Property from self-ownership?

Economics Political Theory
41

I think the mix your labor approach shows a sign of ownership. It’s not completely necessary, but it provides boundaries to be rationalized, meaning, comprehended by others. As nirgrahamUK mentioned just spitting there can show a sign of ownership. By sign of ownership what is being pronounced is presence. This rids the notions of just by viewing with ones eyes then all that is seen is the viewers. The viewer didn’t work for any of that land other than what effort it takes to look with ones eyes. That leads into all kinds of hypotheticals. Who saw what and how much kind of argumentation and we can’t get into everybody’s eyes. So patterns that are distinguishable and significant enough for others to honor such claims focus on signs and boundaries. These signs are also known as evidence. Now as I said with nirgrahamUK, the farmer could plow the spit away, knowingly or unknowningly, and the spitter has first claim rights. Yet, the farmer shows better evidence by the plow marks. Evidence helps resolve disputes. So evidence is not needed if there is no dispute. But once a dispute begins, then reasonable patterns need to be distinguishable enough for the farmer, spitter, and/or a grand jury if necessary.

So basically the “mix your labor” is another way of creating evidence of ownership. All can see the individual’s impact upon nature. It helps resolve disputes. Also helps make boundaries or I could claim everything that is not occupied around the world even though I’ve never even been to any of these unoccupied places aside from ever seeing them. A society that would recognize that claim would be not only silly, but be one dominated by making ownership claims instead of also recognizing that life is not just about claiming ownership. We do partake in other events in our lives.

As to the moral and ownership principles you mentioned in the rest of your post. I liked them a lot and that is another way to show ownership. [Y]

42

Ok.. can property be co-homesteaded, or does it have to be originally owned by a single person, who may then arrange co-ownership?

43

My wife and I both own our property.

44

The burden of proof is on your friend, if property is a man made institution then so be it, he has to prove why it is harmful and why humans should reject it. If it has been adopted then it must serve some purpose, and as it turns out, it does, it enables peaceful cooperation which is more efficient than violent conflict, it also allows economic calculation and as such rational allocation of scarce resources.

45

Not really.

If ownership means the ability to decide how something is used, then its impossible for two individuals to both have that right. In the case of marriage, the property is(in practice) not owned by both individuals, but by the marriage. Spouses have systems to decided how to use the marriage’s property and what of their personal property to add to the marriage’s. But should this break down then the marriage will be dissolved and the property split between the two individuals.

This is similar to a joint stock company, where the company is owned by the shareholders, but all actual property is owned and managed by the corporation. Owning a stock in sears does not give you the right to walk into the store and walk out with a hammer. It only gives you certain contractual rights to influence how the corporation is managed.

If two people were to go out and dig a gold mine, the partnership would function in the same way.

46

A marriage is just a contract. It can’t own anything. Only human actors own things.

47

I don’t know, our marriage isn’t like a joint stock company. We are CEO’s. We negotiate what happens to her and my property as individuals.

48

I was under the impression that the positions of an anarcho-capitalist, generally speaking, could be logically deduced from axioms; self-evident assumptions. I used to assert that every position that I held flowed naturally and logically from (A) the principle of self-ownership and (B) the principle of non initiation of aggression.

I’m guess I say this because I need to know that the base of my belief structure is absolutely solid. I need to know where property rights come from. I could always tell him that he needs to explain why we should reject it, that the burden of proof is on him to explain why they’re harmful, but that won’t stop him from asking me why I ever accepted it to begin with. I have to be able to answer that question. Are property rights simply manufactured by man? The best of the available options?

When talking about property rights, would you quarrel with ownership of property equating exactly with the right to use it? Would you substitute the word ‘ability’ for right? I stated above that property cannot be owned by everyone or no one, so it must be owned by a single person or group of people. Even if this is the case though, how does this stop my friend from requiring that I explain why ownership must be exclusive. Why should someone have the right to keep property that they ‘own,’ and defend it.

Hopefully I’m not becoming a pest; I don’t want to leave a bad first impression. I just cant leave this unfinished. I absolutely have to get an argument for property rights down pat, at least to the extent that I could defend it.

49

For me, yes the best of available options. Simplest answer as to why - cause I like it. It need not be harder than that.

Why not?

If you have to beat somebody up to defend your property so be it. I should probably start using Rothbards proportionality theory and start taxing the State for the proportion of taxes the State took from me. If the State doesn’t like it, then if they come after me, they are aggressing against my person, my property and I could defend myself. Am I going to do it right now? No, for I do think in long term strategy concepts and my effort would probably be in vain. I care more about my family than my person and property so I take the punches and suck it up.

50

if ownership is accepted:how could ownership be meaningful if its not exclusive? its seems like trying to take the dark out of ‘black’…

got any good examples (of your friends possible view)?

51

What Hutchison was saying when he came up with “pursuit of happiness” was a better way of explaining property. Pursuit of happiness has everything to do with property rights. It means the individual has the natural right of their individual property being excellent, meaning, of good quality and thus happy. This is how Hutchison explained this concept that he came up with and that’s why it was argued as something to be in the Declaration of Independence. Hutchison was from Scotland, but Jefferson and others had his books in their libraries.

