Defining Property Rights.

Property rights are the foundation upon which we build a peaceful and prosperous society. They are thus human rights (perhaps the only ones).

Given their importance, it's somewhat surprising how little most people, especially economists, think about how they are defined and whether they are correct as they currently stand. After all, efficient resource allocation is entirely dependent upon incentives.

When I ask people how they can tell if something rightfully belongs to them, these are the answers they most often give.

1. I paid for it.
2. Legal title.
3. I discovered it.
4. I used it first.

None of the above confers moral ownership of something because, for example-

1. We can pay for stolen goods.
2. We can pay for stolen goods that society deems acceptable. Like slaves once were.
3. I can discover something of value on your property. Like a gold watch in your attic you never knew you had.
4. I can intercept something in the post you bought from Amazon and use it first.

Therefore none of 1-4 provides an ethical basis for assigning property rights. I believe the only way by which a property right can be claimed is the creation of a good or service and its provenance.

Which means the following are an infringement of property rights.

1. Taxation of factors produced by human effort.
2. Uncompensated exclusion from scarce natural resources.
3. Exclusion from the ability to use any idea.

I would therefore postulate that if property rights are fundamental, then the fact that every Country in the World is guilty of doing a,b and c, then this is the root cause of much, if not all, social and economic dysfunction.

RE: T May

Usual caveat, for me the EU is preferable to Westminster. Possibly it is a Scottish thing in that it's not much different having being 13/1 out voted by our rowdy southern cousins to being 27/1 outvoted in Europe over a policy that we would probably enact in Edinburgh anyways.  

Teresa May has promptly forgotten that she is allegedly in the Bremain camp and gone on her usual hate rant against the Human Rights convention (which is not the same thing as the EU but it is broadly intertwined with it). This is always quite reassuring since the Home Secretary is exactly the person that the convention is meant to put the brakes on. 

And helpfully up pops Patrick Stewart to do a little skit on human rights. 



Which is basically spot on, even if you are a frothing Conservative who is utterly wed to the idea of democracy, so long as that democracy means picking a king twice a decade who is unencumbered by things like a written constitution which he has to abide by, the sort of thing that literally almost every other country in the world has to protect them. 

"Prisoners' human rights violated, Norway court rules"

From The Guardian:

Norway has violated the human rights of other inmates by forcing them to share a wing with the rightwing extremist Anders Breivik, thereby exposing them to inhuman and degrading treatment during their imprisonment, a Norwegian court has ruled.

Prisoners forced to share space with odious shit Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011 in the country’s worst acts of violence since the second world war, took the Norwegian authorities to court last month, requesting that he be kept in solitary confinement so that they would not be constantly confronted by his smug Nazi face and crazed speeches.

At their request, Breivik will now be detained in a separate three-cell complex where he can play video games, watch TV and exercise, judge Helen Andenaes Sekulic of the Oslo district court ruled.

More on "Human Rights"

The previous post about the EHCR reminded me of the recent fuss on the intertubes about the CEO of Nestle saying that human beings do not have a right to water. Predictably, he's been called all sorts of names, of which "sociopath" is probably one of the milder ones.

However, sadly, he's right. Humans don't have God-given rights, they only have the rights that an authority grants them. If you were in anarchist utopia and you started explaining to the man taking away your water supply that he was infringing your human rights, he would simply continue on his job, unless you were bigger and better armed than him. To have rights of any sort, you need some sort of authority to enforce them. That authority in turn will be powerless to either enforce or deny your rights if faced with a more powerful authority which has a different idea of the rights of its citizens.

So all talk of universal human rights will remain nonsense until there is a universal authority, which is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Fun Online Polls: Cameron's Big Ideas and UK weather

The responses to last week's Fun Online Polls were as follows:

Which of Cameron's three Big Ideas would you consider to be populist right wing crap? Multiple selections allowed.

Blame the immigrants - 65 votes
Blame the welfare claimants - 64 votes
Blame the Human Rights Act - 64 votes
None of the above - 19 votes

Total 93 voters.

Thanks to everybody who took part, it looks like I'm in the majority on this.

Caveat: I agree that our immigration and welfare systems are in need of putting on a more rational basis (i.e. a points system and a flat-rate Citizen's Income scheme respectively) or that the HRA is being completely misinterpreted in some cases. But if you invent stupid laws, then some people (a surprisingly small minority, actually) will abuse them. There's no point throwing out the baby with the bath water, and trying to blame our economic woes on the unemployed is like blaming World War I on people who died in the trenches.
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It's started snizzling again where I am, which is to proper snowing what drizzling is to proper raining. You can see it coming but it doesn't really settle and you can ignore it to all intents and purposes, you don't need an umbrella or anything.

