Month: September 2020

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Rights vis-à-vis One’s Fellow Man

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Man has rights over Nature; but what rights does he have with respect to his fellow man? I will only constrain this with the requirement that all men’s rights are equal, and from there conclude that individual rights are the only viable arrangement. As I found in The Ethics Of Liberty, there are only three basic positions available: individual rights, social rights, and no rights. 人は自然より権利を持つが、他人について何の権利を持つ？「全人類の権利が等しい」の条件だけで、個人権利だけが作用する倫理と結論する。「自由の倫理」に書いたように、基本的な立場は「個人権利」、「社会権利」、「無権利」の三つがある。
Under the arrangement of individual rights, every individual has property rights. So, every man has some property which he rightfully controls. This property is his personal sphere of autonomy. Within that sphere, he can do no wrong. We’ll examine the exact extents of this sphere of autonomy in due time, but for now, suffice it to say that Rothbard’s theory of individual rights is mostly correct. 個人権利の下では全個人が所有権利を持つ。で、各人には正しく制御する所有がある。その所有が人の自治の領域でござる。その領域の中に、正しくない行動はない。近い時期にその自治の領域の限界を見るが、今ではロスバードの個人権利の理論がほとんど正確な理論と言おう。
Under the arrangement of social rights, the society controls property. Extended to the individual man, his body and his labor are society’s, to direct as it sees fit. The individual has no rights; although his society might grant him some degree of autonomy, this autonomy is a mere privilege that society can revoke. He has no right to it, and society only allows it because it assesses that its right to control him is not, in some circumstances, worth exercising. 社会権利の下では社会が所有を制御する。各人の体や労力も社会の指名のものでござる。個人には権利はないが、社会が個人に多少の自治を許すかも知らないが、社会がその自治を取り消せる。個人が自治の権利を持たず、社会が許すのはただ「状況によって制御を実践するのは間尺に合わない」の判断の結果だけでござる。
Then there’s the arrangement of no rights. If there is no action that is rightful, then it does fulfill the criterion that all men’s rights are equal, technically speaking. Zero does equal zero, after all. This arrangement, however, is a dereliction of the purpose of ethics: to differentiate right and wrong behavior. Further, as a practical matter, adherence to this theory would lead to chaos. 無権利のは何だが、正しい行動がないと言うと、確実に零が零と等しいように全人類の権利が等しいとの条件が満たされるが、倫理の目的が正しい行動と正しくない行動を差別することなら、この制度が失格でござる。それに、実用化すると結果が無秩序でござる。
These being the basic arrangements, there do exist other, complex arrangements, that are hybrids of the above. The state of affairs in modern politics is a hybrid of individual rights and social rights; individuals have some rights, that society cannot infringe, and society has some authority, to which the individual must accede. At least, in theory, that’s modern politics. A more cynical take on it is that the state claims an arrangement of social rights, but allows autonomy to individuals, sufficient to forestall rebellion. この基本的な立場と別に複雑な、以上の理論の合成物の制度もある。今の米国の政治が個人権利と社会権利の合成物で、個人には社会に侵せない権利がありながらも、社会には個人が従わなきゃならない権力がある。と、言う理論だが、シニカルな視線で見ると、政府が社会権利を要求するが、半玉を拒むために多少の自治を許す。
We reject the system of no rights out of hand. It is useless as an ethic, since it provides no guidance to behavior, and furthermore, this would result in the proverbial dog-eat-dog situation. Although wanton death and destruction would be wrong, so too would peace and prosperity be; since death and destruction are much easier and pay off quicker, we would see virtually nothing of peace and prosperity under this system. 「無権利」の制度を絶対的に拒絶する。行動の指導に使えずもので倫理として失格に加わって、ことわざの犬食い犬の状況でござる。死亡と破壊が正しくないが、平和と繁栄も正しくない。死亡と破壊が比較的に早く容易に成果をもたらすから、この制度では平和も繁栄もなくなる。
This brings us to the systems of individual rights and of social rights, which we shall call individualism and socialism. These, I will analyze in later posts. と言うことで、個人権利と社会権利の制度（個人主義と社会主義）のことでござる。後々の書き込みに解析する。
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The Time Element of Criminality and Punishment

