of a net psychic gain in utility with "profit" in the sense of extracting a net surplus from labor.
In this world of ceaseless flux, it's good to know at least one thing is a constant: Walter Block is still an idiot. https://fee.org/articles/profits-are-awesome-and-all-around-us/
@neonsnake Block's the one who denounced Ostrom's Governing the Commons as one of the most evil books in history because it undermined belief in private property -- and then went on to argue that what she described as commons were "really joint property." So... yeah.
He's Uncle Leo without the charisma.
Two of my least-favorite ancap bullshits:
- profit is a synonym for utility, and
- common property is really just private property owned in corporate
So much intellectual effort poured into being so catastrophically wrong
I've come across Block before; not in the context of Ostrom (although I'm *hugely* unsurprised that he argued that it's "joint property), but in the context of arguing that the subjective theory of value nullifies the labour (or cost) theory of value.
Given that, colour me utterly shocked - shocked, I say! - that he doesn't understand commons theories of property.
@neonsnake @HeavenlyPossum He also wrote an article defending gentrification as an example of the rights of property owners in a free market -- and then, in passing, favorably mentioned the clearing of entire urban districts for World Fairs, Olympics, World Cups, etc. It's safe to say he's not what you'd call a careful thinker.
@KevinCarson1 @HeavenlyPossum I mean, I'm not sure I'd class myself as a "careful thinker", as such - but the thing that gets me about Block and his peers, is the utter lack of empiricism. It takes almost no effort at all to (eg) think about commons-based rules (trivial example, but no-one monopolises the kitchen in a University hall of residence - at least for long).
Everything's a "thought experiment" with no recourse to seeing what actually happens in the real world.
(then, of course, they spew "facts don't care about your feelings", despite the facts not being on their side)
@neonsnake @HeavenlyPossum Thought experiments are the basic their whole fucking theory of the origin of money. But they pretend it's a historical fact.
@HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake Yeah, they act like the Roman or modern Blackstonian concept of "private property" as an alienable commodity, or "absolute despotic dominion," is some kind of eternal category -- and then try to retroactively impose it on all kinds of collective, communal, possessory-usufeructory, and other non-propertarian forms of land governance throughout history.
So the people who try to recuperate Locke by saying the "property" is only legit if it's homesteaded by actual labor, or should be limited by the Proviso, or even flat-out argue for possessive "property" have their hearts in the right place -- but attempting to redefine everything from the past in terms of the "property" paradigm is still anachronistic and counter-productive.
I've moved away from Lockean (even Proviso Lockean) theories.
In a *very* abstract sense, I think it works, but after a chat with Possum some months back, I don't think it's a useful concept any more. The *abstract* just doesn't map to reality closely enough for me to feel comfortable with it anymore.
It makes a sort of naively intuitive sense (“you should own the stuff you use and make!”) but breaks down under any kind of critical investigation (what does it mean to use something? what are the limits of use? where does the thing being use being and end? why do you own something after you’ve stopped using it?).
I won't articulate this very well, but for me it was a confluence of a few things.
I don't really buy into the whole "You own yourself, ergo you own what you make" argument. Not for any deeply held philosophical reason, just because it's trite and shallow. The idea of owning what you use/make makes sense, and as a rule of thumb, I'd go along with it. I find it impossible to believe, however, that Locke was the first person to suggest that I get first dibs on something I've created, though, and any society with even a *modicum* of division of labour, it starts to be questionable at best.
Slightly woollier - thinking about it from a perspective of having moved house last year. I absolutely have mixed my labour with my "land", no question about it. Ergo, I am entitled to the product of my apple tree, no?
Well, I didn't plant the tree. Nor did I have any say in the exact boundaries of my land.
How about my blueberries? Nope. I bought them as small trees from B&Q and have grown them.
How about my chillies? HA! I grew them from scratch! Sure, I magicked the seed from thin air one day. Oh, wait, no, my seeds came from my local garden centre (and so on).
Any "labour" that I expended relied on previous labour, so I'm not clear on which grounds (other than "I paid money", which is a *different* argument) I'm entitled to claim it as my own.
Then, further, I don't *really* like theory that isn't applicable today and tomorrow (caveats apply here, I enjoy reading some of it as much as the next person), but I eventually realised that Lockean Theory (even softened with Proviso) relies on utterly made-up scenarios or thought experiments, and not on real-world examples:
"Alright, lets say that you and I wash up on an undiscovered island, right?"
"Piss off, Neon, you live in a 3 bed semi in SE England. You're not mixing your labour with unowned land anytime soon, sunshine."
@KevinCarson1 honestly you have masochistic intellectual pleasures 