The faulty right wing arguments about the "natural state"

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

Guess you have all have quite a few experiences debating the rightwingers like the conservatives and libertarians. There is one thing that many of them have in common. The feel that their system somehow is the natural order. That they are innocent citizens being robbed by the state thru taxes and regulations. They are an inactive party, the citizen, which are being robbed by an active party, the state. Property rights are holy. The claim that property rights are "give by God" and that no man have the right to defy it. They often refer to the welfare state as "social engineering", opposted to their natural order in tune with their perception of "human nature". According to them, the nightwatcherstate is the natural state, and any other system than that are caused by "socialist" regulating and destroying the natural state with the help of the state and it`s regulations and taxes. And hasn`t life always been "survival of the fittest"? Why should we intervene with that?

This all sound logical don`t it? If everyone would just behave like men should do and not interfere with other by "use of inital force", everything would just be fine.

Well, it isn`t quite so easy! Let`s take a look at the first human societies. Or, the aren`t just the first human societies. From the birth of modern man to the birth of civilization over 20.000 years ellapsed! This is over four times as long, as the timespan of known civilization on our planet.

Was this a system of "natural capitalism"? It certainly was not! In this whole period property rights were a unknown phenomenon! They owned their clothes, but noone owned land, resources or "means of production". This meant that anyone could go out and make a living, without asking anyones permission, being hired by someone or selling their services to someone. They could just go out and make a living, without being dependent on anyone else! Later, they settles in small agricultural communities, but the ownership of the land was communal, a kind of "natural communism" rather than "natural capitalism". Also, these societes certainly were not a "dog eat dog" society of competition. No, until the birth of civilization, social classes were as good as non existant. There were no capitalist class, no working class and little sexism. There were competition between tribes/groups, but the members of each tribes took care of their tribesmates and food was shared so all could survive.

What happened then? For about five thousand years ago, human kind were exposed to the inital and most dramatic state intervention in world history, the introduction of property rights! The protection of property rights is NOT an non active action. Property rights are an artifical human invention, that upset the natural order of things, and made humans capable of assembling wealth and by it gather power over others.

People are dependant on resources from their environment, water, food, lumber and in modern times oil and metals. In the natural state this resources were free for all to exploit. When property rights were introduced, some people actually robbed humanity of the resources they need, and demanded "favours" to let them have access to these resources.

This means that everyone who enjoys property rights over land and resources are not an innocent man being robbed, because the right to property itself is an active action depriving other people of precious resources!

[KFC]

1. You confuse "natural" with "primitive"

However, I do give you credit for saying there was "little sexism" before civilization. I like a good joke to start the day. LOL.

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

4. Well

Most archeologists actually claim that the relationship between the sexes were much more equal in stone age than bronze age society, as the need to control reproduction appear to have been a side effect of the introduction of property rights.

[forgethell]

2. don't want to rain

on your parade. the reason nobody "owned" anything was that there was nothing to own. As soon as the first farmer planted a crop, he was naturally reluctant to share the wealth with the less fortunate. Understandably so, Farming is HARD work. It grew from there. In this I think the RW is correct, without some protection for property, no one will work and produce. It's human nature. On the other hand, the thing that distinguishes us from animals is our ability to rise above our nature and do the right thing. The whole left-right argument, in my view, is what side of the right/wrong line particular policies, ideologies, parties, and politicians are.

Heck, we even have disagreements here on DU

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

3. Actually, I don`t agree

Property rights and farming really didn`t became invented at the same time. For over two thousand years AFTER agriculture was invented, societies appear to have been kind of autonomous "communistic" societies where the village owned the land and worked on it together. Early societes appear to have been very equitable. It wasn`t before the kings and priests of Egypt and Sumer, that you begin to see clear evidence of class distinctions.

When it comes to working and producing, humans didn`t starve before 3000 BC. It was just that they just worked to get the food and clothes neccessary for survival, working an average of two to three hours per day.

Also, the urge to accumulate resources and produce comes from an artifical regulation of human societies. In a truly natural society, the threat of violence and tribal wars(that don`t appear to have been very common until collective property rights) will deter any attempt to accumulate worldly power.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. how do you know this?

I might just accept that you can tell from skeletons that no-one ever died from starvation; but how on earth can you work out their average hours of work per day?

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

10. Starvation

Sure, people did starve if they were hit by a drought or animal plague. The reason one can calculate their working hours is to compare with those few primitive peoples that still exist, as the bushmen of Africa. Also, there were plenty of big game still around, and if the tribe could capture a mammout, the really didn`t have to work for several weeks.

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

5. Don`t missunderstand

I don`t want to abolish property rights in any form. My point is that right to property is NOT a right that is natural in human societies, and can therefore be compromised like any other manmade institution.

[BeFree]

6. Yep

Government was first instituted among the People to ensure property rights. It has evolved over the years to also ensure individual rights not be overrun by the property owners.

This evolution is what bothers the property owners the most. No longer is the governemnt ensuring that just the wealthy rule, it enforces a sort of fairness and justice. That's what the freepers hate: Justice.

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

7. My point

And my point is that when government intervenes on behalf of some people, to guarantee property rights. That government can not be a neutral government, if it do not also intervene on behalf of the people that are negativly affected by property rights.

[BeFree]

8. Evolution proceeds

When govt. is neutral, which it rarely is, it creates a level playing field in the capitalist stadium. A neutral govt. should referee the players so that a fair game occurs.

I took your point to mean that govt. is an unnatural 'thing'. Can we agree that capatalism is also unnatural? Now some would argue that unnatural things can not evolve. So, for the sake of argument, let's put it this way: it changes to meet the players desires.

Whenever the property owners have power, govt changes to meet their needs. When the People, with their overwhelming numbers, desire Justice for all, govt. changes to meet that need. That's only natural.

[PeeWeeTheMadman]

11. What is natural?

The problem is that defining natural is quite difficult. Can anything that actually exist be called natural? What I had in mind was the conservative/libertarian claim that the nightwatcher state is natural, thinking about natural as the state you got when people just "follow nature" or something like that.

My point was that if the government regulation, taxes and the welfare state is unnatural, property rights and capitalism itself isn`t natural either. no single government regulation has affected human life in anything near the same extent as the introduction of property rights.

What is also interesting that this changes the perception of the poor. For in primitive societies there were no such thing as "relative poverty". Instead of being a week link in society that aren`t good for anything, they are instead victims of "government regulations" that gives artificial advantages to people with other abilites than themselves. Property rights in realtiy actually prevents people from making a living for themselves, because all the land, hunting grounds and natural resources are denied to them thanks to property rights.