What Is Property?

[Leoreth]

See? The LTV is alive and kicking. Take that, marginalists!

I did not talk about value. I kind of agree with LTV as one perspective of why we value things, but not as a way to determine how something should be valued.

Nope. There's lots of other ways of obtaining it. Most rich people do not do low-skilled, labor intensive jobs. More likely they run a company that employs a lot of low skilled workers. Laborers typically get a much smaller share of the profits than management.

That sounds as if you want argue a point I've made, I haven't. Especially I didn't want to address and justify all forms of property we have in our modern society, which the example I chose and the short sentences in the end show.

I just wanted to describe what in my opinion is the origin of the concept of property and how it was developed in the early stages of human civilization. It was neither meant as a political statement, nor a serious attempt at a philosophical model.

Some hunter-gatherer tribes have communal property for just about everything. There's also passing tools down from generation to generation. There's also intellectual property involved in knowing how to make tools, but that is considered the group's knowledge not that of the individual. They do reward merit. The hunter who makes the kill gets the first choice of the meat.

I'm aware of that. I intentionally excluded any form of division of labor because it massively complicates things for everyone involved. Again, I didn't want to address property in our modern capitalist society that has very advanced division of labor.

Property comes in a variety of forms. Really you should look at it more in terms of people who are willing to share their property and those who aren't.

Except sometimes there are things that cannot be shared, so you're really oversimplifying the issue.

 

[Traitorfish]

Anyway, I'm disappointed that everyone is concerned with what justifies property, but few people actually answer the question of what is property. To answer that you have to look at its effects more than its justifications... I wasn't just joking when I pretended to mix it up with the different views about freedom.

Yeah, that was really what I was aiming for with this thread. I guess I should have made the OP a bit more specific.

@Traitorfish
To be honest, I am disappointed. That's like saying: Day is night! Or Wet is dry! You need the one to have the other. Not very revealing or insightful if you ask me but more a reflection on the way we grasp things in general - that if I define something, I automatically also define what it is not.

It sounds like you only read the first sentence I wrote. As I said, Proudhon's point wasn't that the positive creates the negative- he would hardly express X .'. Y as X = Y, would he?- but that in the case of property, the positive and the negative are in practice one and the same, and so that it is ethically self-negating. It's an intentional contradiction.

Property is theft is an anarchist saying. Enough said.

How is "virtually nothing" "enough"? Or are you trying on a bit of rhetorical self-contradiction yourself?

I do. Private property was first claimed when wild animals figured out that keeping a chunk of territory for themselves was the only reliable way to get a secure food supply. And since getting food from hunting and grazing is always dicey, the only way to be sure of not starving to death was to have as much land as possible.

Before modern artifices such as laws existed, the rules were very simple: find yourself a piece of land you like, and attack anybody else who encroaches on it. Such a system selected with extreme prejudice in favor of critters who were physically strong and good at fighting.

The reason we have modern capitalism today is because it's a huge improvement over that.

Doesn't this conflate private property with possession itself? Or is that what you're arguing, that there is no practical difference? And, if so, how would you distinguish between what are traditionally discussed as different property-forms- communal, feudal, private, etc.?

 

[CavLancer]

My property is something which I think is mine and if someone comes on my property who doesn't think its mine and tries to possess it or any part of that which I consider my property I can shoot him and be called a hero. Normally one can't do that so property is good stuff.

 

[innonimatu]

What I am not sure about, would we count obligations to property? My intuition says no, only the property that may proceed from such obligations is also property.

Depends on whether you really believe in stuff like "intellectual property".

Me, I consider the whole of it illegitimate, but I acknowledge that if it worked as envisioned* it would operate very similar to certain other types of property: it's an updated version of seigniorial right. Or, a more up to date comparison (but not quote as apt), a private version of a state's power to collect taxes.
The "IP type" property rights are owned (exclusivity), transferable (within some constraint), and grant power over others who do certain actions: living within a country or a lord's domain, hearing a song, making something according to a description (or even doing it unknowingly!), etc.

