From: Matthew James Gering <mgering@ecosystems.net>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 02:29:51 +0800
To: "Cypherpunks (E-mail)" <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Subject: RE: GPL & commercial software, the critical distinction (fwd)
Message-ID: <33CCFE438B9DD01192E800A024C84A193A7A18@mossbay.chaffeyhomes.com>
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Jim Choate wrote:
> Explain further, from your description of the differences there 
> are no fundamental mentionings or views of intellectual property.
> As a matter of fact the specific role of the individual is never 
> even mentioned in either definition.

Intellectual property is fundamentally unenforceable in an anarchic
state (you have no govt), at least in the manner we have now, whereas a
Laissez Faire state could enforce it (you have limited govt). That says
nothing about whether IP should exist in current form or at all, simply
that it *could* exist under LF.

I don't support the current path IP law is headed, but I support the
underlying basis for intellectual property rights, as do most LF
advocates.

There are many different takes on anarchism, from those that include
coercion as a market (and marketable) element to those where it is
prohibited, but without the state (rational anarchy). Therefore it is
difficult to discriminate the differences other than limited government
versus no government.

> So people don't have a right to self-defence? I agree 
> consensual crimes are not crimes.

No, you certainly have a right to self-defense.

>> "What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the
individual
>> right to lawful defense."

> Is it?

Is it? No. Should it be? Yes.

> Or is it simply another sort of coercion to cooperate with the
> collective?

Yes.

"Nowhere has the coercive and parasitic nature of the State been more
clearly limned than by the great late nineteenth-century German
sociologist, Franz Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer pointed out that there are
two and only two mutually exclusive means for man to obtain wealth. One,
the method of production and voluntary exchange, the method of the free
market, Oppenheimer termed the 'economic means'; the other, the method
of robbery by the use of violence, he called the 'political means.' The
political means is clearly parasitic, for it requires previous
production for the exploiters to confiscate, and it subtracts from
rather than adding to the total production in society. Oppenheimer then
proceeds to define the State as the 'organization of the political
means' -the systematization of the predatory process over a given
territorial area."
    -- Murray Rothbard on Franz Oppenheimer's  _Der Staat_

> I'm interesting to see how you reconcile the belief nobody 
> has a right to use force yet has a right to defend their 
> life.

Abolition of *coercive* force. Defensive force I promote.

>>"For what are our faculties but the extension of our 
>>individuality? And what is property but an extension 
>>of our faculties?"

> By facluty I assume you mean our emotional and psychological 
> makeup coupled with our sensory record of them.
> 
> I'd say that such issues are not a facet of individualism but 
> rather a characteristic of life itself.

That was a quote from Frederick Bastiat, not me. Faculty is a broad
term, your cognitive faculty is physiological, but your rational faculty
(your mind) is really the essence of individuality. You are more
correct, your individuality is derived from your faculty, your faculty
is derived from the nature of man.

> No it doesn't. You must first prove that a group of 
> individuals have some right that as individuals they don't have.

Absolutely not and no they don't. What part did you miss? A group is
simply a collection of individuals, therefore holds no more rights nor
less rights than any single member, nor does any member sacrifice any
rights by participating in a group.

> For one thing, even in your definition, rights are a 
> fundamental aspect of birth as an individual.

Rights are based on the nature of reality (survival).

"In order to sustain its life, every living species has to follow a
certain course of action required by its nature. The action required to
sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has
to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is
the application of reason to the problem of survival...

Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the
individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not
depends on the individual, man's survival requires that those who think
be free of the interference of those who don't. Since men are neither
omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to
cooperate or pursue their own independent course, each according to his
own rational judgement. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's
mind...

The social recognition of man's rational nature--of the connection
between his survival and his use of reason--is the concept of
*individual rights*.

..."rights" are a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's
freedom of action in a social context...

...man has to work and produce in order to support his life. He has to
support his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind.
If he cannot dispose of the product of his effort, he cannot dispose of
his effort; if he cannot dispose of his effort, he cannot dispose of his
life. Without property rights, no other rights can be practiced." -- Ayn
Rand

	Matt