Ownership requires upkeep, just as we’re to blame, to some degree (depending on control), if we put on weight, drink too much or smoke. — I like sushi
I cannot cut my arm off and lend it to you for a week then get it back again — I like sushi
Legal ownership is relative to where you live, or even nonexistent, but human behaviour is pretty ubiquitous regardless of its various manifestations of dealing with the appropriation of material resources. — I like sushi
Does it? If I own a car and just let it crumble into a pile of dust, do I not still own it? I suppose once it's completely disintegrated, it's no longer a car so I've lost ownership of it, but that;'s not unique to ownership. — Isaac
No matter what state it's in on it's return, people would still say "here's your arm", not "here's an arm". — Isaac
While many of us understand that our body parts are ours, it may not be that simple as to why we can claim ownership of things that are not part of yourself. How did we get all the way from, "these are my hands", to "this is my house."? What is the connections between the two? — Wheatley
The definition would be something like: “Ownership is the legal right to control an object.” — Congau
Then ask me questions about what I think. I have no comment on impossible scenarios because it is a waste of time and would be a red herring.The point of thought experiments it to tease out what you're really saying or thinking. Regardless of whether or not something would happen, I want to know what you think in the hypothetical circumstance where it does. — Pfhorrest
I have never said that "might makes right". Might does not make one right. Might makes one mighty. Facts and logic make one right.I'm trying specifically to avoid concrete real-world issues, but if you really want something like that, here's an easy scenario: the public, losing faith in the way the system works now, decides that it's not fair that there are more unoccupied homes than there are homeless people, and so ownership of those homes should be assigned to the homeless people. So the state, directed by the majority, who elect people to represent that view for them, stops keeping homeless people out of unoccupied homes, and instead keeps those homes previously-assigned "owners" from kicking the homeless people out. The state just starts acting like the homes rightly belong to the newly-assigned owners.
In your view of might makes right, does that then make those homes legitimately the property of the newly-assigned owners, and no theft have happened?
Or on a larger picture: if a state-socialist regime comes into power in a state and does start taking things from people and giving them to other people, on what grounds would you say (or wouldn't you say?) that that was wrong? So far, all you've said to similar questions is "that wouldn't happen". But this has happened, and I gather that you think that it was bad. Why is it bad, if might makes right, i.e. power is ownership? — Pfhorrest
This, coupled with the idea that "laws are for the lawless", one sees that most people understand what "ownership" means and laws are for those that don't.The state ought to defend Alice’s property because it is hers.
I’m channeling Bastiat’s formulation here:
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. — NOS4A2
I have never said that "might makes right". Might does not make one right. — Harry Hindu
Power — Maw
Power to defend what you've acquired. A limited government is necessary to ensure that you acquired it legally - meaning: without infringing on the rights of others. — Harry Hindu
To me it all starts with the libertarian presumption that you have the right to own your own body and nobody else's. But the flip side on libertarianism is that you don't have the natural right to own anything beyond your body. Everything else can be derived from that. For instance Henry George believed natural resources should be publicly owned and Silvio Gesell thought the same for fiat money.
In your estimation, would the product of one’s work be publicly owned? Or do these become public property after a certain time? — NOS4A2
To own property is to have rights in it. For something to be private property is for someone to have those rights exclusively. For something to be private property, everyone has those same rights, inclusively. How does that work? Same way jointly owned private property does, just with more owners. If a husband and wife own a house together, they each have claims against the other regarding the house (one can't unilaterally start demolishing it, for instance) and liberties regarding it (either is free to stand in the living room, for instance). For public property, everyone has those same kinds of rights regarding the thing and each other.
By that measure it sounds like "public ownership" is in fact state ownership, because some state or other would be required to determine and enforce what one could or couldn't do with this property. — NOS4A2
The Georgist idea is for society to charge a rent on the value of raw land (a land value tax) , but the improvements made to the land (a house,etc) are not taxed since the land was not your creation but the improvements were.
Private property generally requires government enforcement as well (governments are not necessarily states, NB), unless you want to go back to what Maw was saying that your own power to defend something is all that makes it yours.
Similarly, a left-libertarian would say that defending their access to public property is a natural right, and if one party for instance tries to enclose a commons that everyone had been using, everyone else has a natural right to break down their fences or whatever is necessary to continue their equal free use of it. Or if someone were to try to destroy a public resource, others would have a natural right to stop them from doing so. Etc.
You said that, but it's not true, and I just gave a counter-example.
There's a public park, an open field where anyone can play. Someone goes out there and starts putting up a fence around it. I don't like that, it's my park too and they have no right to exclude me from it, so I take down their fence. No state involved, just a member of the public defending their own rights.
True, he might then try to fight me over that, but if someone tries to trespass on your private property and you try to exclude them, they might try to fight you over that too. In either case, either the stronger party wins that fight, or some social institution intervenes to settle it.
One way or the other there's a chance that the winning power in that conflict might be wrong about who has what rights and who violated them. There's no difference between the private property and public property in that respect.
One cannot just assert "it's my park too" unless the space has been designated as such by some state or authority. — NOS4A2
One could say the same thing about asserting "this is my private land". Unless you think the guy putting up fences around a public park just suddenly owns that park now because he said so? Either claim is contestable, neither is true by default, and one way or another there will have to be social agreement about who owns what or else people are going to be fighting over the consequent disagreements. And one possible thing people could agree on is "this belongs to everyone". That's no different than agreeing that "this belongs to him".
I think he could say that if, by his own faculties and labor, he created the property. — NOS4A2
Who’s to say it is a public space if people are being evicted from it? — NOS4A2
Most of us believe that we own things, but what does it mean to acquire ownership? Perhaps first we need to understand what ownership is. — Wheatley
Sure. It has become quite muddled. I will attempt to clarify.Okay, then I think this whole conversation has been mislead somehow, because everything I've been asking is trying to reconcile something you said earlier that suggested that you think might makes right, which you then immediately contradicted in the same post. I've been trying to suss out how you reconcile that contradiction. — Pfhorrest
I define ownership as things that you worked for, and "worked" excludes any action that infringes on the rights of others. — Harry Hindu
Its not circular. If I have the right to own property that I worked for, and you do to, then it doesnt necessarily mean we're working to own the same property. Theres also the option to trade what you own for what I own and there is no infringement on rights.What 'rights of others' does this work need to avoid the infringement of?
I ask because if one of those rights is the right to property, then your argument is circular, if not, then where do these 'rights' come from such that they exclude the right to property (which seems to be listed in quite a number of 'bills of rights')? — Isaac
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