Physical property rights also operates based on these "three powers": exclusivity (one or a group); transferability; and legal right to extract something from anyone else doing something related to the property (tenants, trespassers, etc).

The whole thing is an elaborate way to grant someone power over someone else, provided that someone else "does" some action violating those property rights. If it's power without the need for any action from the target then it's just old-fashioned slavery or tyranny. If it is limited in catching its targets only after some specific action of theirs, it's property rights. Makes the thing more palatable, which explains its long-success as a way to structure power relations within society. Slavery disappeared, tyranny is frown upon, but property rights resisted throughout the ages.

(* of,course, it just can't work as envisioned, but that's a different discussion)

 

[Ayatollah So]

Wow, I'm dangerously close to agreeing with BasketCase.

Doesn't this conflate private property with possession itself? Or is that what you're arguing, that there is no practical difference?

If he won't, I will - sort of. There's a difference, but the concept of property threatens to dissolve under close scrutiny, leaving us either with possession in a nature red in tooth and claw, or alternatively leaving us talking about some wildly hypothetical more-just society.

Physical property rights also operates based on these "three powers": exclusivity (one or a group); transferability; and legal right to extract something from anyone else doing something related to the property (tenants, trespassers, etc).

The whole thing is an elaborate way to grant someone power over someone else, provided that someone else "does" some action violating those property rights.

Best post of the thread.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

It sounds like you only read the first sentence I wrote. As I said, Proudhon's point wasn't that the positive creates the negative- he would hardly express X .'. Y as X = Y, would he?- but that in the case of property, the positive and the negative are in practice one and the same, and so that it is ethically self-negating. It's an intentional contradiction.

Yes, I slightly misunderstood your point at first, I think I see now its actual logic. Though that still assumes that everyone has the same ethical right to anything that can be directly used, ignoring any kind of personal contribution to what can be directly used. And I am not sure how actually sensible such an ethical stance is.

Makes the thing more palatable, which explains its long-success as a way to structure power relations within society. Slavery disappeared, tyranny is frown upon, but property rights resisted throughout the ages.

That's one way to put it. But I am not sure it is really sensible. What is the alternative to the power relation of property after all? Universal insecurity in the use of anything? Because that's what I think might be the best characterization of property - the right to directly make use of something (instead of others). How this then is exactly organized is another question.

Saying: How about viewing property simply as a set of assumed securities regarding the direct use of well, whatever is supposed to be secured in its use to whomever? Because in principle, property seems to be applicable on whatever can be secured and directly used.
Like I can own land, because it can be secured and directly used. I can own ideas, because they can be secured (while the actual act of securing it can be very difficult) and directly used. If we had a way to secure the love of someone, we could theoretically even embrace love as a property. But I can not claim, say, freedom as a property because it can't be directly used, but only in relation to other stuff that can be directly used.
It's all a matter of how to organize security of direct use.

Wow, I'm dangerously close to agreeing with BasketCase.

I wonder when my first time is But I am afraid BasketCase goes to far in taking land as the first kind of property. I would place it with food (that's my tasty tree or that's my tasty antelope).

 

[Traitorfish]

Yes, I slightly misunderstood your point at first, I think I see now its actual logic. Though that still assumes that everyone has the same ethical right to anything that can be directly used, ignoring any kind of personal contribution to what can be directly used. And I am not sure how actually sensible such an ethical stance is.

Oh, not at all- or, at least, that's certainly not the conclusion which Proudhon drew from it. Rather, what it suggests is that legitimacy of possession must located on a level other than property, i.e. not as a claim to the total and exclusive disposal of the material substance which constitutes an object. Proudhon's suggestion was that this level was labour, arguing that the individual was entitled to possess that which he himself produced, and no more. That which was produced collectively was to be similarly disposed of. That which precedes human activity, such as land, natural resources, etc. is the common property of all, to be disposed of through democratic allocation. (Communists go a step further by positing all labour as fundamentally collective. This helps resolve among other things the issue of intellectual property, which Proudhon, a little surprisingly for a writer and printer, never really addressed.)

