Re:Controlling your own wealth as a basic human right
by smhost on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @12:12PM
(#13483309)
I don't disagree with you on policy, I'm just pointing out that thought experiments pushed to their logical extreme don't really make sense.
Before your body was formed, there was no "you", so the concept of ownership didn't apply. The "offender" in that case was the laws of physics, or some deity if you prefer.
Re:Controlling your own wealth as a basic human right
by kemayo on Wednesday January 25, 2017 @01:46PM
(#13484507)
I suppose that if we want to take the "a legitimate right to appropriate natural resources and make exclusive use of what you transform said resources into" argument to its own silly-extreme, we could say that slavery is a natural right, because that sounds like a fairly good description of parents making a baby.
I have no problem charging private entities rent for the appropriation of natural resources. What I have a problem with is demanding a share of the private property that they fashion out of those natural resources. From a public standpoint, it should make no difference if someone appropriates a ton of iron ore and places it in their living room as a collector's item, or if they use it to create a supercomputer. They should pay the same fee to the public in both cases, since it is the natural resource usage that should be charged, (and that the public has a legitimate right to charge a fee for), and not their private actions upon that material. But current tax laws, and Proudhon's argument which the parent comment cites, delegitimizes the value that one adds in the process of creating the latter.