Defining Private Property

[Traitorfish]

Property is clobbering; we've already established that. Even you admitted that you support it merely as a path of lesser clobbering.

 

[Cutlass]

Property is clobbering; we've already established that. Even you admitted that you support it merely as a path of lesser clobbering.

So you oppose it because you want greater clobbering?

 

[Traitorfish]

I said that you believe this to be case, not that I agree. The overtly anti-clobbering aspect of my argument would seem to make it clear that I do not.

 

[Cutlass]

I said that you believe this to be case, not that I agree. The overtly anti-clobbering aspect of my argument would seem to make it clear that I do not.

All that really tells me is that you aren't willing to get your hands dirty to accomplish your goals. Not that people won't get clobbered in vast numbers.

 

[Traitorfish]

I am tragically lacking the crystal ball that allows me to view the hellish clobberverse which would seem to be the inevitable result of failing to doggedly pursuing warmed-over New Dealism, so you might have to elaborate on that last bit for me.

 

[Cutlass]

Now you're just being snarky. You have yet to make any argument for your way not to descend into hell except to claim that people will behave in manners utterly different from 99.9% of human existence from the dawn of time. Since you cannot even make an argument as to why that would be true, much less defend such an argument, I have no choice but to assume that it is false.

 

[Hygro]

Then why are you opposing private property and stripping people of the right to eat in the same sentence?

So what, you didn't read my post at all? I can't see how you could hold this position after my post that came well before this comment.

 

[lovett]

I can't help but thing that this three page discussion of 'violence' (or 'clobbering') is something of a digression. Violence seems like a moral epiphenomenon to me. Sometimes the application of violence is right and sometimes obligatory; merely asserting that a given action is violent does not imply that that action is wrong. Nor does the fact that a given claim might require violence to enforce it imply that that claim is morally suspect (consider: my claim to use my body as I like may require such enforcement, is it thereby a claim we should reject?).

Given that, we cannot judge the validity of property rights on whether they require violent enforcement. Nor can we judge the abrogation of a property right on whether that abrogation is 'violent'. The violence in either case might be perfectly justified, just in case the rights are perfectly justified. The validity of the violence will depend on the validity of the right, rather than vice versa.

 

[Traitorfish]

Now you're just being snarky. You have yet to make any argument for your way not to descend into hell except to claim that people will behave in manners utterly different from 99.9% of human existence from the dawn of time. Since you cannot even make an argument as to why that would be true, much less defend such an argument, I have no choice but to assume that it is false.

Why would it descend into hell? It's not simply assumed, or at least not in grown up political theory, that models you don't like find their logical conclusion in Mad Max-style hellscapes until proven otherwise. Unless you have some reason for why this would happen, which we are yet to find ourselves furnished with, then I can hardly go about refuting it. All you've got so far is the starving musician, which is a wholly insufficient example because, his problems are entirely contextual to a world of private property. (Not to mention the fact that musicians are becoming less reliant on album sales anyway, so it's not even a very good example within its own limited terms.)

Besides, if we're going down this silly "human nature" route, you're the one arguing that people can be expected to successfully abandon millennia of precedent, not me. This "private property" stuff is entirely newfangled compared to good, old fashioned communalism, and there's no way at all of knowing how it'll turn.

I can't help but thing that this three page discussion of 'violence' (or 'clobbering') is something of a digression. Violence seems like a moral epiphenomenon to me. Sometimes the application of violence is right and sometimes obligatory; merely asserting that a given action is violent does not imply that that action is wrong. Nor does the fact that a given claim might require violence to enforce it imply that that claim is morally suspect (consider: my claim to use my body as I like may require such enforcement, is it thereby a claim we should reject?).

Given that, we cannot judge the validity of property rights on whether they require violent enforcement. Nor can we judge the abrogation of a property right on whether that abrogation is 'violent'. The violence in either case might be perfectly justified, just in case the rights are perfectly justified. The validity of the violence will depend on the validity of the right, rather than vice versa.

Not unfair, but the problem we encounter here is that natural rights theory- of any particular sort- is not the "null hypothesis", as it were, but something which would require some argument that we've yet to see made in this thread. If we don't chose to assume any such model of natural rights, and I do not, then all we're left with is an understanding of property as people engaging in arbitrary acts of coercion; that it is nothing but violence(/clobbering).

