How would Europe feel if we shut down all our military bases and removed US troops?

[arkirk]

In other words, nationalisation is theft because it's not 'rightful'? That's not terminology, that's just labelling as theft any property transfer you don't like. By that logic any kind of fine, or asset seizure is theft, including for bankruptcy or debt, as is deliberately paying low wages. Just because it's not 'rightful'. Workers consent to mistreatment and starvation wages in the same way that businesses consent to being under the jurisdiction of Cuban law.

Nationalization is theft because it's theft. Redefining it as not theft doesn't make it so.

A petty criminal gets himself installed as a president or perhaps even a king (Saudi Arabia for example). He makes a sweet deal with a foreign oil company or companies that makes him rich for life yet impoverishes and tyrannizes his people. The people in this benighted nation get tired of this and take the oil back from the invisible third party (a U.S, British, or (fill in the blank) company. They have stolen nothing at all. In reality they have stopped some thievery. You like to define that whenever a indigenous people throw out invading resource marauders, they are committing theft, yet you always close your eyes to the original theft. I see you use this language all the time when it is inappropriate. Redefining nationalization as theft does not make it theft.

 

[Axulus]

Nationalization is theft because it's theft. Redefining it as not theft doesn't make it so.

A petty criminal gets himself installed as a president or perhaps even a king (Saudi Arabia for example). He makes a sweet deal with a foreign oil company or companies that makes him rich for life yet impoverishes and tyrannizes his people. The people in this benighted nation get tired of this and take the oil back from the invisible third party (a U.S, British, or (fill in the blank) company. They have stolen nothing at all. In reality they have stopped some thievery. You like to define that whenever a indigenous people throw out invading resource marauders, they are committing theft, yet you always close your eyes to the original theft. I see you use this language all the time when it is inappropriate. Redefining nationalization as theft does not make it theft.

You ever hear of a concept called "due process"?

 

[arkirk]

A petty criminal gets himself installed as a president or perhaps even a king (Saudi Arabia for example). He makes a sweet deal with a foreign oil company or companies that makes him rich for life yet impoverishes and tyrannizes his people. The people in this benighted nation get tired of this and take the oil back from the invisible third party (a U.S, British, or (fill in the blank) company. They have stolen nothing at all. In reality they have stopped some thievery. You like to define that whenever a indigenous people throw out invading resource marauders, they are committing theft, yet you always close your eyes to the original theft. I see you use this language all the time when it is inappropriate. Redefining nationalization as theft does not make it theft.

You ever hear of a concept called "due process"?

Did you ever hear of Guantanamo? This nationalization is often required for a democracy to begin. If all of a nation's resources have been sold off by petty dictators, there is was NO DUE PROCESS WHEN THAT WAS DONE. That is the essence of theft. The best way to rob a bank is to own and run one. The best way to rob a nation is to be its leader. Due process has nothing at all to do with the rise of the Saudi kingdom in Arabia or the faux Shah. You think taking things from dictators is wrong, then shame on you for your hero George W. Bush for snatching away Saddam's kingdom. Humanity and Humanism should come first before any arbitrary process especially if it is prescribed by empire builders, slave owners, torturers, war criminals, etc. etc.

 

[Jayjay]

In other words, nationalisation is theft because it's not 'rightful'? That's not terminology, that's just labelling as theft any property transfer you don't like. By that logic any kind of fine, or asset seizure is theft, including for bankruptcy or debt, as is deliberately paying low wages. Just because it's not 'rightful'. Workers consent to mistreatment and starvation wages in the same way that businesses consent to being under the jurisdiction of Cuban law.

Nationalization is theft because it's theft. Redefining it as not theft doesn't make it so.

Nice circular reasoning there. Defining something as theft doesn't make it so either. In case of nationalization, and using the definition quoted earlier, the operative phrase is "rightful owner". How is a sovereign nation not a rightful owner of something that by law belongs to it?

Also, if nationalization is theft, then how is taxation not theft? Why is government allowed to take your hard-earned money sometimes, but not others, without it being theft?

 

[barbos]

Cuban nationalization of US tied private properties can be justified by the fact that property owners were closely tied with previous regime and actually financed counter-Maidan revolution. Yanukovich Batista was pretty corrupted SOB. US administration should have cracked down on business attempts to help Batista and accept Cuban Maidan.

You ever hear of a concept called "due process"?

Yes, it does not apply to maidans, just ask US administration
And again, I do think Castro would have let people keep their property in Cuba had they accepted regime change.

