Consider Robert LeFevre’s example: You own a canister of gas. The gas inside is your property, seeing as you can control it. The valve opens, and the gas is released into the atmosphere. It is no longer meaningful to call those gas particles “your property.” What use is it for others to consider that you have a property title in each of those released gas particles?
That is where I disagree. It becomes meaningless if it explodes. It becomes meaningless if I shoot it into space. It does not become meaningless if it is lying dormant on my neighbor’s lawn, as it can easily be returned to me. No one has the right to not return it to me; in doing so, they would be claiming their property rights are more important than mine. There is a big difference.
It does become meaningless if it is lying dormant on your neighbor’s lawn and there is no way to retrieve it without violating the lawn owner’s property rights. If the lawn owner doesn’t want you on his property, then you’re not ethically allowed on his property at all, period. The lawn owner also doesn’t have an obligation to go out of his way to return it to you. It’s as ethically meaningless to call that ball your property any more as it is to point up in the sky at a cloud and call that cloud your property. You have zero level of control over it (unless you have a special device that can get the now-unowned soccer ball off the guy’s lawn without violating any of his property rights).
I will concede that this example is correct in that it is no longer my property. Not because I have a property title in every particle, but because it is physically impossible. If it was possible and on my neighbors property, I would say the same as the soccer ball: No one has the right to not return it to me, but I would have to pay for any and all inconveniences.
Okay. So, you acknowledge that you must have some level of control over something for it to be your property.
Here’s my question to you:
Let’s take the example of the soccer ball on the other guy’s lawn.
Please name/pin-point what level(s) of control you do have over that soccer ball, at that point.
No. I have acknowledged that I must have some level of control for me to initially homestead it.
I can take an air blower and blow it off. I can hover over it with a jetpack. If I do not have those things, it still does not change the fact that my ball is on his lawn, and his lawn is on my ball. I fail to see why my ownership is revoked because his lawn is not as accessable to me as my ball is to him.
Tell me this: suppose that he is perfectly justified in not giving back the ball. Am I not justified, then, from keeping him from touching or moving it in any way?
And how would you do that without violating his property rights?
Yes. If you get an air blower or a jetpack, you can then regain a level of control over it. Unless you do get those things, however, not only do you have no physical level of control over it, you also can’t get to it without violating the lawn owner’s property rights, meaning you do not have a just ethical claim to repossess it.
Ownership is revoked because the whole concept of the ball being “yours” ceases to have any meaning if you have no level of physical control over it, and you can’t get to it without committing property rights violations. Yes, it doesn’t seem quite fair, but the world’s not perfect. There are risks involved in everything. Just because a set of ethical rules merely exists, doesn’t mean that the world is instantly transformed into a utopia. If you lose your property due to your own negligence, it’s your fault. If you lose it due to theft, then the thief must return it to you or pay you just compensation. If you lose it due to none of the above, then you should have had it insured.
That is not the question. The question is am I justified or not.
No, you’re not justified in doing that, because you’d have to violate his property rights in order to do so.
Because of this forum I have been convinced of the existance of natural rights. I have been convinced that anarchy is the only system that protects them.
I want to be convinced that because I no longer have physical control over something, then it is no longer mine. Just tell me why it HAS to be that way and CANNOT be any other way.
And according to my stance he would have to violate my property rights to not give it to me or let me retrieve it. We are getting nowhere. Tell me why your way HAS to be right. It seems we are just having a battle of axioms.
You “want to be convinced” that control is a necessary ingredient of property? I think you’re going about this the wrong way. You need to formulate your own beliefs, and reason through these things yourself. I’d rather that you “want to be convinced” of what is true, regardless of whether it’s what I or any other forum member here believes.
In any case, this is going to be my last response for the night, because it’s 4:18 AM and I’m tiiiiired:
When thinking about this stuff, you need to keep in mind the purpose of ethics, and thus property rights. Remember, way back earlier in this thread when you rightly said that property rights is a mental construct, not something chiseled in stone? Property rights is a mental construct that humans use to facilitate their interaction in a world of scarcity and potential conflict. It’s a mentally constructed system we use because it’s the most appropriate means for us to employ in order to achieve the ultimate desired end (long-run maximization of personal satisfaction).