 

[Cutlass]

So what, you didn't read my post at all? I can't see how you could hold this position after my post that came well before this comment.

This post?

Logically let's think through this. If someone decided to collect dust, dander, and mold and sold them to homeowners, and nobody bought it, by your logic you would be telling that person they had to starve. Well shoot, of course they'd have to starve (in a system absent of charity, welfare, etc) they picked a terrible job. There's no reason why a musician "has to eat" over anyone else.

That said, we've seen that "pay what you want" (including free), concert performances, and the convenience of store sold music (this is a big one), has provided some musicians with plenty of money. Most musician-artists who couldn't do the aforementioned aren't making money with copyright anyway.

The fact is, the government through copyright is basically saying "we value music to the point that we will employ force to make sure those consuming it are subsidizing our music." We might agree that this is good, but it's still more violent.

Cutlass I agree that a completely free-for-all, anarcho-capitalist, market results in more violence both from market equilibrium and the lack of state-violence-monopoly, but the fact is copyright is an example of greater, not less overall violence.

I read it, I just don't really agree with it. Any given musician, if people don't like his work well enough to listen to it, then they are in no way obligated to listen to it, and so are in no way compelled to pay for it. So you're example of what you think logically follows from what I said is false. You failed to understand my point. Just because someone holds a copyright does not mean that they will get any revenue from that product. If no one wants it, no one wants it. And the supplier has to try again.

But, if someone creates something that is popular, then why should they be stripped of the ability to prosper by doing so? If people choose to listen to it, but refuse to pay for it, then the artist has exactly as little income as the person who creates something no one chooses to listen to.

And we're all the poorer because of it.

Why would it descend into hell? It's not simply assumed, or at least not in grown up political theory, that models you don't like find their logical conclusion in Mad Max-style hellscapes until proven otherwise. Unless you have some reason for why this would happen, which we are yet to find ourselves furnished with, then I can hardly go about refuting it. All you've got so far is the starving musician, which is a wholly insufficient example because, his problems are entirely contextual to a world of private property. (Not to mention the fact that musicians are becoming less reliant on album sales anyway, so it's not even a very good example within its own limited terms.)

Besides, if we're going down this silly "human nature" route, you're the one arguing that people can be expected to successfully abandon millennia of precedent, not me. This "private property" stuff is entirely newfangled compared to good, old fashioned communalism, and there's no way at all of knowing how it'll turn.

I have no ability to believe in a utopia. You present a very sketchily drawn out future that doesn't have enough substance to it to be attractive to more than a tiny minority of the population, and think that people will adopt it without being coerced into it. If you want to make a case that people in mass will adopt it freely, you'll have to do better than that.

 

[Tarquelne]

IMO the problem with "private property" isn't so much with the concept itself, but with how widely it's become applied, and with with right of absolute disposal.

If my grandfather plants a tree on land my family has worked as far back as anyone can remember, and I take an acorn from that tree and grow an oak-bonsai for decades in a pot I made myself from clay on that land... and if later in life I hand-carve an image of my dead wife from that bonsai... I think I'm likely to feel a strong attachment to that carving. A very strong one. Perhaps even an irrationally strong one. I may or may not be justified in having the right of absolute disposal over the carving. But I'm probably going to strongly object to not having such a right.

That's an extreme case, but the general point is "People want and like their stuff." A system that doesn't allow them absolute disposal over some of their "stuff" isn't going to work. Well, not without considerable violence.

Now land, OTOH, is often used as an example of something that should be public rather than private property. And for good reason, I think. It can often be turned to public good where private ownership would deny it. It's not something any person *made* (usually), and certainly not something they can stick in their pocket and walk away with. The public has a clear interest, and that interest is more easily observed and if necessary enforced.)

I suggest the way forward to improving things is not jettisoning "private property" but instead shifting some of it toward "public property", where negotiation is the standard means of allocation.

Not that negotiation is a way to completely avoid "violence", as it's been so generously defined in this thread. For public goods I suspect it'll be better where as for properly-private goods it'll be worse. But whenever there's some either selfish enough to place their desires over the public's, or just in disagreement with the communal decision, there's either going to be public goods disposed of against the public benefit, or at least the threat of "violence" keeping dissension in check.