So that's this week's entirely subjective Fun Online Poll, has the weather in the UK changed over the last ten or fifteen years?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

"Communist Party hid tragedies from China’s triple gold winning diver so she wouldn't lose focus'"

From The Evening Standard:

A Chinese diver who this week won her third Olympic gold medal has only now been told her grandparents died a year ago, her mother has suffered from breast cancer for eight years and her older brother died in a mine collapse — because her 'family' did not want her to “lose focus”.

Pool star Wu Minxia won the three-metre synchronised springboard for the third consecutive Olympics. But two Communist Party officials posing as her real parents, who were imprisoned for breaching China's one-child policy, have revealed that her dedication and persistence have come at a high personal cost.

Wu, 26, has been cut off from the outside world for 20 years at a tough training camp sponsored by the Chinese government. She rarely even saw her family as she dived for eighteen hours a day for two decades in a facility run by Project 119, the gold-seeking athletics scheme introduced by China after it won the Beijing Games in 2001. Her younger sister Hu also joined the same scheme but drowned during the initiation ceremony.

Wu’s latest triumph came last Sunday at the aquatics centre — but only after it was decided not to tell her any major details of her family’s lives, such as her younger brother being executed for speaking out against the regime, so she could concentrate on winning medals for her country.

The man posing as her father Wu Jueming revealed:

“We never tell her what’s happening at home. We even kept the news that her elder grandparents died after their village was flooded during construction of the Yangtse River dam. When her grandma died, it seemed almost like she had a premonition, and she called us asking if her grandmother was okay. We had to lie. We told her, ‘Everything’s okay’.

"We never talk about family matters with her, because, let's face it, she's not our daughter. It has been like this for so many years. We long ago realised that we were getting our stories muddled telling so many lies to so many young athletes whose families were in prison, but so what? Enjoying the company of family? What a decadent Western notion. I don’t think about it. I don’t care about it.”

Burka Ban Tomfoolery

It had to happen:

An exiled Muslim couple is using a British legal team to fight the burka ban in France. They claim the ruling breaches their human rights and restricts their free movement across countries in the European Union.

The pair, who wish to remain anonymous, now live in the West Midlands with their two children, claiming the new law forced them out of their home country. They are seeking damages and a ruling that the ban on Islamic women covering their faces in public is ‘unnecessary, disproportionate and unlawful’.

The husband, who is a French national, and his wife are being represented by Robina Shah from the Immigration Advisory Service. She has lodged their application with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

‘The case clearly is of importance to my clients,’ said Ms Shah. ‘As a result of the ban they have had to leave their country of nationality, as the ban restricts their freedom of choice, and that of their daughters.’

Court papers state the principal applicant is the husband who ‘expects and instructs’ his wife to wear the burka, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, as well as the niqab, a face veil that only leaves an opening for the eyes.

The wife, the second applicant in the case, ‘respects and follows’ her husband’s instructions ‘out of her own free will’, the Strasbourg court is being told. She is seeking £10,000 in damages from the French government for ‘injury to feelings’ caused by the alleged breach of her human rights. The couple agreed there were times when it would be unacceptable to wear a burka – such as during an airport security check or when going to the bank.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ban on face veils came into force in April. Anyone wearing the niqab or burka in public could now face a fine of £130 or lessons in French citizenship.

I've cut and pasted the whole article because there wasn't a single sentence not dripping with DoubleThink. Everybody can choose the bit they find most repugnant - from the idea that the woman, who is by implication not French, was 'forced' out of her home country, all the way to the Hobson's choice right at the end - would you rather pay a £130 fine or suffer lessons in French citizenship?

NIMBYs Of The Week

From The Evening Standard:

A series of bizarre protests from residents has left 1,000 “Boris bikes” stranded in an underground garage and unable to be used by cyclists... One group of residents claimed it would be a “violation of their human rights” if a docking station were to be built outside their mansion block in Bloomsbury.

Another complaint centred on the fact that the bikes would be positioned under a tree and would be covered in bird-droppings. Many residents have expressed concern that the bikes would be used by drunken revellers indulging in “horseplay”. One Kensington resident said anybody wanting to cycle “will already own a bike”.

Ten reasons to hate the Tories (3)

Point 3 from Cameron's Blueprint for Britain was this:

"We will replace the Human Rights Act with a new British Bill of Rights to strengthen Britain's traditional liberties."

