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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The Indians had no concept of property rights and mostly moved around over unsettled land. Their tribalist control was not a justification to prevent any European from settling on and claiming unowned land in the wilderness, and establishing a more civilized government. That is what they mostly did. They didn't begin by going after Indians where they were living to loot what they had. Some Indians did change to that system once they learned, and were then accepted along with their property rights.
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...
"Since the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights - they didn't have a settled society; they had predominantly nomadic "cultures" - they didn't have rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights they had not conceived of and were not using. It's wrong to attack a country that respects (even tries to respect) individual rights. If you do, you are an aggressor and are morally wrong. But if a "country" does not protect rights - if a group of tribesmen are the slaves of their tribal chief- why should you respect the "rights" that they don't have or respect." -- Ayn Rand Answers: the Best of Q&A edited by Robert Mayhew. New American Library, 2005, 1st ed., p. 103)
The Right to Rob Banks
Ayn Rand's statements there are wrong on several grounds. First and foremost, this "Cowboys and Indians" view of the natives is wholly incomplete. Most were settled into communities that depended on farming enhanced with hunting. Some of those communities were larger than Boston, Philadelphia, New York, or Charleston of the time -- and remained so for perhaps 100 years. In particular, the Cherokee had adapted many of the customs of the Europeans, including an alphabet -- and slavery.
Our conceptual failure is rooted in the White maps of the time that showed rough areas - Seneca, Iroquois, Erie, etc. - and never put "dots" with names where those "villages" of 10,000 were -- and never gave those villages special names like "New York." (If you think that "Home" is not a name, just keep that in mind when space aliens claim our planet because we only call it "Dirt" not something special like New Sirius 7.)
How is this the right to rob banks?
Violent right wing militias rob banks by displaying "warrants" and "court orders." The Federal government has effectively nationalized the banks, even our much-touted BB&T. They are socialist non-property... as are the public parks, airports, schools, roads... So, any "civilized" person has the right to take those un-propertied non-assets -- or so it could be claimed.
By Ayn Rand's theory that the better man has more rights, anyone can take anything from anyone else whom they can condemn. It is unlikely that Switzerland, Lichtenstein, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore could unite to militarily conquer the United States. But a cartel of economically unfettered capitalist nations could conquer America financially - and maybe already have...
Maybe that conquest was not carried out by primitive tribal collections called "nations." Perhaps it was done by advanced capitalist organizations called "corporations." The complaints that "our" "nation" is being "sold" by "debt" is just the cry of uncivilized primitives who cannot conceptualized modern financial management.
... or so it could be claimed...
Lest you read the wrong intention here, all I am saying is that Ayn Rand's condemnation of the native Americans is not sufficient for the conceptual foundation of property.
I agree with the statements in this discussion that the concept of property begins with "mine." Property is created by human intelligence.
(There is a stolen concept here. The 640 acres was already deeded to the owner under the laws of the Territory. So, the concept of title created the right to property.)
Government control like NPS and BLM is statist control, not joint ownership rights. They specialize in seizing private property rights.
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