Libertarianism Declared Dead

[Darth Rotor]

To the extent that people pool together and agree to do things a certain way, they are free to do so as long as they do not interfere with someone else's liberty and equal rights.

Richard, that wasn't a very satisfying answer. If a union for a trucking company struck, are they or are they not interfering with others' rights and liberty? I need a better sense of how this works out in practice.

DR

 

[Mister Agenda]

Goodness me. You're digging yourself further into a hole with every post. The dictionary expressly acknowledges that this is a jargon use and inapplicable outside of legal documents, and you're choosing it over the three more common and more general uses cited?

Absolutely. The Declaration of Independence is a legal document. Contracts are legal documents. How rights are implemented is a legal concept. Why on earth would I intend it in any other sense? How do the other definitions even apply?

 

[Gurdur]

Mr Agenda does make this otherwise-doomed conversation interesting.

 

[drkitten]

The Declaration of Independence is a legal document.

Not at all. It's agitprop -- and Jefferson, as a lawyer, would have been well aware of the difference.

Why on earth would I intend it in any other sense?

Because the document from which you cite the word -- indeed, the document in which the word is most well-known and from which it derives most of its common meaning -- is in no sense a legal document, and doesn't use any other legal phraseology.

Or to put it another way --- why on earth are you asserting that "inalienable" is the one word in the Declaration of Independence that is written in legal jargon?

 

[Mister Agenda]

Not at all. It's agitprop -- and Jefferson, as a lawyer, would have been well aware of the difference.

Because the document from which you cite the word -- indeed, the document in which the word is most well-known and from which it derives most of its common meaning -- is in no sense a legal document, and doesn't use any other legal phraseology.

Or to put it another way --- why on earth are you asserting that "inalienable" is the one word in the Declaration of Independence that is written in legal jargon?

Well, let's try them out:

1. By inalienable rights we mean rights we can't cause to become unfriendly or hostile.

2. By inalienable rights we mean rights we can't cause to become withdrawn or unresponsive.

3. By inalienable rights we mean rights we can't transfer or turn away.

4. By inalenable rights we mean rights we can't transfer to the ownership of another.

The only ones that seem to make sense in this context are 3 and 4, which are rather similar. Do you disagree?

 

[Francesca R]

Mister Agenda--If you don't claim that inalienable rights are freedoms absent any responsibility, then there's nothing to pursue on that front; the discussion can wait until someone pitches up who does.

But you and I pretty much ought to agree that the word "inalienable" is out of place and should be ignored in that case.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Mister Agenda--If you don't claim that inalienable rights are freedoms absent any responsibility, then there's nothing to pursue on that front; the discussion can wait until someone pitches up who does.

But you and I pretty much ought to agree that the word "inalienable" is out of place and should be ignored in that case.

I agree it is only appropriate in very specific sense of the word. I'm starting to think it's more trouble than it's worth, next time someone asks why it isn't okay under libertarianism to hire someone to kill you, I'll try to remember to use more words and skip just saying 'they're inalienable'. I hope you'll consider that a reasonably satisfactory conclusion to this particular conversation, Francesca.

 

[SaulOhio]

Not at all. It's agitprop -- and Jefferson, as a lawyer, would have been well aware of the difference.

The Declaration of Independance IS a legal document. It is a declaration, from the government of a colony to the government of its parent country, of its intent to form a new nation independant of the parent country. It was signed by representatives of the colony, and delivered to England and its rulign government. It describes governmental abuses which made this independance necessary. Its a legal document, not just a lot of rhetoric to get people to go along with the founders.

 

[Doubt]

Doubt: It still remains that the clear cause of the crisis is the regulation in place. I have seen very little, though admittedly some, evidence of deregulation, but much more evidence of additional regulation imposed.

I don't think that is clear at all. Although I would never say the current regulations were not part of the problem.

Nobody put a gun to the lender's heads and made them sell ARMs. Nobody forced banks to buy bad loan packages from the lenders. But they did it in order to make a quick buck.

In libertopia, who prevents this from happening?

 

[Richard Masters]

Richard, that wasn't a very satisfying answer. If a union for a trucking company struck, are they or are they not interfering with others' rights and liberty? I need a better sense of how this works out in practice.

DR

Depends on the contract. If you are a hospital, you would want to include in your contract that a doctor who ceases to work without advanced notice or reasonable excusable absence (emergency, sickness) is liable for damages to a patient.

If you are a doctor this should be an acceptable contract. Likewise, if you are a doctor, you'd request a wage review.

If you are a hospital, there is no way you'd risk a doctor strike, because although under this contract the doctor is liable; a full strike would render the hospital itself liable as well. Not to mention, it would increase costs for the hospital to have to hire temporary doctors or pay overtime.

You'd think this makes unions impossible, but if a majority of doctors put in an advanced notice (10, 20, 30 days), the responsibility for damages or injury falls upon the hospital, so the doctors still have magnified bargaining power collectively.