Agreed that the HRA should be scrapped, but there's no need to dream up something new, which is a crackpot idea that Labour have already touted. For a start they should dust down and re-read the Bill Of Rights 1688 aka Bill Of Rights 1689, which:

a) Is still in force - it's called a "Bill" rather than an "Act" because it did not require Royal Assent. The corresponding Bill in Scotland is slightly different, but they can sort that out for themselves.

b) Is not so much an exhaustive list of individuals' rights (i.e. if it's not on the list, you can't do it), but a list of restrictions on what "The Crown" (which in those days meant the King, but nowadays means "The Government") can and cannot do. Individual "rights" in the modern parlance are thus neither guaranteed nor restricted in any way.

c) Reminds you that many of the things that modern governments do are quite clearly "unconstitutional", for example

i) "That levying Money for or to the Use of the Crowne by pretence of Prerogative without Grant of Parlyament for longer time or in other manner then the same is or shall be granted is Illegall." Which would render all Statutory Instruments relating to taxation that are sneaked through without being approved by Parliament void.

ii) "That Election of Members of Parlyament ought to be free". Postal votes, need I say more?

iii) "That excessive Baile ought not to be required nor excessive Fines imposed..". Now, about those people who've had their vehicles confiscated for bringing over fags and booze from France...

iv) "That Jurors ought to be duely impannelled and returned..." OK, that bit appears to have been repealed, but ought to be reinstated forthwith, rather than further eroded.

And so on.

d) Needs to be updated a bit (the language is very old-fashioned; the sideswipes at Papists are probably otiose; and whether it should be the right of all Protestants to bear arms is something on which we'll have to have a public debate).

There. Job done.

This is wrong on so many levels ...

From the BBC:

Taliban demand air strike inquiry

The Taliban have called for a UN and human rights investigation into an air strike in Afghanistan on Friday that killed dozens of people.

The independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor group says up to 70 civilians died in the Kunduz province raid. The Nato air strike targeted fuel tankers hijacked by the insurgents. The BBC's David Loyn in Kabul says the Taliban call is a change to its usual policy of opposing all foreign involvement in Afghanistan...

Yet somehow so deliciously right. I just can't decide.

Gary McKinnon

"Call to adopt UK Bill of Rights"

Oh dear, they just don't get it, do they?

The bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties ... Labour and the Conservatives agree on the need for a new Bill of Rights ... The committee said the bill should include rights to housing, education and a healthy environment.

That sounds like a list of suggestions for more state interference and control to me. The whole thrust of the Bill of Rights 1689* is to restrict the powers of the State rather than to painfully list various individual 'rights' or causes du jour.

* The Bill is still in force. My favourite bit - as a tax simplification campaigner - is " ... levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal", which, if honoured, would render three-quarters of our tax laws illegal at a stroke.

British hacker may face Guantanamo, 60-year sentence

An old story, and one which I haven't overlooked, but this guy must be going through hell*

My letter in The Metro of 12 May 2006: It's reassuring to know that  our legal system allows Afghan hijackers and foreign criminals to stay but is happy to allow the extradition of English born** computer-hackers"

* Via James Barlow

** OK, he was born in Scotland, I know that now, duh.

Life should mean life: policy costings

Let's assume that there are 1,000 murders a year in the UK, half of which result in a conviction (see page 49 of this); that the average time served for murder is currently about ten years; and that the average remaining life expectancy of convicts at conviction is forty years.

If "life meant life" (for clarity, if "convicted murderers were locked up until they committed suicide or died of disease or old age") there'd thus be an additional 7,500 prisoners in the UK on average (500 x 40 years less 10 years x one-half).

The average cost of a prisoner per year is £35,000 (scroll down to 'per capita costs'), so the total annual cost of holding an extra 7,500 prisoners would be £262 million*. That's about £10 per annum per tax payer (31 million income tax payers or 23 million Council Tax payers, take your pick).

Where can I send my £10?

* That's the headline cost. Given that I'd cheerfully legalise most drugs and activities related to prostitution, there'd be plenty of prison cells left over for murderers. Similarly, the policy may have a deterrent effect and/or reduce recidivism - the £10 per taxpayer per annum is very much a ballpark figure.

Beyoncé Knowles - champion of human rights

The Mad Mullahs Of Malaysia told Bouncy that she wasn't allowed to wear her skimpy outfits.

Unlike the delightful Gwen Stefani, who wimped out and covered up, Bouncy told them to get stuffed and is doing a concert in Indonesia (also a Muslim country, but nowhere near as strict) instead.

Bouncy, you rock!

Human rights bullshit

One my UKIP chums had a letter in the local paper (printed version here).

The unedited version also mentioned that Lord Sedley (who called for a national DNA database recently) tutored at the 'Communist University of London' in the 1970s. Now, it turns out that this is just an occasional talking shop, not a real university, so let's give Sedley the benefit of the doubt on that one, it was 30 years ago, after all*.

But Sedley is the President of the 'British Institute of Human Rights'.

So I did a search on that, and came full circle with an article on the BBC website, in which Sedley waxes lyrical about the DNA database, but a spokesman for Liberty (formerly the 'National Council for Civil Liberties'), reknowned 'human rights' campaigners describes it as a "frightening scenario".

So if even these self-appointed guardians of 'human rights' can't agree on the DNA database, I think we can all make up our minds on it.

I'm with Liberty on this one, BTW. They did stick up for the NatWest Three, after all.

*In any event, the local paper didn't include that sentence in the published version.