The Basis of Ownership

[Duder]

Greetings, all -

James Peter, Xena and others got into a very interesting exchange in another thread, about wealth and its distribution.

James Peter posed a very good question which I believe deserves careful consideration. Where does title to property come from? What exactly does it mean to own something?

Many people hold dear the sentiment that the government should keep its hands off of what is mine. So how do things get to be mine?

If we say that it is the work you put into something that establishes your ownership of it, how does it happen that some poor people work very hard but possess very little while some rich people work very little but possess much?

If we say that it is your power and ingenuity - your ability to capture and hold onto property with cleverness and force - that establishes ownership, then are we saying that whatever you can grab is rightfully yours? Why, then, would thievery be wrong?

Does society, through the instrument of government, use rational principles to determine who owns what? But if what is mine is based on a government blessing, how can anyone consistently say that the government should keep its hands off of what is mine?

What does it mean to own something?



Jesus, beholding, him loved him, and said unto him, one thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

[Teallaura]

Government protects property rights - it does not establish them. Does define limits, however.

Think this through - do you really believe government establishes your right to live? Or does it merely recognize, protect and regulate same.

[$cirisme]

This is some ploy to steal TWeb from us, I can feel it.

[NeilUnreal]

I think the concept of ownership is a social construct with psychological roots in biology. It's obvious that many mammals and birds have innate concepts of ownership. Basic mechanisms for asserting ownership go all the way back to invertebrates, though it's unlikely that any reflective psychology is involved at those levels.

For humans it's more complicated because our concepts of ownership have roots in social constructs which can change from society to society. Not only that, but we also have hierarchies of ownership. The members of a community can hold some things in common, while families own some things specifically, a family can own things in common, while individuals within that family can own things specifically.

Sometimes even these hierarchies are not simple. For example, it's possible that one may be considered to own something specifically within a family or community, and yet those ownership rights do not extend to one's removing it from the family or community.

Beyond the bare essentials of subsistence and shelter, everything we as humans own we owe in part to a community. I may own a car, but I only own that car because I worked for the money; but I was only able to work for that money because I live in a social environment which makes that work and the subsequent transfer of wealth possible. I can only keep the car because a social system exists which punishes someone bigger or meaner who would seek to take it from me.

It's like George Carlin pointed out: when you fly over a city and look down on the houses, all you're seeing is little piles of people's stuff. And all wealth is just a swapping of stuff for stuff and work for work. Everything else: money, titles, deeds, IOUs, banks, copyrights, etc., are just shorthand ways of keeping track of those little piles of stuff and little bits of individual work; nothing else in wealth has any meaning.

And beyond subsistence, and beyond that shorthand, even those little piles of stuff and units of work have precious little meaning outside of a social community. And though various societies have come up with different nuances for administering that ownership, it all seems rooted in those basic biological hierarchies by which nearly all humans psychologically judge the idea of ownership.

One of the great puzzles of our current age (i.e. the last 500 years), is how to to reconstruct that administration of wealth when traditional boundaries of class, family, and geography change more rapidly than our biology. Adam Smith took a crack at it and made some pretty good guesses, but his path left the door open to robber barons and industry run rampant. Karl Marx took a shot and got a few things right (though many fewer than Smith, IMHO), but his path led to worker ennui, political corruption, and despotism. FDR and his generation worked on the matter and improved things for a lot of people, but they failed to find ways for people at the lower end of the scale to remain self-supporting and meaningfully productive and off the dole.

I think we're still waiting for our Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein of economics.

-Neil

[Soyeong]

[quote]If we say that it is your power and ingenuity - your ability to capture and hold onto property with cleverness and force - that establishes ownership, then are we saying that whatever you can grab is rightfully yours? Why, then, would thievery be wrong?[quote]
I think you can claim anything to be yours, but it is not really yours if you don't have the power to back it up. We have social and political systems set up to provide restrictions on the proper way to claim power and to protect the power of people that was rightfully claimed. For example, I could take someone's car and claim it as mine, but since I didn't go through the proper methods, it is not recognized by others as mine. However, to me it is mine until they have the power to reverse the transaction.

[Gideon Brown]

What does it mean to own something?

I think this is a fantastic question. I've been thinking about it myself for some time.

The reason I've been thinking about it has to do with the concept of 'intellectual property' - the idea that because you wrote or invented something, you somehow have a share in 'ownership' of any duplicates of the idea or item. More and more, I've come to think that this is completely arbitrary and is, at best, a flawed concept.

