What is Liberty?

[Final-Fan]

palou said:

Final-Fan said:

The way I see it, you're conflating two different things:  not being constrained in your actual transactions (i.e. you are not stolen from or forced to buy/sell), and not being constrained in your potential transactions (i.e. you are allowed to buy/sell whatever you want).  The vulture, if you think about it, is constraining the potential transactions of every other buyer in the local market, and this is somehow less of a violation of the principle than constraining the potential transactions of John Mexico and the people who happen to want to trade with him? 

P.S.  I think you will find that the principle proposed in your OP simply doesn't say anything on the subject of preventing people from making transactions. 

Yes, I should add that in the OP.

Libertarians look at an *instance* - and determine the valuation based on that.

-The vulture and the sellers both consented on the vulture purchasing those items, when that transaction happened. Yes, perhaps, other people also wanted to make a purchase - however, the seller preferred to sell all his stock immediately to the vulture. 

-Once the transaction is done, we enter a new *instance* - the property is now the vulture's. So it becomes natural that a transaction with the hurricane victims is only legitimate if the vulture consents of it. Because it's *his* property to give, not that of the sellers. 

This is in contrast to the case of Johnny Mexico, who would be willing to give *his* service/other property to outsiders, who would be equally willing to give him *their* services/property in return - however, Donald is preventing that transaction, even if both property holders would like to make it.

I see.  In that case, yes, proposal #3 is complete in the sense that it is a self-contained and consistent principle that can be applied.  #2, on the other hand, relies on something else such as morality to guide it.  However, I stand by my claim that #3 is not wholly adequate to do what we expect out of our civilization.  It's incomplete in the sense that by identifying its rigorous principle it gave up part of what I was looking for in "liberty".  For example, I would not consider free speech a transaction.