A means can only be appropriate if it can be used.
Thus property rights are only an appropriate means to employ if they can actually be used/followed/respected.
To have a property right in something, is another way of saying you “own” something. To say you “own” something, is another way of saying that other people, in their minds, ought to consider you to be in ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to that something.
But it’s meaningless for you to consider me to be in a position of ultimate jurisdiction over what happens to a thing that I have absolutely no level of control over.
At least some level of control over a thing is a necessary ingredient for that thing to be able to be considered as “property.” I don’t know how I can explain it much clearer than this. If you have no level of control at all over a thing, what use is it for other people to look at you and then look at that thing and say, “Oh, I’d better not use that thing, that’s HIS, and I don’t have a just claim to it”? It’s a meaningless ethic to follow. It doesn’t concern you any more what happens to that thing, because you have absolutely no level of control over it any more.
Regardless of the possibility that, at one time, you may have had a level of control over a thing, if you do not now have a level of control over that thing, then it is just as meaningless to say that it is your property now as it would have been to say that it is your property in the event that you had never ever had a level of control over it to begin with.
No, he wouldn’t have to violate your property rights. He could simply sit there and not do anything. You wouldn’t be able to ethically retrieve it, because he didn’t give you his consent to come on his property, but he’s not holding it or positively keeping it or anything. He’s just sitting there. That’s all. He’s not violating your property rights at all. He’s an innocent bystander for all we’re concerned. He has no ethical obligation to go return the ball to you. He’s perfectly at liberty to just walk back inside his house and leave the ball there indefinitely.
And now THIS will be final post for the night. For reals this time.
I want to make things as simple as possible. My stance is:
Rightfully owned property stays one’s rightfully owned property until they voluntarily part with it. If one loses it and someone else finds it, they are still the rightful owner, and must pay restitution for the efforts of the finder if they want it back. It can be only be completely homesteaded through personal choice or death.
I have chosen this stance after much thought, and decided upon it because it is very simple, very effective, and does not contradict any natural rights. I do not fanthom how the idea of “losing control of property is losing ownership of the property” is preferred. From what I have seen, it is complicated (to what extent does one have to “lose control”?), unfair (thief parking car in another’s lawn example), and unnecessary when compared with mine. It seems to serve only as a tool for taking away what someone has worked hard for, whether it be a car or a soccer ball, and giving them to others by sheer chance. If anyone can show me how this benefits good, honest people without being at the expense of others, then be my guest, for I have officially given up looking for its virtues.
You are still forgetting that his lawn is also on my ball. What if I don’t want his grass on it? Don’t I get a say? Just because his land is planted in the ground does not mean he can still trump my rights.
This is intellectual sloppy what I wrote. A better way of putting this is as such…
When “I don’t have the right to exist”, therefore what is being said is “I don’t have ‘it’…” The only way to take an inalienable right, such as life (exist), is to kill the person. Inalienable rights can’t be taken like an alienable rights (a clay pot). I always have the right to exist, and if I don’t have it, then I’m dead. So when you say “I don’t have this right” that means I’m dead, in other words, I don’t exist. Of course somebody could be just saying this, but that’s what they are saying. Notice how it doesn’t make any sense and is very threatening and quite possibly coercive.
good day Mingo Jongo [:)]
My initial reaction to this scenario is that maybe you should just go get the ball back - the neighbour hasn’t ‘homesteaded’ it - and accept the consequences of your tresspassing if the neighbour wishes to press charges. No one can which social norms/common law would arise in a voluntary society, but it’s my guess that an arbitrator would give you leniance in this scenario. I know I certainly wouldn’t want to give my business to a dispute resolution organisation that decides to fine kids who retrieve their ball from a grumpy old coots lawn (without damaging his property).
I’m not sure though, I haven’t read the whole thread, or made up my mind yet. Good discussion.
I’m surprised you made it this far. lol