But - then what? If it's arbitrary to say that I 'own' an idea just because I invented it, then why is it not arbitrary to say that I own an item - for any reason? This laptop computer that I'm typing on right now - I 'own' it. But why? Who made up the idea that you could 'own' property? If 'intellectual property' is an arbitarily 'made-up' right (and I maintain that it is), then why isn't owning property in general a 'made-up' right?

I dunno... I'm still grappling with it. But that's what I've been thinking. Is there such a field as 'the philosophy of ownership'? :nsm:

[Teallaura]

Personally, I think the idea of agency actually better describes what we call ownership. True property rights belong to God - He created it all, including the materials to create with. He loans us the use as His agents (very similar to stewardship in concept - arguably the same basic concept) but retains actual proprietary rights.

That said, we discuss our agency functions in terms of our own property rights - I would submit that so long as we recognize the ultimate property rights of God that this is not problematic for my thesis.

The idea of intellectual property is merely an extension of invention or patent rights - the idea is that you possess proprietary rights to your own work where that work is not contracted or otherwise supported by another (those property rights usually go to the employer/supporter). It's not particularly arbitrary - it's ultimately an extension of your ownership of your own work.

We exchange proprietary rights by the use of currency - but currency itself is a reflection of our work. Basically, our ownership of our work translates into ownership of things. Work, however, is not limited to the communist concept of labor. Work is just getting things done. If a person gets things done by investment rather than physical labor they are still working and therefore have proprietary rights to the fruits of that work. (Granting that anything can be abused - but that's equally true of the Marxist view of proprietary rights.)

Government performs a regulatory function to protect and to arbitrate proprietary rights - but does not establish those rights per se. Those rights are created by God via His agency. We don't own it but we use it in His stead and collect the profits as His agents, not our own. As a part of that agency - and human imperfection - we use government to regulate proprietary (or areas of management which would be closer to the actual condition) rights in order to conduct the business He has given us via His agency. This doesn't say we don't occassionally 'create' proprietary rights where none actually exist (although I'm skeptical of this prospect) or that our regulations are always fair and equitable - but in a fallen world why would we expect them to be?


That confusing enough? :wink:

[Dee Dee Warren]

I think this is a fantastic question. I've been thinking about it myself for some time.

The reason I've been thinking about it has to do with the concept of 'intellectual property' - the idea that because you wrote or invented something, you somehow have a share in 'ownership' of any duplicates of the idea or item. More and more, I've come to think that this is completely arbitrary and is, at best, a flawed concept.

But - then what? If it's arbitrary to say that I 'own' an idea just because I invented it, then why is it not arbitrary to say that I own an item - for any reason? This laptop computer that I'm typing on right now - I 'own' it. But why? Who made up the idea that you could 'own' property? If 'intellectual property' is an arbitarily 'made-up' right (and I maintain that it is), then why isn't owning property in general a 'made-up' right?

I dunno... I'm still grappling with it. But that's what I've been thinking. Is there such a field as 'the philosophy of ownership'? :nsm:

You don't own your laptop. It is mine. Give it back.

[Dee Dee Warren]

This is some ploy to steal TWeb from us, I can feel it.

Me too.

[Conductor42]

Here's a definition - although it's talking about ethics as well:


...to act justly means that a person employs only justly acquired means - means originally appropriated, produced, or contractually acquired from a previous owner - and that he employs them so that no physical damage to others' property results.Quoted from "The Ethics and Economics of Private Property"
By Hans-Hermann Hoppe

The others I agree with, while much better, literally span 3 or 4 pages because they go much deeper into ethics, etc. and I don't think I'll bore anyone with a bunch of economists arguing about ethics :tongue:

Personally, once property rights have been established, I don't think there is much of a problem. For example: Jane owns Y. I offer Jane X amount of Z to trade for Y. Jane agrees, and the trade is completed. I don't think there's any problem in those scenarios. What seems the most problematic, IMO, is when there is no property owner established.

[Zeluvia]

I agree with Neil alot. In the animal kingdom, territory is vital to the survival of the pack or of the individual. Cats and dogs are still territorial, and the way they get and keep territory is by taking it.

I think women are more territorial than men. Xena and I in the same kitchen would result in one of us being stabbed or frying panned.

But when it comes down to it, your "territory" is what you need to survive. Cain and Able is a good allegorical story for the conflict between herders, who need large open territory and consider the beasts property and the land free, and farmers, who need to completely control and defend the land. This same difference was played out every time a herding culture met a farming culture, with violent results.

[Conductor42]

Xena and I in the same kitchen would result in one of us being stabbed or frying panned.

Alright people, the match is on!
Tickets start at 25$ a piece.
Betting odds are... erm, nevermind.
I value my life.

