Re:The Billionaire Behind Efforts to Kill the U.S. Postal Se...
by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @11:34PM
(#23913663)
> If you hold, as Bastiat did, that "the law" (aka "the State") can be something like - but no more than - the "collective extension to our individual right to self defense" and that no mere aggregation of individuals can have a right to do anything that a single individual doesn't have a right to do, then you can conceptualize a State that does things like, say, protecting private property, but which can't lawfully require payment of taxes.
You can only do that for the specific case if you believe that either (1) the specific concrete details of property rights are matters of self-evident and immutable natural law, not contextual judgements that involve a balancing of interests, or (2) each individual is empowered to define and impose their version of property rights on others. Otherwise, a state with no power that isn't exactly that held by individuals comprising the state cannot define property laws, much less enforce them. (Technically, it can't define property laws in the first case, either, but it can recognize the concrete and specific elements of, and enforce, the laws that were carved on stone tablets by the invisible hand.)
You can only do that for the specific case if you believe that either (1) the specific concrete details of property rights are matters of self-evident and immutable natural law, not contextual judgements that involve a balancing of interests, or (2) each individual is empowered to define and impose their version of property rights on others. Otherwise, a state with no power that isn't exactly that held by individuals comprising the state cannot define property laws, much less enforce them. (Technically, it can't define property laws in the first case, either, but it can recognize the concrete and specific elements of, and enforce, the laws that were carved on stone tablets by the invisible hand.)