I'll just outline (at length) this for now, and hopefully we can spell out details if the discussion proves fruitful. It should be noted that a lot of this is based on arguments that are empirical in nature and for which I offer no empirical evidence, so I'm happy to see those either refuted or supported, as the case may be.

Legitimate property ownership:

Although this is certainly an over generalization, I think it's fair to say that most libertarians hold to some form of Lockean philosophy about property. That is to say, nature exists out there and was not given to any one individual. In order to legitimately take ownership over property, one must mix one's labor with it and improve it in some matter. From the point of initial acquisition, any property ownership that results from voluntary transactions continues to be legitimate. However, Locke's theory had an important proviso: that as much, and as good, must be left behind for others to appropriate.

I believe the basic theory has both subjective / individualistic and objective / social justifications. The former is that it just feels downright wrong at a visceral level to deprive a human being of the product of the labor because ownership over this product is part of a spiritually satisfying life. This is highly related to the idea of alienation described by Marx, and can be viewed as an argument more based in ethics or spirituality. The second justification, briefly summarized, is that people will be more motivated to work when they get to keep the product of their labor, and thus society as a whole will be enriched.

What then of the proviso? Let's consider the typical desert island scenario, in which 10 folks all wash up on shore and split up in different directions in search of food and water. One of them happens to find a good area, he drills a well that happens to tap into the only pool of water on the island. Certainly he has mixed his labor with the land and deserves ownership. On the other hand, there is now no water left for the others. Should he get to own all the water? And should this depend on how he intends to dispose of it (i.e. whether he wants to keep it all, or whether he is willing to exchange it at a "fair" rate for food or other stuffs gathered by the rest)? I believe both the individual and social implications come back into play.

As much as it is viscerally troubling to deprive this one man of his water, it seems more wrong to let others die of thirst, or even to become slave laborers at his beck and call. From a social perspective, it is unlikely that wealth will be maximized by enforcing these rights should they lead to the death or enslavement of nine individuals, who even in the latter scenario will not have the spiritual, physical, or mental energy to create as much value as they could otherwise. Moreover, the search for water would be undertaken with extreme fervor whether or not such rights are enforced, because otherwise all will perish.

Thus, from a purely theoretical perspective, the case for declaring ownership to be legitimate is weakened to the extent that property is unavailable to others. What is the direct consequence? All over the world, people are born into poverty, often extreme poverty. They have little property and little capacity to acquire more. This delegitimatize all property ownership by some quantum..

Of course, as a practical matter, the desert island water rights will be enforced only if the finder cuts a deal with a few of the others, because he will need to protect himself.

Similarly, some amount of wealth sharing is necessary in the developed world, both to quell violent unrest and moral uneasiness of property owners.

The government and wealth redistribution:

Why should governments redistribute wealth? I argue that libertarians should support wealth redistribution in the form of money taxes for two reasons:

1. Money taxes are the least invasive and, arguably, least distortionary form of redistribution. Because money is fungible, individuals are not forced to give up real property that often has value to its owner above and beyond what it would have to others. As an aside, most behavioral studies show that middle class+ people would probably be just as happy with less money.
More importantly, in the absence of wealth redistribution, social problems are viewed as requiring highly intrusive regulatory schemes and direct government intervention. Like it or not, this is the political reality in which we live. Monetary redistribution allows the markets to work their magic, without the need for policies such as the Community Reinvestment Act that may have very regretful and unintended consequences. Although money redistribution obviously distorts markets (particularly the labor market), the effect should generally be one of degree, rather than qualitatively changing people's behavior. Counterpoint: For people at the margins, changes will obviously be qualitative. A business that is taxed might go out of business, and that is not a fungible change. As I said, this is an empirical argument without empirical evidence.

2. Wealth redistribution has benefits which are more "public" than "private." I don't feel like summarizing the various public good debates we have had here, but suffice it to say that egalitarian redistribution has benefits in terms of reducing social unrest, communal tension, crime, and so forth. These benefits spill over and generally cannot be capture solely by those who give voluntarily (although this has a private moral benefit). Thus, coerced redistribution MIGHT lead to a more "optimal" level.