 

[ParkCungHee]

Which highlights the problem that "use" is hopelessly vague. If an environmentalist likes to take walks in a pristine forest - so that every few decades he manages to see each part of it - is he "using" the whole forest?

Or if a real estate dealer is holding ownership of the land, until he can find a buyer interested in it, does that count as "use" or can I just start homesteading it?
What about a vacant building?
In this economy there's loads of storefronts with "for rent" signs out front. Can I just sit down in one of those and start a business in one?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Traitorfish
Ah so the claim isn't actually property is theft but undue property is - whatever that then shall be. According to Proudhon if not the result of one owns labor.
So and was Proudhon of the opinion that one can not trade one's self-labored possession or share of possessions, or even gift them? Because if one can, I don't see an actual fundamental distinction to contemporary systems of possessions - with the exception of property not man-made: land and natural resources and with the additionally exception of property which ultimately rests on property taken by force (say a dude being rich because his ancestors belonged to the Nobility which exploited the farmers or some such).

 

[Aleenik]

As an anarcho-communist I agree with the OP that property (Private property) is theft.

An important distinction though must be made between personal property and private property. Personal property being things like a TV, a computer, a house, a car, clothing, toys, etc. Those things would obviously be made and distributed in a communist society. Private property is the means of production, among other things. Privately owning those things are what I, and others like me, are against.

This excerpt from the Communist Manifesto fits very appropriately with this thread.

The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property.



We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.



Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

 

[Murky]

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

That's true and prophetic. He did have a point.

 

[Traitorfish]

@Traitorfish
Ah so the claim isn't actually property is theft but undue property is - whatever that then shall be. According to Proudhon if not the result of one owns labor.
So and was Proudhon of the opinion that one can not trade one's self-labored possession or share of possessions, or even gift them? Because if one can, I don't see an actual fundamental distinction to contemporary systems of possessions - with the exception of property not man-made: land and natural resources and with the additionally exception of property which ultimately rests on property taken by force (say a dude being rich because his ancestors belonged to the Nobility which exploited the farmers or some such).

This is why Proudhon's distinction between possession and property is crucial. Possession is a simple matter of fact, an observation that such-and-such person is utilising such-and-such object. Property is something else altogether, a legal-social institution that permits the exclusive disposal of an object, even when it does not coincide with possession. In practice, the two exist in constant opposition- the opposition of the tenant to the landlord, of the peasant to the landowner, of the machinist to the industrialist- rather than one being a natural if regrettable extension of the other.

Edit: To put it more simply, property represents in Proudhon's view the mediation between people and their possessions by a third party. As an anarchist, he naturally found this to be unconscionable.

 

[Murky]

What good are property rights if 99% of the population doesn't own any?

 

[BasketCase]

Doesn't this conflate private property with possession itself?

Yes--in the Beginning, anyway. Before history, when there was no such thing as civilization, the only Law was the Law of the Jungle. Might made right. Private property was the domain of the critter strong enough to beat down all trespassers. Back then, possession and private property really were the same thing.

The only thing that has changed since then is how the right to possess property is enforced. I'm pretty sure everybody in here agrees that giving all the property to the physically strong (or to those who are best with guns) is completely unfair. That's why we have capitalism today: instead of using physical force to take property, you first find somebody willing to sell their land, and then you trade your labors for that land (the fact that you do it with money earned from a paycheck is merely an intermediate step).

Fact is, the necessity of having a secure food supply and shelter from the elements has not changed. And the fact that private property is the only reliable way to get these things, has also not changed.

Or is that what you're arguing, that there is no practical difference?

Naah. Possession is simply one particular way to get private property.

And, if so, how would you distinguish between what are traditionally discussed as different property-forms- communal, feudal, private, etc.?

