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0 pointsburkaman5y ago0 comments

> it could affect their property rights.

I don't think "rights" extend that far. That's like saying if you buy stock in a company and then a competitor does something to drive the price down, that's violating your property rights.

It's a reasonable thing to discuss and bring up at a meeting, but it's not an issue of property rights.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

A4ET8a8uTh05y ago· 2 in thread

Yes, and note how many laws are on the books ( and how many scams exist ) that deal with falsely inflating and deflating the value. It is absolutely a property rights issue. Just because it seems minute to you does not make it less of a right.

burkamanOP5y ago

I feel very strongly that value and rights are not the same thing. Nobody has a right to future value. You have a right to own stuff, and a right to speak freely about how you think the world should be, but you don't have a right to your investment paying off.

A4ET8a8uTh05y ago

I think agree with statement as written. That said, what happens when bad actors conspire to artificially lower/increase the value? Or are you arguing laissez-faire?

joshuamorton5y ago

If we take this in the other direction, if I purchase a house on a lake, and you build a company that dumps toxic waste into that lake, should I not have some recourse?

The idea here being that there is an externality to your toxic waste dumping (both in terms of property values and the environmental/health consequences, potentially). You the dumper don't bear that cost, your neighbors do, even though the action is entirely your fault and, importantly, there's nothing your neighbors can do to prevent you from dumping the waste.

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