I suggest the key to communal (in the general sense, not technical) ownership in societies in the distant past had a lot to do with (in order of importance)
1) Relatively small population sizes.
2) Too many people (like, most women?) being to oppressed by religious beliefs, circumstances, "community feeling" as interpreted by the better-connected old guys, or the threat of "violence" to even try asserting their rights to renegotiate.
3) Strong communal feeling. (May just be an aspect of #1)
4) Not having nearly as much "stuff" to contest.
5) Being too busy working/surviving to waste effort on arguing over stuff.

I don't think any of those are necessary to get away from our current system of private property, but any would help. (Except #5... which might make it "easier", but isn't really a "help" in the larger sense.) #2 *does* pop the Good Old Days bubble by invoking violence, but mainly in the generous sense alluded to already.

 

[Traitorfish]

@Tarquelne: Well, what I suggest is that the attribution of possession-rights is always negotiated in practice. Even the right of possession you have to your carving is implicitly negotiated, in the sense that others could attempt to take it from you, but choose not to for whatever reason. The question is the extent to which coercion plays a role in these negotiations, and thus the extent to which they can be considered voluntary. At present, it would seem that very little of how we distribute such rights is voluntary, while the overwhelming majority is the product of coercion. Now, Some will argue that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and back it up with the usual liberal pottage of utilitarianism and natural rights deontology, but I remain sceptical that this is the best we are capable of.

Pre-modern societies are far from perfect models, I do not disagree- not only did they reflect a particular set of historical circumstances (hence the tremendous degree of variation between them), but they were in certain significant respects less free than our own- but they would seem to suggest that, at least in principle, that the fullness of human potential for voluntary cooperation can be witnessed in the year 2012.

(Edit: To make clear, that's not intended to be a fully response to your post, just a comment on the topics of negotiation and pre-modern societies.)

I have no ability to believe in a utopia. You present a very sketchily drawn out future that doesn't have enough substance to it to be attractive to more than a tiny minority of the population, and think that people will adopt it without being coerced into it. If you want to make a case that people in mass will adopt it freely, you'll have to do better than that.

What are you talking about? What "future" have I "sketched", and when?

 

[lovett]

Not unfair, but the problem we encounter here is that natural rights theory- of any particular sort- is not the "null hypothesis", as it were, but something which would require some argument that we've yet to see made in this thread. If we don't chose to assume any such model of natural rights, and I do not, then all we're left with is an understanding of property as people engaging in arbitrary acts of coercion; that it is nothing but violence(/clobbering).

Any why is an institution that is nothing but violence (or coercion) wrong? I do not mean to imply violence or coercion are not (generally) wrong with this question. Rather, I mean to show that your position also requires some argument with which to support it; some argument that tells us why violence or coercion is wrong ceteris paribus and thereby identify why private property rights, if they require such acts, are objectionable. It is by your giving a substantive account of where the 'wrongness' resides in such acts that we can get (in my opinion) a real understanding of your position and thus give a valid assessment of your position towards private property (by the way, I am perfectly willing to give my own substantive account if you would like; it would be churlish to ask one of you and refuse my own).

 

[warpus]

I don't really understand the need to bring violence into the discussion.

Private property is a social contract, obviously.. I haven't gone through the rest of the thread, nor do I think that my thoughts on the matter should really be read or acknowledged by anyone (what do I know, etc.), but private property is pretty much what we make it. And what have we made it? On the surface the answer to that question seems fairly obvious; it's the details that we're going to argue about.. Right?

As for digital media, you can't "own" a piece of digital information - what you can have is an inclusion in a copyright or licensing agreement. While some people have tried to perpetrate the idea that ideas can be owned - they really can't. That doesn't mean that it's legal or moral to violate copyright agreements at all - it just means that owning a piece of land, owning a toaster, and being the creator of a song are 3 different ideas that can't all be grouped under the term "owning a piece of property". The details sort of prevent that sort of a grouping.

 

[Hygro]

I read it, I just don't really agree with it. Any given musician, if people don't like his work well enough to listen to it, then they are in no way obligated to listen to it, and so are in no way compelled to pay for it. So you're example of what you think logically follows from what I said is false. You failed to understand my point. Just because someone holds a copyright does not mean that they will get any revenue from that product. If no one wants it, no one wants it. And the supplier has to try again.

