What Is Property?

[Traitorfish]

It is theft!, or so the saying goes. That may be the view taken by no-good hippy beatniks such as myself, but it should be obvious that this is far from the majority opinion. And yet, while we blether on about it no end, it doesn't seem to be a topic that other people often discuss. So, let'd discuss it.

What is private property, in your understanding? How did it emerge? Is it a positive aspect of our society, a negative one, or is it just a fact of life? What is its relationship to other sorts of property- communal, public, etc.? To what extent can distinctions between these other forms actually be drawn?

Fire away!

 

[cardgame]

Property is something someone has which nobody else has a right to.

It emerged from the simple fact that people don't like to share, especially if the other person breaks whatever the item is or if you have need of it while they are using it.

I think it's just a fact of life.

 

[Ajidica]

If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required . . . Why, then, to this other question: What is property? may I not likewise answer, It is robbery!, without the certainty of being misunderstood; the second proposition being no other than a transformation of the first?

"Tracing the right of property back to its source, one infallibly arrives at usurpation. However, theft is only punished because it violates the right of property; but this right is itself nothing in origin but theft."

Enough said.

 

[NYHunter]

Property is something that belongs to someone.

I think when humans begain to collect things they liked having it for themselves.

But, honestly, I don't think anyone can know how land as private property was first claimed. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the elites within a society deciding how to split it. And I actually don't see what gave anyone the right to claim land, particularly large amounts of land, as private property to begin with. This seems to put me at odds with my libertarian philosophy, and I have no problem admiting to that hypocrisy.

 

[Quackers]

Property is something someone has which nobody else has a right to.

It emerged from the simple fact that people don't like to share, especially if the other person breaks whatever the item is or if you have need of it while they are using it.

I think it's just a fact of life.

I swear I remember reading like that before on this board...where?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I would say it emerged from people defending what they thought was rightfully their own (I made this javelin!) or what people hoped to successfully claim as their own (This hunting ground is mine - why? Because I'll kill you!). The latter undoubtedly is theft, preemptive theft to be more precise, the former? I would say only if I by making the javelin robbed somebody else of the chance to make one him or herself. For instance if only one piece of suitable wood is left.
However, I find this use of theft to be so encompassing that I am not sure it is really useful, because it seems to apply on anything that is somehow scarce. And most stuff is.
But that is just my spontaneous take at it.

I am interested in hearing why in left ideologies property seems to be commonly regarded as theft.

 

[Berzerker]

It is theft!, or so the saying goes. That may be the view taken by no-good hippy beatniks such as myself, but it should be obvious that this is far from the majority opinion. And yet, while we blether on about it no end, it doesn't seem to be a topic that other people often discuss. So, let'd discuss it.

What is private property, in your understanding? How did it emerge? Is it a positive aspect of our society, a negative one, or is it just a fact of life? What is its relationship to other sorts of property- communal, public, etc.? To what extent can distinctions between these other forms actually be drawn?

Fire away!

How old is life? "Turf" preceded us... And its both a fact of life and positive, a fact in that critters are territorial and will defend their home, and positive in the stability it provides families. Private property belongs to someone as opposed to everyone, but both forms of property exist together nearly everywhere.

 

[Traitorfish]

It would say it emerged from people defending what they thought was rightfully their own (I made this javelin!) or what people hoped to successfully claim as their own (This hunting ground is mine - why? Because I'll kill you!). The latter undoubtedly is theft, preemptive theft to be more precise, the former? I would say only if I by making the javelin robbed somebody else of the chance to make one him or herself. For instance if only one piece of suitable wood is left.
However, I find this use of theft to be so encompassing that I am not sure it is really useful, because it seems to apply on anything that is somehow scarce. And most stuff is.
But that is just my spontaneous take at it.

I am interested in hearing why in left ideologies property seems to be commonly regarded as theft.

Just to clarify on this point (I'm trying to be a bit hands-off in regards to other comments, at least at this stage), the phrase "property if theft" is to a certain extent rhetorical, a deliberate contradiction in terms. "Theft" presume some form of property to begin, or there would be no property for a person to be arbitrarily deprived of, i.e. for theft to occur. But in a conception of property in which it constitutes an arbitrary claim to exclusive disposal on the part of one individual, and so the de facto depriving of possession to every other individual, theft appears to be generalised and constant. So if property is the conceptual precondition of theft, then theft is the practical precondition of property. The supposed opposition between theft and property is thus collapsed, and the two become nothing more than two sides of the same coin; the question of legitimate ownership is just a question of whose arbitrary claim to possession we should acknowledge. (And, more often than not, that's a decision determined by who can marshal the most effective gang of armed thugs in their support.)

