Patriotic Front cadres invaded the Post premises yesterday as they protested against a story published by the Post in which they reported that Levy Mwanawasa was headed for victory. The protesters were incensed by the fact that this story was published before the Electoral Commission of Zambia had finished announcing their results. Never mind that when the Daily Mail reported just the day before that Patriotic Front was leading, no one protested in spite of the fact that ECZ had not even started announcing any results. The Editor-In-Chief of the Daily Mail was the first one to defy this decree (of avoiding all speculation or publication of unofficial results) from the ECZ.

Firstly, this is the problem with irrational laws. How can you instruct people not to speculate? When are we going to learn what it means for the press to be free? They should say what they want; if it's false they will kill their own credibility and just create a vacuum to be filled with new newspapers who might want to rise on a reputation for accuracy. So, it's a risk a newspaper should be allowed to take. If, for example, it turns out that MMD has won only 30 seats and not at least 81 as the story claimed, then no one will listen to them next time they give such figures from a "credible source". But if they are right, then they will sell more whenever they report such figures as people will know just how reliable they are. This is the only way "regulation" should work in a free country.

Now back to the story of the PF cadres who invaded the Post newspaper. This is completely unfortunate for a party that was even dreaming of coming into power. And it is only a confirmation that Mr. Sata is indeed wont to act like Mugabe when pressure mounts; Mugabe has become a textbook example of how not to treat the media in your country. (By the way, did you see the story that said Sata wanted Mugabe to be the guest speaker at his inauguration? Need we say more?)

Finally, I want to just respectfully blame the Post for the philosophy they have promoted through their pages, which is consistent with the actions of these cadres who protested against them. All writers have the responsibility of helping to create the right culture by propagating a rational philosophy that is consistent with civilized behaviour.

As I wrote in part 1, a proper conceptualization of rights and its integration with the principle of trade is critical for such a task. In this case, for example, on what basis would the Post say that these cadres were wrong to do what they did? After all, they can claim that they have the right to demand how and what the Post should write.

This is the problem with having a method of deriving rights arbitrarily instead of building the concept on objective reasoning through integration from first principles. A person cannot just choose anything and say that he has a right to that thing. There has to be rules that govern the principle of rights, just as there are rules that govern the conceptualization of any other principle. These rules are necessary because a concept must not contradict itself, and it must always be consistent with the rest of reality.

What is the rule for this concept of rights? It's simple: your rights have to be limited to your property. What do I mean? These cadres have the right to say what they want to say, but they do not have the right to make other people say it. They have a right to write what they want but they do not have the right to make other people write it. In short, for rights to make sense, they have to be limited to one's property. Otherwise, one can just say "I believe I have the right to drive, so get out of your car and let me drive it." Or, I believe that transportation is my human right, so give me a lift to Chipata whether you like it or not.

These people who went to the Post offices have a right to their opinion of what newspapers should write about – e.g. "PF takes Lead" – but they do not have the right to force this on a newspaper that they do not own. It is not their property.

A civilized society, therefore, can only function with rights limited to property ownership. This is a principle that lies at the foundation of every advanced civilization, even if in different degrees. The whole point of having a government in the first place is simply to enforce this principle. The reason rape is wrong is just because it violates this principle, and it is also the reason that theft, murder, fraud, etc are wrong. The job of government is to protect its citizens against those that would want to defy this principle of respect for property ownership; it is not there to help people fulfil whatever rights they believe they have, even beyond their property. Thus the police force of the great Mr. Mateyo that stepped in to protect the Post newspaper were doing exactly what a government is there for.

The Post does not believe what I am saying here, apparently. They seem to think, for example, that someone can gain extra special rights by simply becoming a worker. This person suddenly has power to determine how much of MY money he should be given if I am his employer. No, Sir. Since we both have rights over our property, the only way two civilized humans can get things from each other is through consent, through trade, through exchange of property (or of use of property) that they own. The worker's hands are his, the money is mine – I should tell him how much I am willing to give for the use of his hands, and if he does not agree, he should leave. His rights are limited to his property, they do not extend to mine, and vice-versa. It's that simple.

The way these PF cadres protested against the Post is the same way some workers in companies protest against their employers, demanding to be given certain conditions that the company is not willing to give. It is a contradiction to support one and condemn the other because the principle is the same: they are demanding that a person does with his property something that he is unwilling to.

The Post might argue that there is a difference here because in their case, these protesters have not worked for them so they can not demand anything whereas in the case of people protesting over their wages, they have worked for these wages. Well, the only problem with that argument is that it is completely arbitrary: thus, one can also argue that these cadres have a special right to demand that you write only what they want because they are your customers and they therefore have a right to get the information they want from you!

The fact is that the only principle that will avoid such contradictions is the idea that everyone has a right to do with his property whatever he wishes and no one has a right to demand anything of someone else's property, whether this is a worker-employer relationship, a customer-buyer relationship, or any other relationship we can imagine. Indeed even a social relationship works by this same principle. You have the right to like a woman, but to force her to do anything for you with her body (her property) is not your right. Your rights end with your own property; they do not extend to other people's property.

At this point one should understand why politically, capitalism is not just the only ideology that develops nations, it is also the only one that is consistent with the rational behavior of civilized society. Socialism, on the other hand, can only work by an arbitrary invocation of special rights. In socialism, you just come up with the idea that the worker should have the right to demand more than the employer is willing to give, or that the buyer should demand less than the seller is willing to sell for, etc, instead of leaving these to the owners of property to negotiate. In a socialist society, the government is used, not as protector of rights, but as the agent to force people to do with their property what they are not willing to do.

Thus, if you can demand that the government should force employers to give a certain wage, and force sellers to reduce their prices to a certain "floor price" and so on, I see no reason why you should be against the government forcing you to write the kind of story that "the people" want. You are against the latter but you are not against the former; which means you are not consistent, which means your position is random and arbitrary, which means it is not based on reason but on mere emotion.

A capitalist society is one which fully recognizes the principle that someone's rights are limited only to the property they own, and they can only receive the benefits of another person's property by consensual trade or persuasion, not by force, and certainly not by creating laws that will force the other person to give them what he does not want to give them.. There is no full capitalist society in the world, of course, but those that have made the most progress on this principle are always the happiest and most prosperous societies. Even those that criticize such "evil, capitalist societies" always find themselves running to them for "greener pastures"; somehow, they never run to "prosperous" Cuba – the epitome of modern socialism.

How I wish the incoming president could understand the fundamentals of real capitalism, and how it is logically derived from the only rational conceptualisation of human rights one can come up with. This is the only hope we have of creating a truly successful nation instead of just making more and more impossible promises.