Okay. So let’s grant, just for the sake of argument, that his land is “on” your soccer ball.
In this case, your soccer ball is on his land, and his land is “on” your soccer ball. The difference is, can you retrieve the soccer ball without violating his property rights? If the land owner refuses to go out of his way to return it to you, if you do not have a prior agreement with the land owner in which he has permitted you to run onto his land whenever your soccer ball comes over there, and if you cannot get him to voluntarily agree to let you on his land to come get it, then the answer is no: you cannot retrieve the soccer ball without violating his property rights. You have lost all level of control (both physical and ethical) over it, and it therefore cannot be your property. It is now unowned. If the land owner, or any one else that is on the land owner’s land with the land owner’s consent, is able to get to that soccer ball and appropriate and use it, then they become the new owner of that soccer ball. If you can figure out a way to get the soccer ball back without violating the land owner’s property rights (like a suction or magnetic device or possibly even a long stick if you can use it without infringing the land owner’s property rights), before anyone else gets to it, then you can reclaim it as your property.
If the object in question is not a lost soccer ball, but something far more valuable like a car, then you should have had an insurance policy on it in case something like this happened. That’s what insurance policies are for.
Thankfully, this scenario is extremely bizarre, rare, and unlikely. Most land owners will be willing to let you retrieve the ball, is my guess.
Yes, I agree that I cannot retrieve the soccer ball without violating his property rights. Now explain to me why that means MY property rights disappear.
Because property must be subject to your control. If you have no level of control over a thing–in this example, if you lose physical control over it, and you cannot possibly possess it without violating someone else’s rights (i.e. you lose ethical control over it)–then it is meaningless to call it property.
As I stated before, scarcity is what makes “property” necessary. Control is what makes “property” possible.
Without scarcity, “property” is unnecessary. Without control, “property” is impossible.
Where on earth do you get the idea that “property must be subject to your control”? If I become paralysed the waist down, does that mean my legs are fair game if I’m stuck on someone’s lawn?
Of course not. I’m not talking about being able to control every minutiae of every physical detail of a thing. You just need to be able to exert some level of control over something. Even if you’re paralyzed from the waist down, you have some level of control over your legs. You take them around with you where ever you go, you make them move along with you, you can physically access your leg flesh, you can defend them against an aggressive act by another person, etc. etc.
Now, let’s say your left leg is detached from your body, and you carry it around in the back of your pick up truck (which you can still drive because you still have your right leg ;)) and, as you’re going around a curve, the detached leg flies off into someone’s property, you have lost all level of physical and ethical control over it, and that leg is in the same status as the soccer ball we discussed earlier.
Forget the example: Where on earth do you get the idea that “property must be subject to your control”? It is completely unnessesary and leads to all these ridiculous situations.
What sense does it make to say that something over which you have absolutely no level of control is yours?
The purpose of the mental concept of ownership is that when you appropriate and use a hitherto unappropriated resource, every other human considers you to be the owner of that thing (considers you to be in ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to that thing).
What sense does it make to consider someone who has absolutely no level of control over a thing, to be in ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to that thing (i.e. to be the owner of that thing)?
While I don’t agree with everything Robert LeFevre espouses, he describes the “control” element of property rather nicely in his book The Philosophy of Ownership:
“Sometimes a property that someone values very much escapes his control. When this occurs, he is no longer the owner, however much he wishes to be. Nor can he hold others responsible for his loss or failure to retain his control. A man owns a cylinder filled with a rare gas. He values it highly. The valve jams open and the gas escapes. He no longers owns the gas. Nor has he a claim against others to return his gas.” (pp.39-40)
Do I have to have the thing constantly strapped to my back to be in “control” over it? It is MINE. Of course the man cannot claim others to return the gas, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to. If there was a way to get it back, I would say he should be able to retrieve it, but he would have to pay for every bit of damage incurred. By your/LeFerve’s logic someone can raid my house and dump the contents on another’s lawn, and you’d say the lawn-owners now own it. How does that make any sense?
It doesn’t. Once again, you have created a strawman.
In order to appropriate your property from your house, one has to aggress. Second, one needs to understand libertarian theory on restitution and the return of stolen property.
This is just a suggestion, but in a week, you have yet to introduce a new idea or refute an existing libertarian concept. Perhaps when something doesn’t make sense, you should double check your own premises first. Verify that your argument is watertight, before assuming the other party is wrong.
I cannot control my heart at all. It just keeps beating and beating. Does that mean I don’t own it? I can control my soccer ball by kicking it. It accidentally rolls into someone’s yard. Just because I cannot access it doesn’t mean I couldn’t control it if I wanted to.
My argument has no assumption other than the fact that I can own physical property and no one’s rights are above another’s. His argument rests on the idea that one must be in control of an object for it to be property. I have yet to see any proof for that.
No, you just have to have some level of control over it. Unless you have very advanced technological equipment, when a gas is released into the atmosphere, then you have no level of control over it. Not only can you not physically reach it and physically control it, you have no ethical level of control over it (i.e. you can’t meaningfully say that it is yours and no one else is allowed to touch it; you can’t say that someone else has an obligation to return it to you). Thus, it’s meaningless to call it your “property.”
Same thing for the ball that lands in another person’s property. Unless you have a strong suction or magnetic device or maybe a long stick of some sort (that can be used without violating the other guy’s property rights), then you have no level of control over it. Not only can you not physically reach it and physically control it, you have no ethical level of control over it (i.e. you can’t possess it without violating someone else’s property rights).
Not if you have no level of control over it. It’s meaningless to say, of the sun for instance, “that is MINE.” You have no physical control over it at the present, and you have no ethical control over it.
Exactly.
Yes.
No. All that happens when you lose all level of control (physical and ethical) over something is that it becomes unowned. The lawn-owners only come to own it if they appropriate and use it and willfully make it their property. However, if this happens, you still have the right to demand full compensation (plus interest) from the thief. Furthermore, you ought to have an insurance policy that covers this kind of theft, in case this sort of thing happens.
Thankfully, in this case, as in the soccer ball case, it’s far more likely the lawn-owners will let you come reclaim your stuff, and then you can still go get more compensation from the thief.
Like I said earlier, you don’t have to control the physiological minutiae of your heart in order to have some level of control over it. You have some level of control over it. By walking around with it inside you, you control where it goes. If you want to make it stop beating, you can stab it.
But what use is it pointing up at a star and saying “I own that! That is mine!”? Property must be a meaningful concept to be of any use. Pointing up at a star and saying “that’s mine” is not meaningful, because you have no level of control over it. If you don’t have any level of control over something, you can’t appropriate and use it.
Look, I want to talk reasonably here. What do you base the statement “you just have to have some level of control over it” on? That is all I want to know right now.
Look, I’m about at wit’s end here. I keep explaining this to you.
If you have NO level of control whatsoever over a thing, you can’t appropriate and use it (i.e. homestead it). Ethics, including property rights, are only useful insofar as they are MEANINGFUL rules for human action. It is MEANINGLESS to point at something you have absolutely NO level of control over and say “that is mine and no one else may have it.”
That’s not a strawman, and the fact that you have not homesteaded the star is precisely my point. You have not appropriated and used the star. Why? Because you can’t. It’s simply impossible in this day and age. If you tried to go to the star, you would die long before you got there. There is no level of control you have over the star. Thus, it’s meaningless to claim it as your property.
If your property goes totally out of your control, regardless of whether or not you had some level of control over it previously, it becomes meaningless to treat it as your property anymore. The concept of it being your property becomes completely unenforceable.