But, if someone creates something that is popular, then why should they be stripped of the ability to prosper by doing so? If people choose to listen to it, but refuse to pay for it, then the artist has exactly as little income as the person who creates something no one chooses to listen to.

And we're all the poorer because of it.

So you're making a distinction between if IP is popular versus not popular. Well what if I was the first one to say "it's a double edged sword" and everyone starts using that expression. It becomes very popular. Now, what if I decided I wanted my job to be someone who comes up with witty or useful sayings. Am I therefore immediately being deprived of sustanence by a lack of copyright? Well, yeah but that's pretty ridiculous that someone gets to "own" an expression, charge people for it, and expect to make a living out of it. What kind of, to use abeigwelt's favorite term, thuggery is needed to enforce such a thing?

(But people won't come up with witty sayings if they can't profit from them!)

It's the same with musicians, albeit they have a product with a historical precedent of having such a thing copyrighted.

So that's the point, they are getting special protection and without that protection they are the same as the supplier who supplies a bad product. They are supplying something people aren't "willing" to pay for. They are expecting a violent apparatus to give them special protections other comparable IP generators aren't getting. Maybe it's good, maybe not.

But it's not confining them to starvation, they'd be choosing that themselves. No one said "you must be a musician."




OK, now on to the real world of the issue, if you have a piece of music that is popular and not earning you money, if you have a few pieces that everyone downloaded and nobody was willing to pay for (even though people still pay even with a free alternative as I mentioned in my previous post). You've labored thousands of hours practicing your trade and now you've made the product everyone loves. You haven't seen a dime.

What do you do? You go on tour. Depending on the genre, you pull high 3 to low 5 figures a night, tour for 80 nights, make a good living for that year. Maybe a great living. Do a good job touring and your reputation as a performer grows, and you can grow that way. You can be like Deadmau5 with 3 popular songs in his early days touring relentless side stages until he became one of the top 10 acts in the world in under 5 years. He had a good live show. Also, merchandise tables with your band's products. Which leads into....

Ok, touring isn't you boat. What do you do? You make branded products. Dr. Dre's headphones. Those things earn luda amounts of money. Or be like DaDa Life in the dance music world and come out with a small piece of software called the "Saussage Fattener" that is a production tool that makes your sound "fat and greasy". Advertised with their goofy personalities, this software can be pirated very easily. Yet at $15 for what's largely a branding gimmick, people still buy it.

Why do people still buy things that are pirate-able? I do it. Many others do it as well. There are lots of reasons and the elimination of copyright won't end that.

Artists can make money without copyright. Popular artists, anyway, just like in the old days, and just like the ones you think deserve it.

 

[timtofly]

It does not follow that music can be considered private property. The "ability" to produce music is the private property. Music is just the commodity being exchanged. How many "musicians" these days even write their own "music"?

Communal living is the sharing of "ability". Traitorfish does not think that "land" fits into the mold of private property, because it is a commodity just like "music". If one has the ability to work the land, then they should. No one should claim a "property" that they do not have the "ability" to produce a commodity "with" unless it is beneficial for the community as a whole. Most people tend to resist things that do not benefit them, and rarely get to the point that benefiting the community as a whole does benefit them also.

The reason that violence comes into play at all is because "ability" is not shared, but forced, exploited, and does not benefit society as a whole. BTW it used to be land barons, that decided who did what with the land. Land barons could only claim land they could "keep". There was no governing force that controlled who could keep what, but land barons fought each other over that "right". Sometimes there was peace in the community and sometimes people just existed.

Even when "democratic" europeans overthrew their land barons, they just exchanged them for a different land baron. Also representation for human rights can only go so far, and life in a commune is smaller yet. Getting people to agree to disagree peacefully should be evident even in this setting called OT.

The problem is how to exchange "commodities" so every one feels utopian in the process. I for one do not think that "governmental" regulation/copyright law is the whole answer. Because there does come a point in any "governmental" situation where it is too big to represent the needs of every single individual citizen.