3. Over time, redistribution (no matter how unethical) may alleviate social problems and thus eliminate some of the need for government. As a result of what I discussed above, redistribution obviates the needs for expansion of government power both by reducing problems that call for intervention and by putting the government in the role of tax collector and distributor. A program that ensured everyone basic living expenses (which I am proposing) would cut out a lot of the bureaucracy of our current welfare scheme, would eliminate the stigmatization and concomitant cultural battles involved in having the government determine who is who is not deserving of welfare, such as declaring various individuals to be "disabled", and would obviate the need for minimum wage and other similar policies.

If you've made it this far, you've probably wasted a lot of time. Cognitive dissonance now requires you discuss it so you can convince yourself it's been time well spent. Have at it!

Lol at Cognitive Dissonance. Well played. I have about five minutes available for response, so I'll just say that I kind of agree. I'm a libertarian for sustenance level redistribution. Of course I define this much more stringently than the status quo.

While this is potentially an interesting discussion philosophically, we are so far from the actualization of libertarian ideals that this debate doesn't gain us any physical ground. Still, it may serve to better define our ideals and make us appear less cruel. Perhaps people do think that we let everyone on the island die?

I'll see if this discussion goes anywhere and maybe chip in later. It's always good to hear from the anarchos first.

The libertarian case for wealth redistribution is a strong one but it's not a government solution it's a private solution. If your argument is convincing (which I believe it is) then make it. People seem to have a pretty strong innate desire to be seen by their peers as good and noble. Everyone always always says "he hit me first". Even if it's not true they feel the strong desire to feel like a good person. The clear answer is that in a functional libertarian (ACist) society the only way to be a good person is to give a portion of your wealth to those less fortunate than yourself. In fact it is my contention (sans any evidence) that the only possible libertarian society that could be stable is one that held these social norms.

If the riches displays of wealth weren't some bull**** modern art piece they bought for $1,000,000 or a new Ferrari that is a 0.1% increase in performance over their old Ferrari but instead was look how much I've give to help needy orphans that's when society will be both just and stable. Of course the government takes us in the exact opposite direction. Exacerbating a class tension that doesn't need to exist. Those welfare queens take enough of my money already why should I give them any more? Those rich bastards won't give me any more of this free money I deserve I'll vote to take more. Instead of hey my dad worked two jobs, that's what gave me the opportunity to pursue my entrepreneurial endeavours I feel for you here take this maybe it'll help your kids reach their dreams like I did. Yeah I'm working hard but wow that gift really came in useful, I'll show my gratitude by not wasting it and really try to give my kids the better life this money should enable for them.

tom, in the desert island scenario described, do you think the man who managed to tap into the only pool of fresh water should get to own all the water, regardless of how he intends to use it?

it's hard to imagine only one entreprenuer works on digging a well. guess nobody else is thirsty?

I think applying moral rules to such lifeboat scenarios is counter productive. Morality is for people who aren't starving to death or dying of thirst. I very much doubt that anyone would hoard the water for themselves if it led directly to the deaths of people they could see and hear and interact with. That said the scenario described is what I'd call a state of nature. It's the reason we don't throw a lion in jail for murdering a gazelle. You should not apply moral rules to a state of nature.

also, a voluntary co-operative might be the solution in this situation.

You should read what, e.g., Nozick has to say about the Lockean proviso on initial appropriation. I think it responds to this kind of worry quite satisfactorily.

do you not care about those who built the Ferrari or who painted the art sir?

Good post xorbie.

If you approach political philosophy from what you call the "objective/social" direction (that is, if you think the central problem of political philosophy is essentially an optimization problem -- namely, how can we maximize "social welfare," whatever that means) then property rights aren't really important. In fact, they aren't really rights at all; they are simply social norms. Now, it is likely that respecting these norms will generally lead to higher levels of social welfare, but not in all cases. So I agree that coerced redistribution might lead to a more "optimal" level. I think that making that case with evidence will be difficult, and furthermore the fact that you had to put scare quotes around the word "optimal" hints at the reason I believe that the social welfare approach to political philosophy is problematic.

