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Vin Armani, host of The Vin Armani Show, joins us to discuss his new book, Self Ownership: The Foundation of Property and Morality. In this wide-ranging, in-depth discussion we explore the philosophical basis and the political ramifications of self ownership, the nature and limits of property, the moral system that arises from a propertarian order and the cryptosavages that are threatening to storm the gates of the old order.
SHOW NOTES
VinArmani.com
Bypass YouTube censorship: HookTube or deturl
The Well-Read Anarchist: Proudhon – “What Is Property?”
Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Political Theory
I appreciated the acknowledgement of animal aggression regarding competition for finite resources. Greed is not a sin peculiar to humans. It is not human nature. It is the nature of life itself: competition for finite resources of space, energy and time.
How does the new social interaction protocol address the following?
1) What to do with psychopaths? They exist. They will continue to exist.
2) What to do with inheritance?
Evolution: adaptation to an ever-changing environment. James, Vin… you are finding success with the introduction of the Printing Press of the New Millennium. Should your children be allowed to benefit by inheriting the belongings you acquire through a lifetime of fairly trading your valuable skills? How about your great great grand children?
Rockefeller was successfully fit for his environment 150 years ago. If a new type of fitness proves overwhelmingly successful, some will benefit while others struggle…. Meet the new boss….
Is it possible that the existing “system”, unfairly rigged as it is, is the most stable to deal with a mind boggling variety of individuals competing for resources? Wealth is not evenly distributed. Do Titans keep other Titans in check?
I don’t like socialism. I would like to see individuals enjoy the fruits of their labour. Trouble is, some are more fit for a given time and space than others. Life ain’t fair… Rams will continue to butt heads, eyes will be blackened for females and dandelions will continue to take over my lawn. It is the way of things.
I think ownership includes a quality of being able to control or influence what is owned.
“occupy a space”
It also seems kind of weird that most people must “pay” to occupy a space, or at least defend oneself from having others take away that space.
Interesting.
“Land” is not an object, but an entity of sorts (i.e. nature).
By not being seen as an object, it is imbued almost as if it is alive.
It does contain an animation of sorts.
Stewardship
artemis, I think you are on to something. EXCERPT … So no one owns land….
A son or daughter is not owned by his parents. Parents are stewards or guardians in raising the child.
Nature (earth, sun, air, water, plants, animals, human meat bodies, etc.) have an “aliveness dynamic” and a creation source other than from an individual person. It seems that the spiritual entity or life force of an individual becomes a steward of these physical universe manifestations.
When we interject concepts of ownership and possession, everything seems to go downscale. We end up with arbitraries, “an agreed-upon playbook”, rules, laws, etc.
I think one specific concept of ownership includes a quality of being able to control or influence what is owned. A steward also would have that ability.
And there is the rub… “control”.
The Rockefellers or Rothchilds or Guberment only need to control or influence people and objects in order to “own” them.
George Carlin said it well: … I’m talking about the REAL owners, now… The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING… They gotcha by the BALLS… They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking… It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT… The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice….
Property Rights, Disruptive Innovations, Hernando de Soto, CEO (Patrick Byrne) of Overstock.com, Cryptocurrencies
There is a very interesting trend towards helping the disenfranchised.
See the following announcement by Patrick Byrne and then search “Hernando de Soto property rights”.
https://www.corbettreport.com/bitcoin-10000-what-does-it-mean/comment-page-1/#comment-46675
Very shaky arguments.
You can’t prove neanderthals were done by homo sapiens.
The rest can be described as a crime of organized people that were already enslaved, conditioned (obey the boss).
You are making presumptions about human nature.
‘what ARE the OTHER ways exactly?’
People should be organized as a community of free individuals and all your arguments are gone.
It took me quite a while to watch this episode (and more for a comment due to time constrains). At the end I’m very glad I haven’t missed it.
The reason was a buzz-word: Self ownership. I instantly get annoyed, particularly when (usually) phrased to something like: basis of my life philosophy is self-ownership and nonaggression.
How is it possible to base life philosophy on self ownership, because it implies property to be well defined, but on the other hand property is a social construct?
Austrian economics(AE) tries to be a Positive economics (pure “science”, without pesky subjective values) not Normative economics.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/normativeeconomics.asp
So defining property is not in its domain.
Let me transpose the problem to mathematics.
AE takes property as an Axiom, self-evident truth, and building the theory upon it. Even if you just take a look at this episode together with commentaries, you will find property cannot be an axiom.
There is another such an axiom in AE: employer-employee (the same goes for huge company-small company) relation is viewed as a contract between equal parties. Couldn’t be far from truth for majority.
If wrong axioms are chosen theory might be pure larpurlartism, or doesn’t have explanatory power, or…. it might even be complete bullshit.
Back to economics, positive economics is a pipe dream.
Property by itself is usually not a problem. Its consequences, what is implied and derived from it, represent a problem (Power, for instance).
For the end I would like to borrow from VoltaicDude:
‘The conversation on “anti-collectivism” was often compelling. I hope future conversations address the strong points of “Left” political and economic philosophy from the anti-collectivist perspective. Omitting that level of consideration contributes to the false Left-Right-divide.’
Maybe American professor is having the right words, so some things the Left found out could be correctly understood.
Richard Wolff: “Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism” | Talks at Google
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc
Forgot to say something about morality.
“When goodness is lost, it is replaced by morality” (Lao Tsu)
It’s even better when you see the source (ok, translation):
“When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.”
Tao Te Ching 38 —>>> http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching38.html
Though John O.’s formula
When by “Rights” we are inspired
know that Force will be required
has, if not systematically, then at least often, proven itself to be irrefutably true,
I’ve come to realize clearly that
if we humans don’t recognize an inherently moral nature to the universe
(something that at least offers assistance in the “mind over matter” endeavour,)
we will be transformed, nay! we will transform ourselves into highly sophisticated robots known as trans-humans, where our every act will motivated by materialistic concerns, even laudable ones, evincing our more subtle, even currently imperceptible or immeasureable immaterial nature which might arguably be our essence.