There are no different forms. "Feudal" merely means the local lord owns the land. "Communal" means a particular group owns it (no different from a corporation, really). These are all just fancy words describing who owns private land. The fact that it's private doesn't change.

What good are property rights if 99% of the population doesn't own any?

Keeps the 99% from accidentally shorting the wires at a transformer farm on the city power grid, for one.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Traitorfish

So hold on, he wants possessions to reflect one's own labor and when possession means what one actually possess, he logically opposes the trade of such possessions (so much for a modern economy), but, and that is the best part, he opposes a third party that ensures his ideal of possession? So I guess it will just have to fall off the sky.
Anarchists are crazy

 

[Traitorfish]

@Traitorfish

So hold on, he wants possessions to reflect one's own labor and when possession means what one actually possess, he logically opposes the trade of such possessions (so much for a modern economy)...

No, actually, he was pro-market. Where'd you get that idea? (And leave aside the "modern economy" comment, because that's a huge can of worms.)

...but, and that is the best part, he opposes a third party that ensures his ideal of possession? So I guess it will just have to fall off the sky.

So in your household, chores are assigned by the government after all? And the government serves out the portions at dinner, and decides who will sleep in what bedroom, and who should go out and buy new milk, and so on?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

No, actually, he was pro-market. Where'd you get that idea?

I would have thought that my last post made that clear? Well, alright:

A:

legitimacy of possession must (be) located on a level other than property [...] Proudhon's suggestion was that this level was labour, arguing that the individual was entitled to possess that which he himself produced, and no more.

B:

Possession is a simple matter of fact, an observation that such-and-such person is utilising such-and-such object.

A + B = C
C = No trade (to make the obvious more obvious: Because then I would possess other than what I have produced myself).
And I would think that a market needs a trade of possessions to be even remotely efficient, or, yes, modern.

So in your household, chores are assigned by the government after all? And the government serves out the portions at dinner, and decides who will sleep in what bedroom, and who should go out and buy new milk, and so on?

No.
So are you suggesting that, say, 100 million people can organize themselves just as a household of say 6 people can? I know that this term has gotten a bad reputation, but by all means, if I ever have seen a suggestion defying human nature, it would be this one.

 

[Leoreth]

Considering how often I've been able to get away with not doing my chores in a 5 person household even, I doubt that it is workable on a small scale backed by mutual agreement alone.

An important distinction though must be made between personal property and private property. Personal property being things like a TV, a computer, a house, a car, clothing, toys, etc. Those things would obviously be made and distributed in a communist society. Private property is the means of production, among other things. Privately owning those things are what I, and others like me, are against.

Your terminology is confusing. It sounds like you mean capital when you say "private" property ...

 

[Traitorfish]

I would have thought that my last post made that clear? Well, alright:

A:
B:
A + B = C
C = No trade (to make the obvious more obvious: Because then I would possess other than what I have produced myself).

We've already established, though, that Proudhon locates rightful possession in labour, and labour is to a certain extent homogeneous, and therefore interchangeable. All that Proudhon would require is that like is exchanged for like in regards to labour-time.

And I would think that a market needs a trade of possessions to be even remotely efficient, or, yes, modern.

Does a society need a market to be efficient or modern? That, as I said, is a whole can of worms in itself, and not one that needs opened here.

So are you suggesting that, say, 100 million people can organize themselves just as a household of say 6 people can? I know that this term has gotten a bad reputation, but by all means, if I ever have seen a suggestion defying human nature, it would be this one.

Considering how often I've been able to get away with not doing my chores in a 5 person household even, I doubt that it is workable on a small scale backed by mutual agreement alone.

I'm not saying it wouldn't need something more formal than just divvying things up as you go, just that you don't need third-party arbiters for that to work. Illiterate peasants across the globe managed it by themselves for around ten thousand years, and I would think that we've made enough in the way of technological advances since to give it a decent go.

 

[luiz]

What good are property rights if 99% of the population doesn't own any?

In which parallel universe does 99% of the population own no property?