What is Property?
In the "Postmodernism" discussion, engaged with AAshinoff, CBJ offered the image of a locked door. There, I replied:
Locks just stop honest people. Definitions of "property" seem to me to be socially contextual. I grant that fences are a universal indicator. But there are societies in which the huts have no doors, and the hut is still not to be transgressed. On the other hand, our retail establishments have very stout doors that open automatically for anyone and everyone. I once read that Eskimos (Aleuts), have a sense of property concerning driftwood. Wood is valuable, there being so little of it. But, if you find a piece of it, arbitrarily "far" up the shore away from the water, it was "obviously" dragged there by someone else and is not your property. That idea -- "not mine" -- is deep within our own culture: not everything left unattended is free for the taking.
I believe that one-liners are insufficient to understand property. The quip from John Locke that property is that "with which you mix your labor" is wholly insufficient, though it does identify at least one way to look at a complex phenomenon.
One challenge to understanding property is to differentiate "first instance" examples from "civilized" cases. In other words, Robinson Crusoe owned his island because it was isolated and uninhabited when he found it. What if, however, another person had landed on the opposite side, each thinking they owned the whole thing? It is easy to imagine many people each working the "whole island" planting here, hunting there, discovering each other... Now what?
For me, the single problem with "mixing your labor" is that breaking into a bank vault takes a lot of work. You might say that the vault is someone else's property. But Robinson Crusoe might have enjoyed 20 years on "his" island before the original owner returned to check on his property...
Locks just stop honest people. Definitions of "property" seem to me to be socially contextual. I grant that fences are a universal indicator. But there are societies in which the huts have no doors, and the hut is still not to be transgressed. On the other hand, our retail establishments have very stout doors that open automatically for anyone and everyone. I once read that Eskimos (Aleuts), have a sense of property concerning driftwood. Wood is valuable, there being so little of it. But, if you find a piece of it, arbitrarily "far" up the shore away from the water, it was "obviously" dragged there by someone else and is not your property. That idea -- "not mine" -- is deep within our own culture: not everything left unattended is free for the taking.
I believe that one-liners are insufficient to understand property. The quip from John Locke that property is that "with which you mix your labor" is wholly insufficient, though it does identify at least one way to look at a complex phenomenon.
One challenge to understanding property is to differentiate "first instance" examples from "civilized" cases. In other words, Robinson Crusoe owned his island because it was isolated and uninhabited when he found it. What if, however, another person had landed on the opposite side, each thinking they owned the whole thing? It is easy to imagine many people each working the "whole island" planting here, hunting there, discovering each other... Now what?
For me, the single problem with "mixing your labor" is that breaking into a bank vault takes a lot of work. You might say that the vault is someone else's property. But Robinson Crusoe might have enjoyed 20 years on "his" island before the original owner returned to check on his property...
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someone does something to make it his property; that is, to farm it, cultivate it, or at least to put some sign or barrier on it to differentiate it from other land, such as a fence, or at least some sort of marker. I read that the
American Indians used to never put up fences to differentiate, so as to indicate "This is my land,
not my neighbor's." (There may have been differ-
ences in tribes on that custom; I don't know).
But, at a minimum, there should be at least
some physical sign of ownership or possession.
"For me, the single problem with "mixing your labor" is that breaking into a bank vault takes a lot of work. You might say that the vault is someone else's property. But Robinson Crusoe might have enjoyed 20 years on "his" island before the original owner returned to check on his property."
This is complete nonsense. Locke was about creating value not random effort or destructive effort. There is an Adam Mossoff paper on point.
Action is greater than thought.
I would argue that "property" is a moral concept. Once understood as such, then rational determination of its definition involving "ownership" can then be derived.
The basic unit of property is your person; body and mind-(assuming you have one) AND the results of your labor, physical or Mental.
Once original ownership has been established for the first time through discovery or labor, then I think it is pretty simple. The property belongs to that individual until he decides and agrees to not own it any more by any means he sees fit. Whether he decides to sell, gift, abandon, etc. makes no difference. It is his until it isn't by his choice. I am simply talking about the ethics of how ownership "ought" to be.
I don't have many answers here, just questions to frame the problems.
Also, see Lucky's comment above.
In 'The Girl Who Owned a City' -
the kid who has worked then was paid with a toy appreciated that toy more than ..
In Robinson Crusoe,
was the island owned by the king of Spain who had a document signed by the pope assigning all land between defined latitudes and longitudes?
Or the guy who was shipwrecked the day before Crusoe landed on the other side?
Or Man Friday who had visited years before that?
In Mitchener, Exodus I think,
Who owns the land-
the nomadic tribes who live in and roam over it?
The Ottoman empire?
Those whose ancestors lived there a millennium ago?
The settlers who drained swamps, built dams, irrigated the land, and grew fruit and vegetables?
Maybe the question is wrong, property is not fundamental, it derives from owner.
So what decides ownership?
As a fan of one-liners, there is of course-
'Whatever the court decides'.
Put aside law and social context and consider ethics alone then try-
Ownership comes only from sweat.
(This may be too biblical for some).
I am dino~
Hear me ROAR!
The clip is about a bad guy but the scene sprang into my head~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAs0b...
It's a fortunate thing that so much value comes from things people build. In pre-industrial times, when the value was in the land, the strong controlled the land and said gods wanted it that way. Critics said the gods actually wanted humans to share the land fairly.
This is becoming a moot point when most value in the world is in things people create for one another. Maybe not moot, but less important. Someone on the island can get a Raspberry Pi an old TV set, and place to access the Internet, and she can write code worth the cost of the equipment plus a bunch of land plus labor and equipment to farm it. It doesn't matter whether she owns land because it's not a key factor of production anymore.