Approaching political philosophy from the other direction (the rights-based approach), typically we say that an object in someone's possession is either their legitimately owned property or it isn't. This allows us to unambiguously judge whether someone's property rights have been violated in any given instance. This works pretty well, and despite the fact that Lockean homesteading of natural resources is an ultimately unsatisfying justification for legitimate ownership, it is still more satisfying than any alternative theory of legitimate property that I am aware of.

Now, you seem to want to introduce degrees of legitimacy of property. This is confusing. It is not clear to me what it would mean for me to own something (say, my car) with a legitimacy of 70%. And do we say that my property rights have been 70% violated when someone steals my car? This idea doesn't seem to mesh very well with a rights-based political/moral approach. In any case, I don't think "we should redistribute wealth" follows from "property is less than 100% legitimate."

I'm going to throw out some ideas, I'm not sure how fleshed out they are but its something I've been thinking about for a while.

I dont believe that property rights are something that can be acquired from a source external to human values. Property is not a right, as classical libertarians often claim (mixing ones labour and all that), and it is not theft, as many socialists claim.

Property is simply an agreement between people to prevent conflict that is invoked because ownership presents an opportunity of an increase in utility that is greater than the disutility of conflict plus whatever resources the victor gains from conflict.

In the real world we allow people to own property because when it is owned by people that are the most productive it gives us access to more property and more utility.

In the desert island case, when everyone lands on the island they might agree to some kind of homesteading principle. People gravitate to the parts of the island that they find most enjoyable and since areas are mostly homogenous it will be unlikely for there to be any serious conflict. Everyone agrees to observe a specific area around each individuals home because each individual wants that right respected from others.

Now someone hits water. All bets are off, if its a matter of survival the gains from conflict are now much greater than the disutility of conflict and it doesnt really matter if the guy who found the water starts quoting from his copy of Human Action that just happened to survive the sinking of their ship.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this idea but this is where I am starting, could be an interesting thread.

Is this a fair summary?

If so, that's not satisfactory to me. I'm not approaching this from a hypothetical perspective. Real, actual people are born all over the world every day with no access to capital or property. This, in my view, delegitimizes property ownership to some degree.

Is it more or less problematic than other approaches?

It's not clear to me either. At the same time, it seems pretty bogus to, on the one hand, say that all ownership is not legitimate when much of it does result from actual productive labor and is therefore "deserved," and, on the other hand, to say that all ownership is presumed legitimate unless proven in a court of law, despite the fact that so much of it is a result of prior theft, genocide, slavery, and other practices, which nonetheless cannot be directly traced to any one person or parcel.

Certainly a middle ground is more reasonable, no? In this regard, wealth redistribution is merely a settlement on the most epic class action lawsuit of all time.

I think it does follow. It means you need to pay 30% (or whatever) taxes, which go to those without property.

Then what do we do of the fact that people are starving to death and dying of thirst? Undoubtedly, we in the West waste extraordinary amounts of resources while many in the world die needlessly. Does this mean you wouldn't throw me in jail for stealing from you to provide for a starving African child?

Also, people have seemed to focus largely on the theoretical and moral implications. Admittedly, I included them because I would like to discuss them, and I'll try to respond to Ian's post as soon as I can give it some thought.

But I actually think the rest of my post (bottom half, maybe nobody read that far ) was more interesting.

No. I'm saying it wouldn't be right or wrong for the child to try and steal from me and it wouldn't be right or wrong for me to try and stop him. I just don't think it makes sense to apply moral labels to that kind of desperate food for survival life or death interaction. The child isn't really making a moral decision, he's just fighting for immediate survival. When you steal on his behalf you are making a moral decision. I am almost certainly way out on my own limb here so be prepared for me to backtrack completely at any moment when I realise how dumb I sound.

