I consider myself a libertarian and try to read points of view from both what I’d define as left and right ends of the spectrum.
Here’s what I’d consider to be a decent explanation of a left-wing libertarian definition of property rights, taken from a comment on a left-libertarian website:
Q: How is ownership defined, and protected?
A: Ownership is based on use, not title. Anything you and you alone use is yours alone. Anything you use with others is owned in conjunction with them. For example, if you have a bicycle, it’s your bicycle. If you have a factory with 30 other people, all 31 of you own that factory (including any ‘office people’ who don’t do manual labor but contribute in other ways). If you use a road with other people in the community, the maintenance of that road is all of your responsibility. However, if you own a factory or a store or a house or something but don’t work at it, maintain it, or even visit it (as is the case in corporate schemes or bank ownership of property), then you lose ownership of it.
Obviously, this definition of property ownership makes Capitalism-as-it-exists impossible.
I’m curious as to what others think of this alternative conception of property rights, but also more broadly as to how others believe an economy could work with different sub-sects holding different conceptions of property rights. An economy would have a hard time functioning well without a shared conception of property rights, but one group (the majority or minority) enforcing their view with police over others who have no means of redress would not be very libertarian.
My own proposal is for property rights to be laid out explicitly by popular vote in a decentralized manner, so that different groups of people with different conceptions of property rights can chose to live among like-minded individuals and create economic products in an environment which is to their liking, and also to have a hand in how property rights are defined within their own community. For example, Vermont a standard which best reflects the desires of the majority of its residents while New Hampshire its own, different rules, and tyranny of the majority is dulled by the facility of relocation and the small size of the political units.
I’m confused, what is stopping someone from jumping on my bicycle and riding away with it since the moment he starts to use it he is also a coowner. Also how would goods be distributed? Would everything be rationed on a first come first serve and finders keepers basis?
I think you are confused. There is no left or right libertarianism. The only way to legitimately consider yourself a libertarian and try your kooky new twist on democracy is to find like-minded people who are willing, but not take up a territorial monopoly.
I’m confused, what is stopping someone from jumping on my bicycle and riding away with it since the moment he starts to use it he is also a coowner. Also how would goods be distributed? Would everything be rationed on a first come first serve and finders keepers basis?
In most conceptions, if you used that bicycle and someone else took it, that would be considered theft.
If you wanted a bicycle without stealing one, you would buy the bicycle from a store, which would be co-owned by all of its employees, and this store would purchase from a factory which was also co-owned by all of its employees. If any one person or group attempted to take the store or the factory and make it unusable to the people who were currently using it for production, that would be considered theft also on the same basis as the bicycle.
Enforcement would be on the basis of class solidarity, or the notion that one person stealing bicycles or factories is a threat to everyone who wants to continue to use their bicycle or factory.
I think you are confused. There is no left or right libertarianism. The only way to legitimately consider yourself a libertarian and try your kooky new twist on democracy is to find like-minded people who are willing, but not take up a territorial monopoly.
Let’s say there’s no territorial monopoly then, and you, who believes that property rights are derived from titles, buy a factory and hire 30 workers who believe that property rights are derived from use.
Let’s say your workers started contracting directly with clients, saying ‘ignore the man with the title, it’s not valid, we are the owners of this factory, he’s just a kook with a piece of paper.’
Now let’s imagine that there are partisans to both your point of view and the workers point of view in your non-territorial monopoly world. It seems like a set-up for unnecessary conflict and violence.
So property is originally based on title and afterwards based on use?
The owner of the store would be the sole owner of the store until he chooses to hire someone and at that point the owner and new worker would become coowners?
You would only be the sole owner as long as you were the only one who used it to sell things. If you brought in another worker, they would become a co-owner with you.
The two of you would then have to set the rules together for how to operate the store, such as who does which tasks and who gets what rate of pay.
“So property is originally based on title and afterwards based on use?”
Well, kind of, but property is originally based on creation, not title. If it took 30 people to take the raw materials and assemble them into a bicycle, then the resulting product would be the co-property of the 30 people who created it. Those 30 people would want to be compensated, so they would sell the bicycle to the bicycle store under the auspices of their co-owned factory and divide the proceeds between themselves based on whatever scheme they devised amongst themselves as co-owners.
So if I own a movie rental store and and need help running the business the person I choose to help me becomes a coowner of the store. We each have 50% say in how the store will operate but cannot come to an agreement in how it should be run. How would this dispute be settled?
So wait. Do I or don’t I own my sexual organ? And if I don’t use it then is it possible for others to homestead it? I’ve just wondering if we have slipped into a Sadian world.
i think what it boils down is mob property. since workers are the masses you would have to use massive force to safeguard your property, which according to left-libertarians is unlibertarian.
“So wait. Do I or don’t I own my sexual organ? And if I don’t use it then is it possible for others to homestead it? I’ve just wondering if we have slipped into a Sadian world.”
using their logic, yes. it would be unlibertarian to use armed goons to protect your junk from a multitude of people. being such a meanie is denying worker access to means of production.
“We each have 50% say in how the store will operate but cannot come to an agreement in how it should be run. How would this dispute be settled?”
Technically, as sole owner, you could have set the conditions that the second person comes in under, and they would be unable to change the conditions which were originally established, since you both have 50% say. If you brought in a third, however, they would be able to out vote you. It would be your responsibility to bring people into your operation who you trust and can work with.
If you are at an impasse, then essentially you and the other workers are refusing to cooperate with each other. If this situation persists, the store will not make any money and none of you would have a livelihood, so a compromise in your mutual interest.
If I am the sole owner to begin with, and person B is the sole owner of himself to begin with, how is it that we cannot contract ourselves just between the two of us, without your rules? It seems that whoever made up these rules and has the power to enforce them, is the owner of everything to begin with, otherwise, person B and I should be able to reach and agreement on the terms of the exchange/contract on a pure voluntary basis. We obviously cannot according to your rules, so the term ownership according to your definition is nonsensical. We obviously cannot dispose of our property according to our own judgement, but only according to yours. Your are the owner then. Not us.