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Post by eye2i2hear on Apr 13, 2007 17:47:41 GMT -5
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Blade
Full Member
"Think for yourself. Question authority."
Posts: 126
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Post by Blade on Apr 13, 2007 22:39:24 GMT -5
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Post by eye2i2hear on Apr 28, 2007 13:43:25 GMT -5
[W]hy does the mixing of something you own (labour) with something owned by all (or unowned) turn it in your property?
Surely it would be as likely to simply mean that you have lost the labour you have expended; for example, few would argue that you owned a river simply because you swam or fished in it.
Even if we assume the validity of the argument and acknowledge that by working on a piece of land creates ownership, why assume that this ownership must be based on capitalist property rights? Many cultures have recognised no such "absolute" forms of property, admitted the right of property in what is produced but not the land itself.
As such, the assumption [conceptualization/belief/myth?] that expending labour turns the soil into private property does not automatically hold. You could equally argue the opposite, namely that labour, while producing ownership of the goods created, does not produce property in land, only possession. In the words of Proudhon:
"I maintain that the possessor is paid for his trouble and industry . . . but that he acquires no right [honorable claim] to the land. 'Let the labourer have the fruits of his labour.' Very good; but I do not understand that property in products carries with it property in raw material. Does the skill of the fisherman, who on the same coast can catch more fish than his fellows, make him proprietor of the fishing-grounds? Can the expertness of a hunter ever be regarded as a property-title to a game-forest? The analogy is perfect, -- the industrious cultivator finds the reward of his industry in the abundancy and superiority of his crop. If he has made improvements in the soil, he has the possessor's right of preference. Never, under any circumstances, can he be allowed to claim a property-title to the soil which he cultivates, on the ground of his skill as a cultivator.
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There is no difference between the soldier who possesses his arms, the mason who possesses the materials committed to his care, the fisherman who possesses the water, the hunter who possesses the fields and forests, and the cultivator who possesses the lands: all, if you say so, are proprietors of their products -- not one is proprietor of the means of production. The right to product is exclusive --jus in re; the right to means is common -- jus ad rem." [What is Property?, pp. 120-1]
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The current property system and its distribution of resources and ownership rights is a product of thousands of years of conflict, coercion and violence.
Even though a few supporters of capitalism recognise that private property, particularly in land, was created by the use of force, most maintain that private property is just. [T]he use of force makes acquisition illegitimate and so any current title to the property is illegitimate (in other words, theft and trading in stolen goods does not make ownership of these goods legal). So, if the initial acquisition of land was illegitimate then all current titles are also illegitimate. And since private ownership of land is the basis of capitalism, capitalism itself would be rendered illegal.
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In a developed capitalist economy, all of the available useful land has been appropriated. There is massive differences in who owns what and these differences are passed on to the next generation. Thus we have a (minority) class of people who own the world and a class of people (the majority) who can only gain access to the means of life on terms acceptable to the former. How can the majority really be said to own themselves if they may do nothing without the permission of [eg property taxes/rents/leases paid to] others (the owning minority)? [/b] [/color][/blockquote]--- Why are anarchists against private property?, Infoshop.org |
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Post by NonEntity on May 3, 2007 16:49:26 GMT -5
The Good Doctor Dirt has beseeched me to publicly flog and wail upon him, and being the gentleperson that I be, it would be rude not to oblige:
Good Doctor Dirt,
I don't disagree with you so much as not agree. I do believe that property is an extension of life force, after a fashion. What I do have a problem with is the current black/white simplistic vision of property.
An analogy of sorts. The doves are mating. They do this each year in this season. They go doing their silly mating stuff, as we all do, making absolute fools of our... oops, theirselves. Then they set about finding a good spot to do the nest thing, proceed to build a suitable nest and then put breakfast fixings in it and sit on them for a while until they turn out sunny side up and yammering for worms. This yammering and worming stuff goes on for a short while and then they kick the little nasty looking things out and parade them around, hoping they'll figure out the eating and flying thing before they get eaten.