But, of course, that comes back to the conclusion of property as "an arbitrary claim to exclusive disposal on the part of one individual", which is far from universally adhered to, hence this thread. (Although I'm interested to see Ajidica echoing these sentiments. Didn't have you down as so radical! )

 

[Ayn Rand]

It is theft!, or so the saying goes. That may be the view taken by no-good hippy beatniks such as myself, but it should be obvious that this is far from the majority opinion. And yet, while we blether on about it no end, it doesn't seem to be a topic that other people often discuss. So, let'd discuss it.

What is private property, in your understanding? How did it emerge? Is it a positive aspect of our society, a negative one, or is it just a fact of life? What is its relationship to other sorts of property- communal, public, etc.? To what extent can distinctions between these other forms actually be drawn?

Fire away!

It's just a unit of analysis, like numbers for counting, or metres for space. There are no perfect analytical systems - you have to choose one out of the few that are available and take its weak points along with its strengths.

 

[amadeus]

Enough said.

Not really. If land is vacant and not being used and I homestead it, how can it be said to be stolen?

 

[Ayn Rand]

Not really. If land is vacant and not being used and I homestead it, how can it be said to be stolen?

According to anarcho-communists, if I want to walk in a straight line and your home is in my path, then you are obliged to tear your home down so as not to "steal" my right to walk in straight lines.

 

[Traitorfish]

Not really. If land is vacant and not being used and I homestead it, how can it be said to be stolen?

Because if you occupy it, nobody else can, and to put it in very crude terms, what makes you so great?

According to anarcho-communists, if I want to walk in a straight line and your home is in my path, then you are obliged to tear your home down so as not to "steal" my right to walk in straight lines.

Strawmen aside, we're not here to talk about anarcho-communists, so this is neither here nor there.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Strawmen aside, we're not here to talk about anarcho-communists, so this is neither here nor there.

This is a thread on Property so their viewpoint is inevitably going to come up at some point and I was not the first to raise it - also, it's not a strawman - that is actually a correct interpretation of the anarcho-capitalist position.

 

[Traitorfish]

This is a thread on Property so their viewpoint is inevitably going to come up at some point and I was not the first to raise it - also, it's not a strawman - that is actually a correct interpretation of the anarcho-capitalist position.

Their viewpoint on property is not their viewpoint on whether or not you can demand their house be demolished for the sake of your stroll. So whether or not it's accurate, it's irrelevant.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Their viewpoint on property is not their viewpoint on whether or not you can demand their house be demolished for the sake of your stroll. So whether or not it's accurate, it's irrelevant.

How is it not relevant? If I am accustomed to taking a morning stroll in a straight line, then any and all attempts to build property on my route are theft.

Spoiler :

Anyway, I'll shut up now

 

[Berzerker]

Because if you occupy it, nobody else can, and to put it in very crude terms, what makes you so great?

getting there first

 

[innonimatu]

There's negative property, the things people can't take away from you, and then there's positive property, the things you can take away from other people...

...wait, or was that liberty, or whatever? Damn philosophers and their theorizing!

Anyway, its complex stuff.

 

[amadeus]

Because if you occupy it, nobody else can, and to put it in very crude terms, what makes you so great?

Because I have mixed my labor with the land.

Of course, just about every parcel of land today has some title to it, so now it's just a matter of who has the legitimate titles and how they are transferred.

 

[Traitorfish]

Because I have mixed my labor with the land.

And that's where it gets interesting, isn't it? Because the substance of an object and the form of an object are not the same, which is to say that the matter of which it consists is natural, and therefore beyond any human claim, while the manner in which that matter is arranged is a product of human intervention in the form of labour, and if we accept labour as an extension of the self- a debatable point, granted, but I can't make much sense of any philosophical anthropology that doesn't uphold it- then the forms which this generate represent an extension of the self. But does this lead you to private property as such, in which the land would be yours no matter what you'd done to it, and no matter what anybody else did to it? (And all that's assuming that you uphold the strict dichotomy between "me" and "every other bugger", which is no foregone conclusion, but that's another story.)

 

[Ayn Rand]

And that's where it gets interesting, isn't it? Because the substance of an object and the form of an object are not the same, which is to say that the matter of which it consists is natural, and therefore beyond any human claim, while the manner in which that matter is arranged is a product of human intervention in the form of labour, and if we accept labour as an extension of the self- a debatable point, granted, but I can't make much sense of any philosophical anthropology that doesn't uphold it- then the forms which this generate represent an extension of the self. But does this lead you to private property as such, in which the land would be yours no matter what you'd done to it, and no matter what anybody else did to it? (And all that's assuming that you uphold the strict dichotomy between "me" and "every other bugger", which is no foregone conclusion, but that's another story.)

It can also be argued that they are inseperable - much as an object has both weight and temperature, it also has form and cause [including human cause] so there is no clear metaphysical separation.

Also, you are making a mistake if you believe it is possible to reach a true, certain, absolute and inviolable justification of any property system. That is one approach to property, but it is farely trivial - you are simply talking about the moral dimension of property. But that's not what it is - it did not come about because there is some perfect moral justification lying around in a philosopher's notebook.