- control

- wealth

- ownership

3 concepts that are tied too our current society. You can imagine other societies where those don't hold anymore, but where human right should still hold.

Property rights are weird. We all mostly agree that no one should be able to steal your phone off your desk at work. We very much don't agree that governments should not be able to tax income. When someone says "controlling your own wealth should be a basic human right", I don't know whether I agree or not until I know quite a lot more about what that person means. Which probably means I disagree that it's a basic human right.

Stealing your phone or taxing your income is fundamentally the same. And it doesn't matter how many agree that it's acceptable. In a lot of countries, a lot of people agree that those who make blasphemous statements should be imprisoned or put to death. They do not see any inherent right to free speech. By your logic, if a lot of people agree that blasphemy should be punishable by the state, free speech is not necessarily a human right.

Precious metal miners?

I appreciate my smartphone, but understand a trail of human misery was used in its creation.

>I appreciate my smartphone, but understand a trail of human misery was used in its creation.

Are you implying all mining produces human misery? I suggest you look into how a modern mine works in a developed country. A mine that kills people is a reflection of the country, not the act of mining itself.

Considering the total number of people globally working with coal it's still a significant issue.

PS: Spraying it with water can help with transportation, but you can't do that right before burning.

No, it's only a prerequisite as a result of the existing economic model. Human rights should transcend that.

Not very convincing. Do you have some alternative to the "existing economic model"? I ask because I can't think of a single example of a free society where there's no private property.

The people that think such things as the State having no right to collect taxes are terribly naive. But it's equally naive to think that you can be free in a society where you don't have economic freedoms.

I don't know if there is a viable alternative economic model, but I can certainly conceive of them, and I don't think "Human Rights" should preclude those models, nor do I think they need to.

If the current economic system requires certain prerequisites to meet our Human Rights, then those prerequisites are implied by those rights in the context of that system.

>But it's equally naive to think that you can be free in a society where you don't have economic freedoms.

To "be free" is a nebulous concept. There are many possible freedoms one can have, and many of them conflict with each other.

To some, economic freedoms mean the freedom to deny food to the starving. Many people disagree on whether this is a freedom worth defending.

So you neither know nor you acknowledge that's absurd.

To "be free" is a nebulous concept. There are many possible freedoms one can have, and many of them conflict with each other.

That is terribly wrong. Freedom is not some abstract idea, it's freedom from tirants that try to keep you enslaved using a variety of means. That's why freedom is a whole.

Come on, that's like politics fundamentals. Is this really news to you?

A freedom is the ability to choose to do something. But choosing to do some things will limit the choices of others. Therefore we must inevitably trade some freedoms against others.

Generally we agree on certain trade-offs. We agree that freedom from murder is more important than freedom to kill. We agree that freedom from slavery is more important than freedom to enslave.

But there are many cases where people do not agree on the trade-offs. If you respond to these cases by insisting that your preferred trade-offs are somehow correct by definition, you're avoiding the argument. Why are those freedoms preferable?

And freedom to control property is one of case where people disagree. In order to own property, you must deny others the ability to use that property, and in extreme cases that means denying the starving the ability to eat. Many people believe that in such cases, the freedom to survive is more important than the freedom to control property.

And make no mistake: that's also true for modern tyrannies, communism, right wing dictatorships or theocratic regimens.

My point is very simple and I'm sad to see people answering to my comments are not properly addressing it.

My point is that there is not a single country that can be considered free where you cannot safely own wealth. This is not just an idea: it's a fact that you can easily check.

If you come to think about it, it's a very similar reasoning to the one that originated socialism. You can't be free if you're starving or if you're so poor that you can't get out of poverty, or you can't afford proper healthcare, or you can't give your children an education.

In the same way, you can't be free if the State has arbitrary power to ruin your life. There must be some safety, a rule of law that assures that reasonable expectatives are met.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_freedom really? Notice that almost this entire article is discussing the various differing opinions on what constitutes freedom, and in particular the trade-offs between positive and negative freedoms.

Yes they share some broad similarities, and everyone agrees that obvious historical tyrants are bad, but there's a lot of nuance once you get into the details.

>My point is that there is not a single country that can be considered free where you cannot safely own wealth.

That depends what you mean by "safely". Plenty of countries charge property taxes, and many have eminent domain laws which can force you to surrender land. Property is not absolute, nor do I think it should be.

Which is why I don't think these kind of economic decisions should be considered Human Rights.

That depends what you mean by "safely". Plenty of countries charge property taxes, and many have eminent domain laws which can force you to surrender land. Property is not absolute, nor do I think it should be.

Of course property is not absolute, it's you who said it, not me.

Which is why I don't think these kind of economic decisions should be considered Human Rights.

That's not a good point. Free speech is a human right and it's not absolute, is it?

Anyway, you're missing the point. What we are talking about (if for no other reason, because that was TFA's point) is safety for personal wealth that was acquired legally and after due taxes are paid. We're talking about arbitrary seizure, not about taxes.

Actually I have learned today that for some reason, there is people that conflates them. So it's either communism or wild capitalism. Honestly I didn't expect that.