The nest, still serviceable is then put to use by the parents again who sometime or other apparently found some time for themselves amidst the yammering and worming. But after a time or three of this, the nest is abandoned, the birds do whatever it is that birds do in the off season and then next year they start the whole thing all over again.
The point is this: they only claim that nest while they have a need for it. Then they abandon it. Note also that I might behave similarly with my garden. During that time when birds eating my seed is something that pisses me off, I claim property rights to my garden. But then when the snow is on the ground I'm more than pleased to see a bird finding a bit to nibble on, if he or she can.
The fact that I have a garden in my yard during part of the year does not mean that I mind kids traipsing through it with sleds and making snowmen in it during the winter. This does not affect the propertyness of my garden, if you catch my drift.
Just as those who think that no one should ever grow a garden lest others might just-happen-to-maybe-want-to-walk-there-sometime-in-their-lives are being asses, so are those who believe that just because they own a field means that kids should never be allowed to build snowmen where once a year I grow oats.
So... there you have it. I both agree with and disagree with your position as regards property rights. I believe there is a sound and firm basis for the concept. I also believe that the current implementation of the idea sucks big time. It is not nuanced, as it were.
- NonE
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Post by tharrin on Jul 10, 2007 16:17:32 GMT -5
Why should your beliefs, my good NonE, give you superior right to curtail, direct, manipulate, or alter my non-violent movement or existence upon the surface of this planet?
If you believe that property is an extension of life force expenditure (after fashion or no) why should your belief have any bearing on me? I choose not to believe in your belief system. My non-belief has no real damaging effect on you (other than not allowing your belief to be externalized or have power over me). Yet your belief with the proper backing (the masses, the sheriff and his posse, a group based in a fictional non-existent world grinding out magic words to support your belief) can totally impinge on my existence to the point of my non-existence.
It is after all, a creation of your mind that you have hatched up in your head, that you wish me to respect regardless of my non-belief.
I literally kills me how people will defend to the death a totally unsubstantiated, unproveable and factless set of rules they and others have agreed upon and then try to push those rules on others for the benefit of the rule-makers and anybody who wishes to participate in the fiction. Even when those set of rules leave no room for those that do not wish to participate in the ruse.
Seems like a form of violence.
If you want the rules then you need the violence or threat of violence to make others respect them.
It is the same reason people willing submit to a violent system. They don't want to be made an example of what happens when they don't submit.
Face it NonE, people are just no damn good.
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Post by tharrin on Jul 11, 2007 11:01:53 GMT -5
So what use is it to claim ownership? Claim in itself is just a thought in the interior of a persons mind. Too externalize it one has to force air through their vocal cords or write out that thought for others to understand what the thought in the other person head is.
Yet neither of these externalizations has any real force of effect. Just because they are externalized means it is fact of reality. Therefore, even when it is the agreed position of a multitude of peoples, it is still an nonfactual and unprovable position, regardless of how it is externalized. The only way to force it into reality is to use force in whatever manner to get those that do not believe in the concept to comply with it.
It is sort of like the movie Harvey, with Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy believed in Harvey. Said he was a human-sized invisible rabbit. To any of us Harvey is a fiction of Jimmy's mind and there is no factual way to convince anyone else of Harvey's existence. If Harvey really did exist then it would need to be able to affect it's surrounding to convince people of it's existence, otherwise Harvey remains a fiction of Jimmy's mind.
Even if all of Jimmy's friends and family believed in Harvey until Harvey can factually affect his existence into the world in some physical manner: Harvey remains a fiction. Fictions cannot externalize themselves into reality but people can force others to live with their beliefs by using some form of force, coercion or threat to get others to accept their fiction. Once that is done then it becomes a matter of who will stand up against the belief system and what are the consequences of resisting or debunking it.
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