But if any successful and non-coercive attempt at collectivism is to occur
it must have the voluntary impetus of every participating individual.
In a similar manner, perhaps each person must come to the conclusion of the inherently moral nature of the universe
from within the reality or illusion of an amoral one, for it to be successfully, effectively understood and internalized.
if you see what I mean?
which does not bode well for the impatient…
Come to think of it… both are acts of faith.
When an individual autonomously decides that placing the well-being of the collective over his own personal well-being
is paradoxically a way of best guaranteeing his own personal well-being
and/or
when convincing oneself of the inherently moral nature of the universe in the absence of clear, unambiguous, peer-reviewed and universally corroborated proof
these are both acts of faith.
As is unconditionally subscribing to the contrary.
Dogmatically embracing materialism is self-contradictory at best, as materialism demands material proof for its assertions and materialism cannot prove that the universe and/or consciousness are solely comprised of matter.
Which is why that brilliant and vociferous Corbett commenter known as FactChecker, however cleverly articulated, vulgar, often humorous and imbued with certainty her comments may be, is as motivated and inhabited by faith as those she almost hysterically and brutally criticizes.
Your comment Mik, was a beautiful and pertinent ending, conclusion to this very interesting old thread.
Until I came along and spoiled it with my idle retrospective comments just above. At least they help me move forward in my thinking.
“ Your comment Mik, was a beautiful and pertinent ending, conclusion to this very interesting old thread.
Until I came along and spoiled it with my idle retrospective comments just above. At least they help me move forward in my thinking.”
Yes it was and you spoiled nothing.
Gosh…
Thanks!
nosoapradio,
no need to belittle yourself. Nor flatter me, discussing means more to me.
How interesting you brought me four years back, to by the way, revisit my thoughts. Today I would put in comment more emphasize on morality, actually ethics which I understand is philosophical foundation of mundane morality.
“When an individual autonomously decides that placing the well-being of the collective over his own personal well-being
is paradoxically a way of best guaranteeing his own personal well-being”
I think it’s about balance. It might look paradoxical if you think with two concepts: individual, society. But if you think with a single concept ‘individual/society’ in a sense of ying/yang, then paradox is gone and there is no need for emphasizing balance because it’s already there.
Maybe you’ve seen me ranting against the concept of (human)rights. There is no way to make it work with individual/society concept. Actually, more than less doesn’t work.
Thinking with individual/society should have been more natural for us. We are Dependent creatures. Alone we are very lame. Together we conquered the world. Dependency is our power, but it can be abused, what is also/mostly the case throughout civilization.
Yes, I also understand Tao Te Ching in the way that goodness precedes morality. That part I see as depiction of a decent from bliss into nightmare.
The notion of Goodness is for me fundamental and universal value in the realm of ethics.
Ones I’ve debated with friend and we came to Goodness. He was puzzled and said: define Goodness. Scientific materialism was talking out of him. While we cannot say anything about Tao, we can say a little about Goodness, certainly we can’t define it. But I’m sure well rounded people intuitively understand the notion well enough, if not perfectly. Still, endorsing Goodness as a universal value necessitates a Leap of Faith. There is no way to rationally defend the stand against a determined sceptic (I don’t mean hard core sceptics, they are meatheads).
Since faith is so denigrated today, we have a husk of morality and ethics that reminds more on ritual…kind of/like… injustice law…there is no harm…it’s not forbidden…he is not liar, he is politician…he is not usurer, he is successfully assertive….
Recently I came to conclusion that a human without a World View is impossible. One of basic ingredients of World View is faith and it’s the same for scientific materialists. Their faith is just unconscious. Poor people living unconsciously.
(damn its 5am, must go to bed)
p.s. I recommend the rest of TTC 38, available on archive.org
Hey mik!
no need to belittle yourself. Nor flatter me, discussing means more to me.
You’re right! It’s unseemly! But I was essentially expressing my true thoughts about the nature of your comment being a poetic conclusion to the thread and my slight pangs of regret for destroying that poetry.
But if you think with a single concept ‘individual/society’ in a sense of ying/yang
I never thought about the fact that ying/yang might be indissociable…
I always imagined that components of a whole could be taken apart and exist and be analyzed as separate components.
But if you take a rabbit: all the brown parts are ying and the red parts are yang…
and you try to disassociate the brown from the red you destroy the rabbit that is both fundamentally and essentially brown and red.
Similarly, perhaps humans are inextricably both ying and yang /
individual and collective…
seems dumb, but I never saw things in that light before…
maybe it’s the vermouth.
“….essentially expressing ……regret for destroying that poetry.”
You are poetic, I just borrowed poetry. Anyway, coool.
We are quite determined who we are by environment, society. No one grows up in a vacuum. Individualism and collectivism are failure I think. Healthy society is impossible with individualism as prevailing world view.
Ying/yang….look at man and woman, couple. When relationship is harmonious it’s heaven on earth. Relationship makes the difference. Might be hell too. Concept couple contains ying/yang.
“maybe it’s the vermouth.”
I noticed, you know how to praise Dionysus. Coool, to much of Apollonius today (if anything).
Maybe you can try praising with something else. 😉
Weed can be very inspiring for thought.
But I agree with G. Carling: with years drugs have diminishing returns. Still, there was always one joint in his home, hidden, for emergency he said.
I just realized that, in my rant a few comments above, that Tao Te Ching nuance had escaped me:
goodness precedes morality…
and the Tao precedes goodness…
gonna contemplate that…