 

[barbos]

A petty criminal gets himself installed as a president or perhaps even a king (Saudi Arabia for example). He makes a sweet deal with a foreign oil company or companies that makes him rich for life yet impoverishes and tyrannizes his people. The people in this benighted nation get tired of this and take the oil back from the invisible third party (a U.S, British, or (fill in the blank) company. They have stolen nothing at all. In reality they have stopped some thievery. You like to define that whenever a indigenous people throw out invading resource marauders, they are committing theft, yet you always close your eyes to the original theft. I see you use this language all the time when it is inappropriate. Redefining nationalization as theft does not make it theft.

You ever hear of a concept called "due process"?

You like that word, don't you?
Truth is, one have to understand risk of "investing" (really organized theft) in corrupted countries.

 

[Jayjay]

Truth is, one have to understand risk of "investing" (really organized theft) in corrupted countries.

This is exactly the point. And not just corrupt countries, it could be any countries that might conceivably change their laws or regulations in a way that affects one's business.

 

[Axulus]

Truth is, one have to understand risk of "investing" (really organized theft) in corrupted countries.

This is exactly the point. And not just corrupt countries, it could be any countries that might conceivably change their laws or regulations in a way that affects one's business.

Based on that reasoning, it isn't theft when Israel takes over Palestinian land, when the US took over Native American land, when Nazi Germany decided to kick the Jews out of their homes and give all the property to Aryans, etc.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Nationalization is theft because it's theft. Redefining it as not theft doesn't make it so.

A petty criminal gets himself installed as a president or perhaps even a king (Saudi Arabia for example). He makes a sweet deal with a foreign oil company or companies that makes him rich for life yet impoverishes and tyrannizes his people. The people in this benighted nation get tired of this and take the oil back from the invisible third party (a U.S, British, or (fill in the blank) company. They have stolen nothing at all. In reality they have stopped some thievery. You like to define that whenever a indigenous people throw out invading resource marauders, they are committing theft, yet you always close your eyes to the original theft. I see you use this language all the time when it is inappropriate. Redefining nationalization as theft does not make it theft.

While such things do happen they don't happen to nearly the degree you think.

1) Many of the cases involved old deals that were fair at the time but left the company rather than the country being the ones to profit when the price went up.

2) Companies figure a risk premium for instability into such things. They're not going to pay as much for the same resource in revolutionville as in stable government place.

3) The deals you are complaining about are the winners. The losers get forgotten because they don't pan out, they aren't around anymore. Of course the winners produce above average profits.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You're missing the fact that most every leftist revolution in that era had Moscow as a silent partner long before they ever came to power.

Castro had the United Staes as a silent partner, not Moscow. And the Vietnamese rebellion that finally drove out the French was almost 40 years old by the time Moscow even took notice of it.

Which doesn't change the facts that
1) Your canard about "theft" is a red herring even if it reflected historical reality, and it doesn't
2) Attacking a sovereign country because you don't like who its friends are is NOT morally justifiable except in the jingoistic imaginations of warmongers.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

This is exactly the point. And not just corrupt countries, it could be any countries that might conceivably change their laws or regulations in a way that affects one's business.

Based on that reasoning, it isn't theft when Israel takes over Palestinian land

Which is exactly why the Israelis say it isn't.

when the US took over Native American land

Which is exactly why the United States says it isn't.

when Nazi Germany decided to kick the Jews out of their homes and give all the property to Aryans

Which is exactly why Nazi Germany said it wasn't.

Just saying, there's precedent for this. Castro's government could rightfully confiscate the property of its former enemies in the same way the United States could confiscate Mount Rushmore and carve a bunch of their presidents into the side of it.

If our government refuses to recognize that much of its present domain was, in fact, stolen from its rightful owners, then we have no grounds to complain when somebody else does it to us.

 

[Jayjay]

This is exactly the point. And not just corrupt countries, it could be any countries that might conceivably change their laws or regulations in a way that affects one's business.

Based on that reasoning, it isn't theft when Israel takes over Palestinian land, when the US took over Native American land, when Nazi Germany decided to kick the Jews out of their homes and give all the property to Aryans, etc.

The first two examples you gave are about one country or nation conquering another, a compeltely different issue than some investor's interests being inconvenienced by laws of a sovereign country. As for Jews in Nazi Germany... I suppose you are right. There is a boundary where sovereignty of a country to determine its own laws is secondary to honoring basic human rights. I just don't think that this line is crossed when a country nationalizes certain industries or defaults on its debts.