Pretty Sure This Blog is Defunct

To all of the noexistent readers of this blog, I am pretty sure that this blog is now defunct. I am debating (haha!) whether or not to delete it, move it's contents, or leave it as a testament to abandoned web pages. Group projects are always so difficult to maintain.

What is property?

The first 80 pages or so of my Property textbook are devoted to exploring this singular question, but I still haven't come up with a satisfying answer.

I think maybe answering the question really just involves a moral analysis of when someone rightfully gains some interest in something. For instance, I see the labor theory of property, which I am partial to at the moment, as essentially an argument that a person gains a moral interest in something when they exert labor upon it. But then how much labor is required and for how long? If you own a ranch that contains a tract which falls into disuse what should be required for you to maintain ownership of that tract? Does speculation count as use?

I think generally it is ubsurd to not employ the labor theory to some extent. What if I went around saying I owned Venus? Regardless of my ability to enforce my declared ownership, would I have the right of ownership? I think not, as the labor theory would hold.

A Defense

As one of the two elected representatives of the Junior class of St. John's College in Santa Fe, I have a duty to act in the interests of my constituents. This includes opposing motions and spending which are either poorly founded or potentially deleterious to the college community, or items which are simply of no material interest to the Junior Class.

At today's Council meeting, I opposed both the motion to encharter the African Drum Cooperative and the following motion to allocate $500 dollars of student funds to the organization. I, apparently, was the only Member of the Council to cast a nay vote on either motion. Some might question the reasons behind my negatives. However, I stand behind my votes and here give a defense of sorts.

On the motion of encharterment
-The drum cooperative had very vague goals. In addition to the simple difficulty I had hearing the folks on the other end of the room, I didn't see quite what they were trying to achieve.
-Prior drum groups have been disruptive towards other members of the community. I may personally attest that the Economics Study Group was forced to move it's long held time due to the noise created by the group's activities in the Great Hall.
-On other occasions the drum group and related individuals and organizations have disrupted other members of the college community.
-The group did not seem to have any concrete plan to address the disruption concerns.

On the motion to grant $500 to the group for it's activities
-All durable materials purchased by the group with Polity funds would be the property of Polity. The members of the group present did not seem to have a strong understanding of the property rights arrangements by which their purchases would be bound.
-Again, they planned to store college property in private student dorms as private student property. This would create the appearance and understanding that the items were not Polity owned and almost certainly lead to their theft.
-Although the persons present came up with some vague ideas about how they might assure that their obligations to restore college property might be fulfilled, their reasons were not sufficient to justify an affirmative vote for the granting of the funds.

On both motions more generally:
-None of my constituents requested that I vote for either resolution and I could not see a compelling reason why either motion would benefit the greater Junior Class.


Therefore, for these reasons and others, I voted against these resolutions.

Organic Law

In a recent talk that I had with my brother who is presently in law school, I discussed Common Law as opposed to Civil Law. For those of y’all who don’t know the technical distinction: (English/Anglo-Saxon) Common Law is a system of laws where the laws are determined, at least theoretically, from common sense judgments as opposed to written codes; Civil Law is where the laws are almost entirely made and written.

Presently, the Anglo-Saxon countries use Common Law and most every other Western country uses Civil Law.

The Common Law and Civil Law systems have their own special peculiarities. What I really want to talk about is the bigger topic of top-down law as opposed to bottom-up law. I say that bottom-up (organic) law is generally better than top-down law.

What is my thinking here? The true problem with the law is knowledge. The great strength of bottom-up law is that it gathers together the spread out knowledge and brings it together without having to know why the ways and customs of the people are, just like markets. If there are problems in organic law systems, we do not necessarily know that it is a problem with the system itself or a problem with government intervention (and legal competition stifling).

Obama: Taxes

"I will cut taxes - cut taxes - for 95 per cent of all working families."

Markets "for the Children"?

I know that markets are the best way to ensure that we don't starve or kill eachother. These "efficiency" arguments aren't difficult to make for markets because there isn't an argument against markets. But where the issues become difficult, and where they seem to like to gravitate towards is the "ethical" side of things.

Some socialists levy a charge against markets saying, markets are immoral because they foster a culture of consumerism...
From where I see freedom, stuff isn't a bad outcome. But there are some more pressing ethical questions that I don't have flawless answers to.

From what I have seen, true freedom tends to improve the morality of the youth rather than corrupt it. But I often become distraught when I hear other liberals not only accept that freedom will "ruin the youth" but that some of them value freedom for the very reason that "freedom" somehow enables them to give in to their most carnal and base desires.

So my big question of late: Do free markets corrupt our children (and/or the youth)?

Hypothetical: The Murderous Illegal Alien

If an illegal alien form Ireland killed someone, would he make the news?

Let the Banks Fail

With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nearing default finance folks are likely wondering when the bailout is going to come. $5.2 trillion dollars is a number so large that I really can't comprehend it. If the banks failed, the better portion of that, $17,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States, would have to be ponied up by someone or the sorry folks who live in those houses. Whether or not the government decides to "bail them out" (which really just means sweeping the corpses under the rug to rot and attract plague ridden rats that will kill us later), there will probably be a heavy recession, perhaps even a depression.

We want this "depression". A decent student of the social sciences will tell you that the "boom" is actually the destructive period, where malinvestment and miscalculation run wild, and the "bust", where the market returns to reality, is the constructive period.
I can't think of any way for the government to hide such a massive government generated spree of error, like the one that we have on our hands right now. The government shouldn't try to prop up what they can't prop up. The sooner reality hits the less painful it will be.

Let the insolvent banks fail. Let these error-doomed groups feel the costs of their actions. Let the politicians lose the next elections. Let folks run on the banks only to find that there aren't any reserves. Let the deflation kick in. The truth cannot be legislated away.