I don't think it's dumb at all. But I think in the context of coerced wealth redistribution, we are talking about institutionalizing this sort of "stealing." I totally accept as valid, but withhold for now adopting, the view that it should not be discussed as right or wrong. But let's say you had the choice of whether or not society would engage in a basic minimal living standards tax or not. Would you? I say yes, for the reasons laid out in my OP.

Well if wealth redistribution is +EV (which I agree it is to a degree) it can be catered for by appealing to peoples selfish desires to avoid strife maintain social order brag about how much they donate and so on. You don't need a government for that you need a shift in how people view giving their money away. As I said government intervention causes people to clam up in terms of charity because it sets the poor against the wealthy in a match of who can grab the most from the communal pot. A battle which unfortunately the poor nearly always lose.

If it were a choice between current social norms towards charity with no tax or current social norms towards charity with a tax I'd choose a tax, but the problem is that it's the taxes (and the institutions, special interest group, feelings of entitlement and feeling of anger towards the entitled) that set people against each other in the first place and engender the mine is mine screw those welfare queens/I deserve free money screw those rich bastards attitude. Maybe they'll make me hand in my secret decoder ring but I'm personally pretty certain that there needs to be some level of wealth redistribution in a modern capitalistic society. That to me seems obvious. However if we do it in a violent way we entrench peoples angers and bigotries not to mention creating all sorts of other problems of the nature of keeping that distribution to what is realistically required increasing waste and inefficiency and so on. If we could do it voluntarily wouldn't that be the greatest thing of all? People would feel good about giving rather than hateful about their taxes being taken and those on the receiving end would feel grateful and want to do a good job with the money rather than entitled and not giving a damn because their next cheque is guaranteed.

Edit for the nits : I'm not saying everyone on welfare is entitled or blah blah caveat caveat I'm making a general point.

I'm not really interested in your libertarian theory of stealing people's ****, but I am interested in the mindset that actually believes this will lead in any significant way to redistributing wealth from the wealthy to the less wealthy, rather than the opposite, which is what it actually leads to in the real world, pretty much Every. Single. Time.

I mean we could go into the theory of why this is obviously the case, but why bother? We have a near infinite amount of empirical evidence. What the government actually uses it's power to steal other people's **** and give it away to other people for is to plunder trillions from the great majority and hand it over to banks and corporations, the wealthy and politically connected. When their schemes collapse and throw the poor out of work, onto the streets and evaoporates their savings, it then throws them the scraps of food stamps and unemployment wages and section 8 housing. Whee.

How about instead of thinking up rationalizations for why it's ok to steal **** so you can justify the government cheese ration as libertarian, you recognize that that power is used ceaselessly and mercilessly to assrape the very people you claim to be worried about.

Borodog, would you claim that scandinavian democracies transfer wealth from the poor to the rich?

Yes. Look at what's going on in their banking system. Huge exposure to bad loans, a bigger housing bubble than the US, taxpayer bailouts, etc. Scandis are some of the most indebted people in the world, more so than Americans. That's what happens when you have ruinous taxes and people turn to maintaining their lifestyle using temporarily cheap credit. But when those countries' economies fall apart, who will be left holding the bag? The bankers? Not. No, Jens Sixpack will lose his job, his pension, his house, his taxes will go up, his kroner will get the sweet bejeebus inflated out of it, and his super awesome universal healthcare will be in shambles because it can't be paid for.

Borodog, in the desert island scenario described, do you think the man who managed to tap into the only pool of fresh water should get to own all the water, regardless of how he intends to use it?

I don't think it's particularly useful to use lifeboat scenarios to deduce general moral principles.

I wasn't asking you to deduce a general moral principle, I was just curious to know what you thought about the scenario described. I think the utilitarian case for recognizing a Lockean system of property rights is in most instances very strong, as you make clear in posts 20 and 22. I just wondered what the basis for your belief in the importance of recognizing property rights was, and whether you thought that the scenario in the OP involved a legitimate claim of ownership over the well.