It is also a fact that "communism" will only work on any scale, only, if all parties involved are in full agreement. And getting rid of dissent is still inhumane, even if it is perceived as beneficial for the whole. There are those who disagree though and state that taking matters into one's own hand is the only way to go. BTW, weeding out dissent; and civil overthrow of one's government are two seperate issues.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Moreover, doesn't this idea, that by not paying for someone's intellectual content, you are committing an act of violence against them, mean that the present system allows for intense acts of violence against people who's ideas are not protected under copyright laws?
For example, aren't professional and amateur athletes the world over committing thievery against Nino Schembri by not paying him money every time they use or teach the Rubber Guard? Because the definition of violence is so extensive as to include anything that makes it difficult to make a living off of intellectual property.

...You know, really, if you want to explore this standard, far more violent than piracy is the habit of not buying things. Not buying things clearly is a form of violence, because it deprives the musician of his income all the same.
By not buying someone's music (regardless of whether it's good or not) you're making it harder to earn his income as a musician. By spending money on any musicians musi, you are committing an act of violence against every other musician on earth.

If you honestly believe your standard of "violence" and you actually want a system that results in the least "actual violence" then you are proposing a destruction of capitalism far more radical than any of us are.

 

[innonimatu]

Any given musician, if people don't like his work well enough to listen to it, then they are in no way obligated to listen to it, and so are in no way compelled to pay for it.[...]

But, if someone creates something that is popular, then why should they be stripped of the ability to prosper by doing so? If people choose to listen to it, but refuse to pay for it, then the artist has exactly as little income as the person who creates something no one chooses to listen to.

That musician does have the ability to prosper by selling his labor. He can hire out his time and skill, just as everyone else: he can perform and be paid for that, he can write commissioned works. He can also sell his recorded works to those people who will pay him because they like the works and are bot able and willing to give him money.

He, or any other person, should never have the privilege to use the state's judicial and police machinery to forcefully extract money from anyone who so much as repeats what he "created". This has not even been a business model to support the authors of music: don't they often complain that the distributors are the ones reaping most of the profits? The musicians have plenty of options to be paid for their work, and no need at all for the extraordinary privilege of copyright. Copyright was necessary only for the big physical distributors. Those were the ones with business models that absolutely depended on state-enforced monopoly: because otherwise there would be very few barriers to entry into their businesses (printing presses were relatively common) and their margins would be squeezed. Physical media distribution would devolve into smaller operations, constrained by transportation costs. Likewise with early recorded music, radio stations, etc...

And now things are getting interesting because those business models are being replaced by digital distribution models. For the duration of the fight between the two models I expect that the digital distributors will mostly oppose copyright: the traditional companies have (had?) most of the existing portfolio locked under their contracts, the new distributors need(ed?) to break them. But in due time ans as they seize those contracts it will be the largest of the commercial digital distributors who'll become the new lobbyists for ever more draconian copyright laws. The window of opportunity to kill copyright will be short.

I do hope that in this interval people at large may be able to impose some common sense on the issue of imaginary property and destroy all such monopolies. The digital distribution businesses will only use their power to demand legal monopolies if/when they are reduced to a few large corporations trying to keep any new competitors out. It's something I can easily see Amazon or Apple doing in a few years, spending many millions bribing politicians to make it illegal to use the internet out of their devices and walled gardens...

Such has been the history of the extension of property to new fields: you pay to have it protected through the threat of violence, and you make others pay for using your new property so you can pay the mercenary powers that protect it for you! And you grow the GDP doing this, so it must be a good thing.

 

[Patroklos]

Private property, however, is not renegotiable; that is what makes it historically significant. It is not a claim of access or utilisation derived from the community, but a claim of absolute disposal; it is in principle asserted by the individual, rather than agreed upon by the community. Because this is not a consensual form of ownership-attribution, not something that we actively volunteer to participate in, it is therefore something that must be enforced; an agreement that we are threatened with or subjected to violence if we fail to adhere to.

This is just as much the case for "communal" ownership as well, as rarely will the commune agree on what should be done with the property, which means some decision will have to be enforced.

 

[downtown]

He, or any other person, should never have the privilege to use the state's judicial and police machinery to forcefully extract money from anyone who so much as repeats what he "created". This has not even been a business model to support the authors of music: don't they often complain that the distributors are the ones reaping most of the profits? .

Nobody has come up with a way to tour effectively without that distributor helping to pick up the tab. You can make decent money performing live, but without the capital investment, you wouldnt be able to travel enough to get those gigs. Thats why there is a partnership.