Thus the pursuit of happiness was to express that having property violated is a miserable state for property to be in and the true natural right is of this state of property to be happy, excellence, and of good quality. Why happiness? Well the concept of Natural Law was well understood by intellectuals that concerned themselves with freedom at that point in time. Property was and is understood to first come from the person and then that person laboring puts something of themselves into their works, their labors and thus their tangible properties such as a clay pot or house. So Hutchison was going along with property starting with the person and thus the person in full natural ownership is in a state of happiness, a non-violated state. And then the understanding therefore goes into the person’s extended property in which that individual performs work. And thus to violate that individuals works is a violation of that individuals happiness for that’s where all ownership of property originates, in the person. The Anti-Federalists extended the meaning of what good, quality, excellent, and thus happy property is. I think it was a good addition to the Declaration of Independence. Hutchison was simply expanding upon Locke’s explanation of natural property.

52

Here’s more on “pursuit of happiness” described by Locke:

"It appears not in theTwo Treatises on Government but in the 1690 essay Concerning Human Understanding. There, in a long and thorny passage, Locke wrote:

The necessity of pursuing happiness [is] the foundation of liberty. As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness; so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties we have to an unalterablepursuit of happiness in general, which is our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow, the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good, till we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be inconsistent with, our real happiness: and therefore, till we are as much informed upon this inquiry as the weight of the matter, and the nature of the case demands, we are, by the necessity of preferring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

Just the ideas that inspired our intellectual Founders were primarily European imports, so that defining American phrase, “the pursuit of happiness,” is not native to our shores. Furthermore, as the quotation from Locke demonstrates, “the pursuit of happiness” is a complicated concept. It is not merely sensual or hedonistic, but engages the intellect, requiring the careful discrimination of imaginary happiness from “true and solid” happiness. It is the “foundation of liberty” because it frees us from enslavement to particular desires."

Here’s the link: http://hnn.us/articles/46460.html

I heard a book read over the airwaves by what I thought was a Hutchison that was a Scottish philosopher that further explained what “pursuit of happiness” means. I’ll track down the person that has the reprinted original books on this topic and find out if it was a Hutchison or not. Locke may have, but I know Jefferson discussed how “pursuit of happiness” has old philosophical roots that date, at least, back to Greece and Jefferson was aware of this. That link I gave quoted Jefferson discussing his awareness of this deeply rooted philosophical discourse on “pursuit of happiness”.

53

Yeah, but usually when people ascribe action to an organization, they are just using it as a shorthand. marriages, corporations, states, ect. do not act. Individuals within the organization act in concert towards common objectives. It’s just easier to say the state does such and such, than to say the individuals which make up the state and act concertedly do such and such. You’re way to picky.

54

I don’t think so. This

is factually wrong. The property in practice is owned and controlled by both individuals. The individuals can use it and transfer it. The “marriage” is just an agreement between partners, not a person holding property rights.

I don’t think that John is using “marriage” as shorthand for two people acting but is explicitly saying that the two people are something different from the “marriage” (which is kinda metaphysical…and nonsensical).

I think there’s such a thing as jointly owned property. Maybe it’s not the greatest of ideas, since it can lead to conflicts, but it exists.

55

Excellent points. Also, the the meaning of the “happiness” that Locke and Jefferson talk about is perhaps better expressed by the phrase “human flourishing”; the eudaimonia of the ancient Greek and Roman and medieval Scholastic philosophers. A lot of work has been done in grounding libertarianism within the Aristotelian eudaimonist tradition: Douglas Rasmussen’s A Groundwork for Rights and Geoffrey Allan Plauché’s Aristotelian Liberalism are good places to start on this subject.

56

Cool thanks! I’ll read those works you linked.

Also, incidentally, this idea of pursuit of happiness I wouldn’t doubt is closely kin to to the Greek concept arete, excellence. This has to do with art of living in the individualistic sense. Japanese and Chinese arts of pursuing excellence in martial arts, flower arrangement, and tea ceremony have to do with this allowing the individual to flourish from within. I give that as an example cause usually people are familiar of this effort to live in excellence and a quality of life as an individual in these cultural performances in the East. This is also a Greek concept, too, that has been buried by the dominance of what has become known as logical positivism. That latter didn’t just show up in the 1800’s, but has a long history of being apart of battling concepts in which statist, amoralist, or socialist mentalities (what we call them now) have combated and tried to rid the value in the individual. This value in the individual has become known as subjective and has taken on a tone of falsity whereas the dominating nature of objectivism or logical positivism has hoarded for itself a tone of truth. This is in total disregard and ill-recognition of the individual if objectivism is taken too far. It is a belief in science without regard to the scientist. To live an excellent life is an art and involves morality in the individuals effort. Now how to encourage this excellent and happy life is intellectually pursued to become aware of what would be the best way to live life as an individual. At the moment I would say the intellect has discovered Natural Law and natural property encourages this pursuit of happiness by the individual.

Thanks again for the links.

57

Indeed. Arete is a constitutive part of eudaimonia. Another important work that I forgot to link to earlier: Roderick Long’s Why Does Justice Have Good Consequences?

58

Can a husband empty the couple’s joint bank account and spend it on his mistress? No. Can the wife do the same? No.

So, this isn’t a case where there are two owners of the money. As I said, the money belongs to the couple but not to the individuals.

59

Does the wife have a mistress ? Maybe she can. Why not ?

60

But seriously, two people can own assets jointly. That doesn’t mean that there’s some third entity distinct from them doing the owning…