ownership is certainly a legal principle that gives limited control over specific objects to specific individuals. But this does not necessarily mean ownership rights are or should be purely arbitrary and pragmatic. Don't we as individuals have real rights that precede the whim of autocrats or tyranny of the majority? John Locke and the founding fathers believed there are natural rights that are deeper and from which legitimate laws derive.

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.

see the natural rights of ownership

:up: :clap: :100:

How does this happen? Again, I’m still having an issue with the depth of answers here. Could you possibly go further about how this ability to convince others functions? What essential aspects of persuasion make this possible?

Thanks

Most words and terms in legal documents have specific meanings, in fact many words in specialised disciplines, such as physics, have a specific meaning. However this does not mean that those words have no meaning outside of those disciplines.

Ownership can certainly have meaning outside of the legal domain.

If a pride of lions kills a wildebeest they will have ownership of that carcass until they are done with it and will defend it against jackals, hyenas and vultures.

Might does not make right in my estimation. I thought your thought experiment was important.

As for your last paragraph, yes the questions you posed matter because the answers should determine whose property it is.

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

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.

I cannot cut my arm off and lend it to you for a week then get it back again — I like sushi

I think you could. No matter what state it's in on it's return, people would still say "here's your arm", not "here's an arm".

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

Ii think that's the matter that should be addressed first, if you want to look at the origins of ownership. On what grounds do you say "human behaviour is pretty ubiquitous regardless of its various manifestations of dealing with the appropriation of material resources"? Is it the result of some study you've done into human behaviour in this regard?

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

You answered yourself. You’ll have to tell me why it matters about this or that being unique. Either way you don’t seem to have gotten the point that ‘ownership’ - close relation to - objects and/or people means you generally tend to them as they’re of use/value.

A farmer may claim ownership over a pile of manure and you’d be happy they did too if you had it piled up next to your bed. Think of refuse in general. Do you ‘own’ it? Is it your responsibility or do you ‘disown’ it? How would this go down in a community with no laws or government? Would you be ‘disowned’/‘exiled’?

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

So what? That has nothing to do with the thrust of my point. Which was that different items of ownership are different in many regards. Even so, if I grew attached to your arm and moved to a country where ‘ownership of arms’ wasn’t an illegal item then would the arm be mine or yours if it’s legal where I live to own an arm. I imagine you’d prefer I used you rather than just your arm so you wouldn’t have to literally part with it for any period of time.

Figuratively and literally speaking their are items in our lives (physical or otherwise) that we’re more or less attached to. Point being the sense of ‘ownership’ is wrapped up in this not merely the dictates of governments and their ability to enforce a set of rules you never signed up for and to some degree will disagree with.

I think it makes more sense to address the OP:

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

In anthropology there has been a long interest in how ‘ownership’ arose. This is often referred to as the rise/origin of inequality where groups of humans accumulate goods of symbolic value above practical use. Jade blades or other such ritual items that possess no physical utility - status symbols maybe? In hunter gatherer societies clashes certainly happened, but so did mutually beneficial exchanges (women, partaking in social events/rituals and/or mutual protection from nature/hostile tribes). In this sense the idea of ‘ownership’ was present most strongly through tribal/family ties where material goods were certainly of import not by no means necessarily of more import than the producer (skilled hunter, gatherer, storyteller or tool-maker).

The domestication of humans following Sedentary Living meant human control became more specifically orientated to ‘pieces of land’ rather than in a hunter gather society where ‘the land’ was a whole made of parts rather than of parts made of a whole - a perspective shift brought about by creation of a static space. Where previously humans scope of control lay within themselves and between each other as the most prominent component of their existence ‘in the world’ - rather than an extraneous to it - now there was a field of play in which the environment could be brought under direct human control. In this sense humans began to play at ‘god’ within the limited bounds of what we now call ‘houses’. Here they had a cosmos with which they held almost complete sway over. The ‘house’ became ‘owned’ because it was an item crafted with the purpose of setting boundaries and creating and dictating rules of play.

