Quote Originally Posted by Deborski View Post
You can say "universal values" or "universally valuable" - both are correct.
They're both grammatical, but the emphases are different. "Universal values" implies (to me) that everyone everywhere accepts these values; "universally valuable" implies (to me) that the values have some inherent positive worth, and that everyone everywhere OUGHT to accept them. In other words, North Korean ideology does not accept private property as something good, but the libertarian assumption is that the North Koreans would be vastly better off if their society DID recognize private-property rights, at least to some degree.


The problem is when PROPERTY is valued more than PEOPLE.
That's a fair point. But (except among radical libertarians), saying that private-property rights ought to be regulated and restricted to some degree by the government is different from claiming that private-property as a concept has no inherent positive value for human well-being. (The radicals claim that restricting private-property rights to ANY degree is tantamount to denying them -- thus the cliche "Taxation is theft".) On the other hand, it's a general assumption of libertarians (not just the radicals) that such rights as freedom of religion, speech, and the press can all be logically derived from and protected by an underlying respect for private property.