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Today, LewRockwell.com published an article by David Gordan titled, “Rothbard and Double Restitution” (originally published at Mises.org). I’ve often thought about single- and double-restitution, and while my conclusion on that particular might interest the reader, for now I wish to look at an aspect of restitution that seems to have been neglected in this theory: Time. 今日のＬｅｗＲｏｃｋｗｅｌｌ．ｃｏｍがダヴィッド・ゴードンの（元はＭｉｓｅｓ．ｏｒｇに発行された）「Rothbard and Double Restitution」という記事を発行した。拙者がよく一倍と二倍の損害賠償を考える。その点の結論が読み手に面白いかも知らないが、今は損害賠償の忘れた局面を見たい。それが時間でござる。
As Rothbard himself put it, “the criminal loses his rights to the extent that he deprives another of his rights.” The extent of deprivation is not merely what the victim is deprived of, but also for how long, I contend. In the business of rentals and loans, the renter/loaner agrees to be deprived of some goods for some period of time, at a certain price. Given that (and many other observations on the topic of time preference), it may be inferred that duration of deprivation is economically important. ロスバードの書いたとおり、「犯罪者が他者から権利を奪取した程度に犯罪者も権利をうしなう。」奪取の程度が何が被害者の奪取されただけではなく奪取された時間も含む、と拙者が主張する。賃貸料と貸借には借し手がある価格である時間に金品の奪取に承知する。それと他の時間選好の知識で、奪取の時間も経済学的に大事なものと察知する。
This matters little to the proverbial tooth-for-a-tooth, as the victim loses a tooth for the rest of his life, then the criminal loses one or two teeth for the rest of his life. But consider Rothbard’s example, quoted by Dr. Gordon, of the theft of $15,000. Following Rothbard’s formulation, the criminal must return the $15,000, plus pay another $15,000 from his own assets or through his own labor. However, this is without any regard for how long the criminal was in possession of the money; ten minutes means the same thing as ten years. Rothbard did parenthetically add in interest foregone, but the instant he picks up the cash, the criminal is saddled with an immediate criminal liability of $30,000. ことわざの「歯には歯を」に差が小さい。被害者が残りの人生に歯を失って、犯罪者も残りの人生に一個か二個の歯を失う。だが、ゴードン博士が引用したロスバードの一万五千ドルの盗みの例を考えよう。ロスバードの論で、犯罪者が一万五千ドルを返されるから、また一万五千ドルを払わされる、自分の資産からか自分の労力からか問わず。しかし、これが犯罪者が金を持った時間に関わらず損賠でござる。十分が十年と同じ結末になる。ロスバードがひそひそ話で損した利子も含んだけど、その金を取り上げた瞬間から犯罪者が三万ドルの刑事責任も取り上げた。
This places upon him an unfortunate economic incentive: to commit fully to his criminal act. We might like him to repent and return the $15,000, but he’ll then have to pony up another $15,000 or look forward to an extended period of indentured servitude. That’s a serious deterrent to backing out. Sure, the sooner he backs out, the less “interest foregone” he’ll have to worry about, but that’s a drop in the bucket in any given hour or day (even at a punitively high 20% interest rate, $30,000 costs only $16.44 per day). これが惜しい経済的の誘因を起こす。犯罪者が犯罪に確約する。奪った瞬間から最善の結末が犯罪者の悔い改めで一万五千ドルの返しでござるが、それに加わって犯罪者が一万五千ドルの資金を払わないと年季奉公で払う。引っ込みには大きいな抑止力になる。早く引っ込むほど払和される損した利子が小さくなるが、日に日にそれが九牛一毛でござろ。討伐的に高い二十％の金利で、三万ドルが日ごとに十六ドル四十四セントだけの費用を加わる。
“But if he returns it, the victim might forgive him,” you might say. Yes, he might. But he, too, is affected by the flip side of the same economic incentive. Should the criminal comes back begging forgiveness, the victim has a very significant incentive not to forgive. Accept the $15,000, then sell the remainder to a collections agency for a 10% discount? Not many people would object to making $13,500 in a day. 「でも、返したら被害者が許すかも」と言うこともある。そうかも。だが被害者もその経済的の誘因の他面の影響を与えられる。犯罪者が許しをお願いに来ても、被害者の許しに反する強い誘因がある。元の一万五千ドルを受けて、残りを一割でサービサーに売れば、一日で一万三千五百ドルになる。
The human race is not blindly enslaved to economic incentives. But they most certainly respond to it on the margin. The result will be less repentance, and less forgiveness. 人類が盲目的に経済的な誘因に従うものではないが、確かに眼界効用に反応する。結果的に、悔い改めも許しも減少する。
Bear that in mind, but let us set it aside for one single question. The purpose of an ethic, after all, is not to promote virtue, but to establish justice. I should be very happy if virtue and justice were correlated (if they could be measured and therefore statistically compared), but perhaps they aren’t. 忘れずに、一つの質問に置いておこう。結局、倫理の目的が道徳ではなく、正義である。正義の倫理が道徳を強化すれば拙者が喜ぶけどそうはならないかも知らない。
Ask yourself only this: If punishment should be proportional, is it proportional that a man who deprived another of something temporarily be, in punishment, himself deprived of something of similar value permanently? これだけを自分に尋ねて。刑罰が犯罪に比例するべきならば、他人から何かを一時的に奪取した人が相似な何かを永続的に奪取されることが比例的か否か？