For a bibliography try Eliade, Levi-Strauss, Renfrew, Rousseau and/or Geertz for a more anthropological look at this kind of thing.

If you wish to go deeper there are multiple avenues to take in this respect that include language, religious practice, shamanism and knowledge exchanges through mnemonic means. Further still there is the neurological data to consider in how we sense our surroundings, how we learn, and the less substantial area of psychology that highlight our social proclivity. Politically there is also how the division of labour from a mobile life altered with sedentary living and how specialisation likely intensified with this alongside necessity and needs for basic survival. There is also family units, communities and items like sanitation that arise along with brining more than just dogs into our circle of living - horses and cattle.

As for the general question of how ‘ubiquitous’ humans are, didn’t mean much more than something like every language possesses the same concepts, and by ‘material resources, cultures that have a similar environment generally share a common set of problems - flora and fauna as well as general climate.

I most certainly don’t think ‘Ownership? Ah, it’s just a legal term. Where’s my dictionary ... yep, or as good as. Next question?’ ;D

The definition would be something like: “Ownership is the legal right to control an object.” — Congau

That is how it works for physical property. For crypto-assets, it has nothing to do with any legal rights.

I own all unspent output in address:
1GomQsbposWNZDqEXn1jNMjQcKFGdfjDbm

because I know its secret:
KyQhFdcvAEw6mQ9xTP4oWjcmRrpx1A3qyHXcPpMfxEhgV55YuqJY

If I do not know the secret, then I also do not own the assets.

It is property-by-pure-knowledge as opposed to property-by-law-enforcement. It is pure knowledge alone that gives me property rights. Property-by-law-enforcement looks very primitive in comparison, and it also lacks purity.

Furthermore I do not trust property-by-law-enforcement, because I totally distrust the ruling elite. I prefer pure knowledge instead.

I own because I know. That is how I like it.

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

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.

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

I have never said that "might makes right". Might does not make one right. Might makes one mighty. Facts and logic make one right.

It seems to me that is what you are proposing - that might (the State) makes one right. I think history has shown that the State isn't as mighty as it thinks sometimes and overreaches and that is when its members revolt.

The public is losing faith in the system in the U.S. Look at the presidents we're voting for (Obama and then Trump) - supposed "outsiders" of the system. The average American citizen is looking for alternatives because we are losing faith in our representatives who are life-long politicians - speaking of which - how about we show those representatives who really "owns" those seats they are sitting in. How about some term limits on federal congressmen? How about freezing pay raises for them? Who owns the money they are using to give themselves raises, and their rich corporate pals loop holes in tax laws?

Giving unoccupied homes to the homeless is another scenario that you haven't thought about the implications. It's the typical "thinking with your heart and not your brain" scenario.

Just because the homes are unoccupied doesn't mean that they aren't owned. They are owned by the developers who invested in the resources it took to build the home. If the State started giving away these homes to the homeless, why would any developer invest in any more home-building projects? Home construction would come to a screeching halt. This is what I meant when I said that the system isn't going to do something that would make its members lose faith in the fairness of the system.

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

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.

I have never said that "might makes right". Might does not make one right. — Harry Hindu

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. It was this post:

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

That sounds like you're agreeing with Maw that ownership consists in having power to defend what you've acquired: that might (power to defend) makes right (legitimate ownership). But then you immediately say that a government is necessary to make sure you don't acquire things that aren't yours. But if having power to defend is all that makes it yours, then your act of acquiring it from someone else would mean they failed to defend it and so it wasn't theirs anymore. And if the state is the one doing all the defending, and defending it makes it yours, then either everything belongs to the state, or at best anything belongs to whoever the state acts like it belongs to. Which seems like a conclusion you would disagree with, but that's the consequence of what you seemed to be saying, so you seemed to be contradicting yourself.

If you're not saying that power to defend what you've acquired is all that makes something yours, then that resolves the contradiction. I've just been trying to get you to either say that, or say that you accept the consequences of that, to tell which side of this apparent contradiction you really fall on.

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?

It appears that saying something is “publicly owned” is to bestow the same “natural right”, but to the “public”, which is without body.

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.