Of course, there may be circumstances where a specialized doctor is directly responsible for a critical patient, and a 20-30 day notice would be morally unacceptable.

In this case, the patient or someone on the patient's behalf could initiate civil action against the doctor and/or the hospital, as they are both responsible and there is no other reasonable or timely relief for the patient.

The fact that the doctor chose the assignment can easily be construed as an implicit (or silently understood) contract between himself and the patient, particularly if there is no reasonable or timely substitute for the doctor's services.

So in this situation the doctor would have to decline to participate in the strike, and the hospital would have to do whatever is possible to avoid this particular doctor from leaving.

Note, however, that neither the doctor nor the hospital "have to" attend to the client/patient; it is simply the case that the doctor and the hospital are liable should they decline to attend to the patient.

As to a shortage of medical assistants to the doctor, the hospital and not the doctor is liable (unless from some strange reason, the doctor is expected to hire his own assistants... but that's tangential).

So unions don't have any special status other than what is accorded to them by the individual members of the union.

If a union is interfering with you, influencing your circumstances, you can only expect remuneration if they are depriving you of a necessity to life or if they have initiated force against you; thus a hospital can't sue a union if the hospital loses money from lack of business, but someone who expected to recover under an implied contract could sue an individual belonging to the union for breaking that contract.

This seems fairly just to me. Responsibility is assigned via causation unless specified otherwise in a contract. This isn't arbitrary.

An implied contract here consists of what lawyers call "a meeting of the minds", subject to evidence and subject to common practice in the locality.

 

[drkitten]

The Declaration of Independance IS a legal document.

Really? Then what is it's effect?

. Its a legal document, not just a lot of rhetoric to get people to go along with the founders.

No, "just a lot of rhetoric to get people to go along with the founders" is actually one of the best descriptions of the DoI that I've heard in a long time.

 

[drkitten]

Depends on the contract. If you are a hospital, you would want to include in your contract that a doctor who ceases to work without advanced notice or reasonable excusable absence (emergency, sickness) is liable for damages to a patient.

If you are a doctor this should be an acceptable contract.

No unionized employee in the world would accept such a contract. More accurately, they would simply insist that labor disputes would be listed as an excusable absence.

Likewise, if you are a doctor, you'd request a wage review.

Er,... no. If I were a doctor involved in this kind of negotiation, I wouldn't "request" a thing, let alone a "review." If we're drawing up contractual terms, then the contract will include salary terms.

Any doctor who is willing to sign away his right to stop work before getting a firm statement on what his compensation terms are is an idiot.

If a union is interfering with you, influencing your circumstances, you can only expect remuneration if they are depriving you of a necessity to life or if they have initiated force against you; thus a hospital can't sue a union if the hospital loses money from lack of business, but someone who expected to recover under an implied contract could sue an individual belonging to the union for breaking that contract.

This seems fairly just to me. Responsibility is assigned via causation unless specified otherwise in a contract. This isn't arbitrary.

Yes, but you're arbitrarily limiting the sort of responsibility that can be assigned, and using a rather bizarre legal formulation to do it. If a union is interfering with you, I can expect remuneration for any damages that I can prove them responsible for. Check out the legal concept of "tortuous interference with a contract" for examples of how far the current legal situation will extend the idea of responsibility through causation.

If you and I have a contract, and someone else deliberately takes any actions whatsoever to make performance of that contract more difficult, he or she is liable to both of us for any actual damages. It doesn't matter if they are "depriving you of a necessity to life" or if they used "force"; they have nevertheless committed a tort and are liable.

 

[Richard Masters]

No unionized employee in the world would accept such a contract. More accurately, they would simply insist that labor disputes would be listed as an excusable absence.

The doctor in this case isn't a unionized doctor.

Er,... no. If I were a doctor involved in this kind of negotiation, I wouldn't "request" a thing, let alone a "review." If we're drawing up contractual terms, then the contract will include salary terms.

I hope you didn't intend this as a rebuttal because it is not.

Any doctor who is willing to sign away his right to stop work before getting a firm statement on what his compensation terms are is an idiot.

I don't know anyone who is suggesting that.

Yes, but you're arbitrarily limiting the sort of responsibility that can be assigned, and using a rather bizarre legal formulation to do it. If a union is interfering with you, I can expect remuneration for any damages that I can prove them responsible for. Check out the legal concept of "tortuous interference with a contract" for examples of how far the current legal situation will extend the idea of responsibility through causation.

If you and I have a contract, and someone else deliberately takes any actions whatsoever to make performance of that contract more difficult, he or she is liable to both of us for any actual damages. It doesn't matter if they are "depriving you of a necessity to life" or if they used "force"; they have nevertheless committed a tort and are liable.

That may be the case according to current law, but then what's the point of having a union?

Unions should be allowed to exert pressure by exercising the rights of each individual not to work. For other types of interference, I agree that they should be liable.