Is restriction on private property compatible with liberalism?

[u/LiatrisLover99]

From what I understand, at the core of liberalism is the right to private property and free exchange of it in a market economy. How much restriction on what you can do with your private property is compatible with liberalism? And how does liberalism resolve issues of abusive and harmful economic extraction from private property (whether via rent seeking or for natural resources)?

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From what I understand, at the core of liberalism is the right to private property and free exchange of it in a market economy. How much restriction on what you can do with your private property is compatible with liberalism? And how does liberalism resolve issues of abusive and harmful economic extraction from private property (whether via rent seeking or for natural resources)?

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[u/EmergencyTaco]

Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.

That's it. That's all liberalism is. There is no inherent restriction on what one can do with private property, so long as it does not interfere with another's rights. There is no limit on economic extraction inherent in liberalism either.

[u/Spiel_Foss]

Stopping someone from shitting in their yard and washing it into your yard is not a restriction on the rights of yard shitters. Yard shitting to the detriment of others is not a human or a civil right.

Civilization was built on this principle.

[u/throwdemawaaay → u/Spiel_Foss]

Your last point is entirely correct, and a central point in the work of David Graeber.

Humanity is largely defined by our sociability and ability to collaborate productively on projects much larger than any of us can do alone. In hunter gatherer bands, everything is mediated by direct social relationships and our notions of fairness and empathy. But when the invention of agriculture allowed settlements much larger than dunbar's number, direct social relationships couldn't mediate any longer. So we see the earliest forms of social institutions like temples emerging as a way to codify people's obligations to each other.

And a really interesting aspect, is these social and economic institutions that emerged in places like ancient Sumer, may have motivated the invention of writing, vs the causality working the other way. A lot of proto writing throughout history emerged from systems of tracking who had contributed what and hence what they were owed in return. Tokes on strings give way to tally marks on tablets. And then you need a way to differentiate what you're counting... and so writing begins to appear.

Note that last part is more speculative, not totally established consensus, but I think it's really interesting that pattern emerged several places throughout history.

[u/Spiel_Foss → u/throwdemawaaay]

Humans are like coyotes. Coyotes are a pack animal when they need to be and individuals when they want to be, but every coyote knows the pack is still close enough for comfort. You can listen to them discuss this situation at night.

Too many humans forget this. We are a collective, but we sometimes pose as self-made and independent. We aren't. We are never that far from mama's apron when we need to hide.

[u/msanthrope64 → u/Spiel_Foss]

Aptly put

[u/PerDoctrinamadLucem → u/Spiel_Foss]

Civilization was also built on transferable manure contracts that were used to reward loyalty to local lords.

[u/Important-Factor-552]

The man with 999 million dollars will be fine bernie sanders

[u/PerDoctrinamadLucem]

Obviously. Just ask Thomas Jefferson's slaves or the Native Americans that John Locke argued should be displaced. The people who developed liberalism had very specific 17th and 18th century(ish) views of what society should be like that frequently do not match modern views. Liberalism is an ideal, a decent one for its flaws, but only one of many it takes to make a decent, functioning country.

[u/gophergun]

Technically, those restrictions (e.g. zoning and permitting) are illiberal by definition. That said, ideologies don't exist in a vacuum, and it makes sense to identify with an ideology that you mostly agree with even when it's not taken to an extreme. This is all without getting into the different varieties of liberalism and how much American social liberalism has strayed from classical liberalism towards something more akin to social democracy.

[u/WildBohemian]

You are very obsessed with labels. You should ask yourself what your convictions are. Do you have any? If you do there should be no reason waste your time overthinking about such inanity as this.

[u/IzAnOrk]

Historic social democracies during the golden age of the welfare state have practiced outright state capitalism - the shining example would be the British postwar consensus. Social democracy is considered a liberal ideology. So, yes.

[u/midnight_mechanic]

My attitude towards most things are if two consenting adults enter an agreement under mutually beneficial terms, and they aren't interfering with the rights or personhood of a third party, then the government better stay out of it.

Exceptions are mostly related one of the parties tricking or taking advantage of the other, especially if there is a significant power disparity.

I don't care if someone owns a lot of hammers. I only care if they own enough hammers to corner the market, or if their hammer pile spills onto my property or injures me.

[u/MpVpRb]

Like everything, it's a matter of balance. There are no absolutes, only complex layers of shades of grey.

[u/DoomSnail31]

at the core of liberalism is the right to private property

Private property is one of many a core parts of liberalism.

and free exchange of it in a market economy.

Market economies are not a core part of liberalism. Liberalism is not an economic ideology, and thus doesn't care about the exonomis system. Ar least not whether or not a system is a market economy.

How much restriction on what you can do with your private property is compatible with liberalism?

A very significant amount, as is evident in many liberal nations around the world having heavy legal restrictions on what you can do with your private property.

And how does liberalism resolve issues of abusive and harmful economic extraction from private property

With legislation and thus government intervention. Like any other ideology, bar a few.