In your estimation, would the product of one’s work be publicly owned? Or do these become public property after a certain time? — NOS4A2

In a left-libertarian type scheme once you have paid society for extraction or use of a natural resource then the added value of mixing in your labor to create a greater value is forever yours. 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.

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. Unless every member of the public agreed with these conditions, it would naturally exclude some members of the public. I suppose this is why most "public" spaces are in fact owned by state.

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

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.

I've never read George but I'll surely look into him. I read your essay as well.

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.

That sounds sort of what China now does.

https://www.loc.gov/law/help/real-property-law/china.php

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.

I wouldn't say that, but I would say defending one's property is a natural right, whether there is a government or not. I don't think we defend things to make them our property, but because they are our property.

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.

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.

Like I said, a "public property" necessarily requires a state (or some group of left-libertarians) to enforce the property conditions imposed on it. So it isn't public, and certainly not libertarian, if a state is at liberty to do what they want with the property but members of that public are not.

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 he has no right to exclude me from it, so I take down his 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.

(And it's possible the two scenarios described above might in fact be the same scenario: I think that land is public property and he's wrongly excluding people from it, he thinks it's his own private property and people are trespassing on it. Who is right? Dunno, haven't fleshed out this scenario enough. Who gets to decide who is right? Either "nobody" or "whoever has the most power", depending on whether "gets to" is prescriptive or descriptive).

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. In order to do that the state or authority must dictate what can or cannot be done with said property. The state can only dictate what can or cannot be done with said property if it is their property. At no point in this exchange does the rights to that property extend to the public, only that the true owner, the state, has allowed them such access.

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".

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. This would necessarily lead to property disputes given the boundaries of said property, but with cooperation between other property owners compromises would be made.

I think you’re right that a collective of some sort could declare a space to be usable by everyone. But think about the wealthy New York elite’s desire for Central Park and the evictions of the freed men and immigrants who lived there in that space. Who’s to say it is a public space if people are being evicted from it?

I think he could say that if, by his own faculties and labor, he created the property. — NOS4A2

We're talking about land in this case. Nobody creates land.

Who’s to say it is a public space if people are being evicted from it? — NOS4A2

I don't know enough about the specifics in the case in question, but it can still be just to "evict" someone from a public space if they are unjustly monopolizing it. If someone sets up camp in a public park and thereby excludes anyone else from ever using that space, that's little different from someone putting a fence around a part of the park. In either case it would be just to "evict" them from monopolizing that public space, so long as they're still just as free to use it as everybody else is and the action is necessary to allow everybody else their equal use of it.

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

In reality, "ownership" is just one more concept that we humans created that give reason for our deeds, and our existence.
Can we really "own" something that is not intrinsically imprisioned with us, as ourselves? No, i think not.

But in the case of human society, what gives me "property" over something, someone, etc, its my power to get it, hold it and defend it of others. Until someone can proclaim "ownership" over my property, it's still "my property".

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

Sure. It has become quite muddled. I will attempt to clarify.

I don't believe that power is what entails ownership. They are two separate things. One might even ask if one owns/possesses power, and what that means.

I define ownership as things that you worked for, and "worked" excludes any action that infringes on the rights of others. So if you take something that isn't yours, you didn't work for it, which is to say that you don't own it. You may possess it, but you don't own it. The two are mutually exclusive as you can be in possession of my lawn-mower because you are borrowing it, or you stole it. When you steal something, the person you stole it from still lays claim to what you stole.

If "ownership" is meaningless, then by default, so is "stealing". Taking and defending things from being taken is the act of the ownerless trying to become owners of what others have. You can't take something that you own and you can't defend something that you don't own, so it seems to me that taking and defending are implications of an explicit "ownership".

I define ownership as things that you worked for, and "worked" excludes any action that infringes on the rights of others. — Harry Hindu

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')?

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

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.

Think "rights" as the goals which we have as individuals and assume others have the same goals so we dont inhibit those goals and expect others to do the same. This is why infringing on others rights takes away your rights to the same thing. Infringe on others rights and others no longer respect yours.