The Official, State-mandated FAQ by LibSocs for "An"Caps

[Hierophant]

How am I wrong in my interpretation?

[James]

It's not. Offering someone a one-time gift for use of their stuff, is very different to them claiming a right to continuous increase from it.

Is it THAT different though? I disagree that this one time gift is really a gift. The person gifting is recieving something in exchange for the "gift" just like any other purchase. Taking that into account your accepting that someone can legitimately charge people for the temporary use of their capital or land. The only difference I can see between this fixed payment and a loan at interest is the former is a lump sum whereas the latter is spread out over a longer time period and from my understanding of your argument it's the continual increase over this time period that your objecting to. However, if you accept the premise that charging another for the temporary use of your capital is just, there is no real increase once time preference is taken into account because the lender will factor this into their price. They will charge more for the use of capital for 5 years than 1 year and it's this time period that the "continual increase" is taking into account. Therefore the only difference between a one time fixed payment and a loan at interest is a one time fixed payment is paid back instantaneously and at a higher price. I can't see how this benefits the borrower in any way, if anything it would harm them by raising the short term cost to set up and start making the money back.

I have great respect for Kevin Carson because he takes time preference into account and reformulates his arguments around it (quite soundly IMO) but i haven't seen this addressed in the FAQ which is it's main flaw.

For example, take a plot of land. A tenant contracts with the owner/landlord to live on it, and the landlord gets a flow of money from it. The landlord dies, and the land is passed on to his son, who also gets the flow of money. The tenant has a baby, and the child is born under the landlord's monopoly of land, and the child ends up owing a steady flow of money to the landlord as he grows up. But the child never ever explicitly contracted to it!

So here we have a situation where the 'voluntary' nature becomes something authoritarian, and the new landlord still maintains his monopoly of aggression over it all along with authority over the tenant's child. The situation becomes what Spooner criticizes about the government in No Treason-- the Constitution was indeed a 'voluntary contract' amongst the original founders, but it became an authoritarian situation. In fact the only difference would be that the 'founders' did not actually 'homestead' the land-- so basically, the entire US government today would be justified if the 'founders' had acquired the land in the 'right' way back in the 18th century. That's where everything falls apart, because ancap property theory criticizes the State while simultaneously rationalizing statism if the land was acquired the 'right' way.

I agree this is a relevant consequentialist concern, which i will return to later, but it doesn't prove that rent is immoral. The problem is the criteria for ethics (IMO) isn't whether an action is voluntary or not it's whether rights are violated, the two just happen to overlap in the vast majority of cases. Pure voluntarism includes voluntary slavery and social contracts so to argue that rent is immoral on the grounds it might not be voluntary would mean implicity accepting that slavery and statism could be moral in the right circumstances. The question is whether or not the land owner has rightful authority over their land. If they have a right to their labour then they have a right to land they have improved in some way, if they don't then the anti-usury argument is weakened as much as the pro-usury argument. This isn't to say it's good that a landlord can act like this. Merely that they aren't violating anyone's rights by doing this. However, returning to the consequentialist side of things, I do think it's important that issues such as land monopolists are taken into account when coming up with a system. However I also think there is a strong enough argument in mutualist/general left libertarian works that concentrations of wealth aren't going to appear because organisations simply aren't viable beyond a certain size unless they have an outside force (the state) socialising their costs and putting up barriers to entry. Also i'm not convinced that not enforcing rent will make that much difference for the same reasons i'm not convinced not enforcing interest will either.

But under a libsoc system, where the tenant offers to give a one-time gift to the landlord, the contract is finite, and cannot become something authoritarian in a generation or two.

See answer to first point. Also should the land owner get compensated for improved land and immovable property that is the product of their labour if that land/property was re-homesteaded? If so the two systems may not be all that different.

[Brad Reddekopp]

How am I wrong in my interpretation?

The contract doesn't protect rape, which is essentially what you claimed it did.

[Hierophant]

In whose opinion?

[Brad Reddekopp]

In whose opinion?

It is my opinion that that is the conclusion that reasonable people should reach. It's reasonable to think that the contract is meant to prevent her from suing the company for things that happen to her as a consequence of performing the duties that she is contracting to perform. She didn't contract to be raped and, so, the clause prohibiting her from suing doesn't apply.

[Hierophant]

Did the rape not happen while she was performing her duties?

[Brad Reddekopp]

Did the rape not happen while she was performing her duties?

Was it a reasonably expectable consequence of performing her duties?

[Hierophant]

If you're a woman in the military, YES.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/1 ... 76106.html

"Military women are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

[Brad Reddekopp]

Was she military or was she working for a non-governmental private contractor?

[Hierophant]

Why are you plucking hairs from a chicken? She was a military employee. Private or public doesn't matter.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Doesn't matter, Franc. Rape was not part of her job.

[Hierophant]

Then you are willfully evading reality.

[Brad Reddekopp]

Bullshit. You are refusing to seriously consider any interpretation of the contract except that which supports your crazy ideology.

[Hierophant]

I know what you're doing, but what am I doing?

[tism]

Brad Reddekopp
I expect that one would ordinarily think that a contract preventing employees from suing the employer is not meant to cover that which is not related to one's work. Rather, it would be meant to cover injuries suffered as a consequence of performing the duties one had agreed to perform. Apparently, a court has already agreed with that:

"Jones ... Read moreargued that the alleged gang rape was not related to her employment and thus, wasn’t covered by the arbitration agreement. Finally, two years later, a federal court has sensibly agreed with her. Tuesday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2 to 1 ruling, found her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract." -- from http://thinkprogress.org/2009/09/16/jones-sue-kbr/

And if the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals hadn't agreed...? The fact that there is an overlap doesn't imply that one makes the other sensible.