"property "owning" is merely violently threatening other people"...

Matt Bruenig responds...

"So the real question I present in this post, if you get down to it, is "what are your assumptions." The problem with figuring out what "redistribution" can refer to has an immense literature. The big issue is something called The Baseline Problem. You can't figure out what is redistribution without comparing it to some baseline distribution. But there is no natural or automatic baseline distribution. The baseline distribution is a construct, itself a creature of policy and government programs (e.g. the government program of property and contract law).

Everyone in this debate realizes this. It's not even a point for discussion. The question is actually how do you use the word.

What's interesting about your post is that you try to demarcate a Baseline, but the way you demarcate it actually moves between two different frameworks for doing so. In a desert framework, you can say the baseline is "fruits of my labor" (or I am distributed what I produce). In a just-processes framework, you can say the baseline is "whatever I am distributed without violence or force or whatever." But these are actually *two different frameworks*. And they will produce *two different Baselines* for determining when redistribution is happening.

So not only do you just assert that you have some answer to The Baseline Problem, which you clearly don't. In providing that answer, you actually draw upon two different types of frameworks that are in conflict with one another! So it's not even clear what your Baseline would be: desert or just-processes?

Good times."

The natural baseline distribution in society, IMO, is voluntary trade, which exists without government policy/programs. Any government policy or program kicks in with force AFTER the voluntary baseline distribution.

I don't see a difference between the two frameworks of distribution you described, maybe you could elaborate? IMO they are the same thing. Because my employer and I voluntarily contracted, I am distributed without violence or force the fruits of my labor (income), that is the baseline distribution BEFORE government policy/programs interfere with force to disrupt and rearrange that distribution and redistribute to others not involved in that initial trade of labor for income.

Property isn't a government program, infact, government does more in opposition to private property than to support it.

"There is no such thing as a voluntary trade. They are all coercive because property "owning" is merely violently threatening other people. See, e.g., http://www.demos.org/blog/10/2..."

You must own a device to have typed and posted that response with. If you are using a rivalrous good than you are claiming a right to the exclusive use and control of that property because it is a rivalrous good.

Is your use of that property a violent threat to others? 99.9% of people respect your right to the exclusive use and control of that property and don't feel violently threatened by your ownership of your laptop/tab/phone/whatever. I'd argue that the other 0.01% don't feel violently threatened by your right to that property, they instead want to claim a right to that property for themselves and will violently threaten you to take it.

Do you have a right to the exclusive use of that rivalrous property (phone/tab/laptop/whatever) or not? If you're using it, then you are claiming that right for yourself. If you acquired that property by voluntary trade, then claiming that right isn't violently threatening to other people.

And, 'there is no such thing as a voluntary trade', WHAT!?!? If you agree to trade me your Laptop for my 5 dollars that is voluntary. If some random third guy shows up claiming our right to the ownership of that property is threatening to him because he never agreed to let us own that rivalrous property we're trading in the first place, this is where it gets confusing. Property is rivalrous, so we have to determine who has the best claim to it, does the first/current user of that property have the best claim to it, or does the guy who showed up later claiming a right to it have the better claim?

If you believe that the guy who showed up later has the better claim to it, then any time someone wants something of yours, just give it to them, they have a better claim to the property than you and you're someone the one violently threatening them, right???