Sure. Now the second-comer arrives and seeks exclusive use and control over the object/land in question. The first-comer argues that he is the ‘owner’ because he got there first. The second-comer argues that he is the ‘owner’ because he is better at chess. Where do we go from here?
z1235,
I appreciate the continued questions as it helps to flesh out these ideas. “Whence property rights” is not that interesting to me as I think it’s obvious we created them to suit our own purposes. “Why these property rights” is more interesting. It is something I’ve put some thought into, but not enough to really work out the particulars (obviously) and I’m not clever enough to spit out one of the perfectly worded single paragraph rebuttals one sees from time to time.
Change of ownership in itself isn’t the issue. Unpredictable change of ownership is. The potential interest to be gained on investment activity is reduced to great extent when the very ownership of your capital is constantly in question. If someone comes and makes an offer you like, then you can accept it without harming these productive incentives. You decided the present good of cash offered was worth the future good of cash gained by continuing with the investment.
There is definitely a difference between “If an offer comes along I can give up this property for other property I want more” and “If a Grandmaster comes along I might have to give up this property”.
You could still never be sure of the length of time your property would stay in your hands.
An assertion perhaps, but I think I’ve provided the logic required to justify it. It also explains what we see in force-based systems seen throughout history. Can you demonstrate how a Chess-based system wouldn’t have these problems or wouldn’t function identically to force-based systems?
There’s more incentives to play chess against others in an attempt to gain more property in a zero sum game rather than laboring to produce wealth and trading voluntarily which will be waiting to be won by any number of people forming a line to claim their right to your property.
If you’re not playing chess to obtain, you’re playing to defend. Why do anything else?
"Haha, ok. So we’ve established ancap will most likely see the return of;
sweatshops and child labor
union busting enforced by the legal code
indentured servitude
and now… dueling!
What a Brave Old World you’ve enviioned."
Wow oh wow do I smell straw burning?
At any rate I don’t understand why the discussion has been so drawn out, simply people would respect some organizations to recognize what pieces of land were owned by whom and enforce property claim. People understand the need for the respect of land, and so therefore this is likely to come about from general consensus about what defines ownership and what institutions should be trusted.
"There’s more incentives to play chess against others in an attempt to gain more property in a zero sum game rather than laboring to produce wealth and trading voluntarily which will be waiting to be won by any number of people forming a line to claim their right to your property.
If you’re not playing chess to obtain, you’re playing to defend. Why do anything else?"
+1. This answers the objections you brought against me.
I appreciate your arguments, as well. We share the same motivations for having this discussion.
Valid point. However, whether owned by myself or the new owner (buyer or better chess player, alike), the factory doesn’t necessarily have to change much of its management or mode of operation. The new owner (the better chess player) would still have every incentive in the world to not jeopardize the value (success) of his new acquisition, just like I did before him. IBM’s operation and profits are not jeopardized by the millions of its ownership shares changing hands every day. So, it’s not immediately obivous that production and wealth creation would be endangered to a great extent.
Yes, there is a difference, as expected with a different scheme.
Yes, there’s uncertainty in the world. The freer a market the more it is characterized by uncertainty, especially compared to controlled, centrally planned schemes. Obviously, that hasn’t been detrimental to prosperity and wealth creation.
My initial premise (assumption) was that societal norms (customs) reflected aesthetic preferences/valuations for chessplaying ability as a property rights determinant. In a free market, these preferences would be reflected in the laws produced by the private arbitrators and enforced by the private enforcers. Force applied toward consistent enforcement of property rights is not violence. Every property rights scheme (including the ‘first-comer owns it’) is a “force-based system”.
So you played chess and haven’t eaten anything all day. If all breadmakers only played chess, too, you couldn’t just quickly go to the store and buy something to eat so you could go back to playing chess again. You’d have to spend some time gardening and raising cattle if your goal was to live to play chess again. My guess would be that, just like in every other property rights scheme, the resources (time, energy, capital) used toward property conflict resolution must be comparably smaller than the resources used toward creating property (wealth), or else there’d be no property left to argue over. The system would have to find a sustainable balance somewhere between (1) all chess, no production, and (2)no chess, all production.
Your argument is equivalent to saying that, in a first-comer property rights scheme, no one would do anything but try to be first everywhere, or die resolving conflicts over the definitions of “here” and “there”. Eventually, a balance between production and conflict-resolution must be struck, or else there’d be neither property to fight over nor agents left to fight over it.
But there’s no point in saving. You have the incentive to produce enough to survive only. Why bother working any more than that when it can be stolen by a skilled chess player on their arbitrary whim. Skilled chess masters will not have the incentives to grow food until it gets to the point where there is little to no food left to gain from challenging others.
Their goal is to live to play chess again, by being so good at chess they can obtain wealth easily. You are faced with two options: become good enough at chess to take what you want, or labor to produce it and pray it doesn’t get stolen by someone who spent that time learning how to be a better chess player. The productive class gets eaten alive by the non-productive class.
The “balance” you’re talking about reaching is how low production will fall until it becomes intolerable. So long as there are people who farm and people who know more about how to play chess than they do about farming, and the farmers are creating more than they themselves can eat… the farmer’s savings are going to be wiped out.
And if you’re a good chess player who beat out some dumb laboring farmer and you don’t consume your ill-gained rewards now, then it’s going to eventually wind up in the hands of a great chess player instead.
“Being first” is more difficult than it sounds, which is why there are entrepraneurs and why they have such large incentives to be there first.
Challenging someone to a chess game is a lot less difficult. Winning against an opponent may be (depending on the opponent), but if someone challenges you the options are to refuse and lose, or play to defend.
What you seem to be saying is that “things cant get so crappy that they won’t work themselves out into a sustainable circumstance a chess-based property rights community”.
Hopefully they can voluntarily leave instead of finding out where that “balance” lies.
Wasn’t this about efficiency or something?
Yes, which is also the case with any property rights scheme, including homesteading. There’s no objectively proper way of resolving homesteading-based conflicts. (“You didn’t actually homestead this square yard, didya? Hence, I was there first.”). If people spent too much time and resources on bickering, and not enough on producing, they’d all be dead, regardless of the property rights scheme in use.
If you own land then you should put up a fence or visual boundary to indicate that you own the land. If you have no fence and it is a large area of land then someone could come on to your land and put up a fence and you could then come upon this person on your land. You could take that person to court saying that you own the land and you could show the documents that prove that. There would be a system of property registration or multiple database of property registration information. I think we would probably see less people owning lots of land and doing nothing with it. In some countries a very small amount of people own large amounts of land and they do not do anything with it. In some countries land would be less of a problem than others as there is more unused land than others. People that already own land would continue to own the land and land that has been owned by the government or has had restrictions on, by the government, would become available. But in some ways all that prevents someone from going on to the land of someone who owns a lot of land that is not blocked off by a fence even with a government is force. In the UK though there is unused land and all the houses are packed together closely and some people say there is a housing shortage. It does seem that way. But then the protected land would be turned in to private property and the UK would end up being one big town.