:eek:

[Jim_Casy]

I think you can claim anything to be yours, but it is not really yours if you don't have the power to back it up.

I completely disagree. If we are talking about "rights" of property and not just the fact of possession or formal deeds or whatnot, then property rights are like any other rights - they exist whether or not they're being violated; by definition, rights have to exist a priori for the notion of a violation of rights to make any sense at all.


We have social and political systems set up to provide restrictions on the proper way to claim power and to protect the power of people that was rightfully claimed.

And the meek shall inherit the earth, eh?

States cannot make rights, nor define a "proper way to claim power" - they can only be the instrument by which some people exert power over or with another. To assume that its "authority" rests in itself is to make a grave metaphysical error, and to assume that rights exist by the action of the State is to come dangerously close to this position. A person cannot serve two masters.

[Jim_Casy]

First, let me say that I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I've got a lot to criticize, too.


I think the concept of ownership is a social construct with psychological roots in biology. It's obvious that many mammals and birds have innate concepts of ownership...

And though various societies have come up with different nuances for administering that ownership, it all seems rooted in those basic biological hierarchies by which nearly all humans psychologically judge the idea of ownership...

One of the great puzzles of our current age ... is how to to reconstruct that administration of wealth when traditional boundaries of class, family, and geography change more rapidly than our biology.

What "biological hierarchies" are you talking about? It also seems like you're conflating territoriality with a concept of "ownership", to which it isn't necessarily connected. Don't try to reduce everything to "biology". We are human beings, afterall.



For humans it's more complicated because our concepts of ownership have roots in social constructs which can change from society to society. Not only that, but we also have hierarchies of ownership.

Then it seems unlikely that "concepts" like "ownership" have a biological basis. It looks like your use of the term "biology" is a modern metaphysical makeshift for "ontology" - an attempt to reach the being and essence of people. Though I see concepts in their historical change (like Marxists), I still hold a fairly metaphysical notion of property which I'll get into.



The members of a community can hold some things in common, while families own some things specifically, a family can own things in common, while individuals within that family can own things specifically.

Sometimes even these hierarchies are not simple. For example, it's possible that one may be considered to own something specifically within a family or community, and yet those ownership rights do not extend to one's removing it from the family or community.

I think you've hit it here: a labor theory of value posits that property comes from the mixing of labor with material; on a more philosophical level, it's you embodying/expressing yourself in the objects of the world around you. When multiple people use the same areas or work on the same things, many different layers of "property" mingle, many different identifications and "selves". As such, resistance is felt when someone wants to cart off something which embodies a part of you.

EF Schumacher also mentions these distinctions in ownership as they relate to scale: personal property and possessions are uniquely personal; workshops dissipate the sense of identification and ownership among those working there (as opposed to those outside); and finally, large-scale enterprises dilute a sense of ownership beyond anything personal or private. In cases where labor and home is freely chosen, I think that psychological identification is a fair indicator of the level of "ownership" a person possesses - the problem is that most labor and home lives are not uncoerced, thus we get confused and need to have these conversations about "ownership" and "property", since these designations are no longer self-evident.



Beyond the bare essentials of subsistence and shelter, everything we as humans own we owe in part to a community. I may own a car, but I only own that car because I worked for the money; but I was only able to work for that money because I live in a social environment which makes that work and the subsequent transfer of wealth possible.

Bingo.



I can only keep the car because a social system exists which punishes someone bigger or meaner who would seek to take it from me.

Someone bigger or meaner like your loan officer? Nah, the social system protects him.:wink:

On the other hand, people don't take cars because they are "big" or "mean"; not to be a reductionist, but psychology and sociology show definite patterns to this kind of behavior, and none of it correlates to some innate characteristic. Evidence shows that environmental factors far outweigh other influences in the The same social systems that punishes these people is the same social system which produced them in the first place.

getting up on rhetorical soapbox...

Police don't solve problems or resolve issues, they merely contain them. That may be fine in the short-term to deal with an emergency, but ultimately the root issues need to be addressed. Why does a social system generate this kind of behavior? And if the role of the police is to contain rather than "solve" these issues, isn't it reasonable to assume the role of the police in this social system is to maintain the social system that produces these issues in the first place? As such, it feels to me that the choice not to address roots causes is the choice to sacrifice both perpetrators and victims of crime to feed the current social system with all its power relations; as such, it's mammonistic idolatry.
getting off rhetorical soapbox...



Adam Smith took a crack at it and made some pretty good guesses, but his path left the door open to robber barons and industry run rampant. Karl Marx took a shot and got a few things right (though many fewer than Smith, IMHO), but his path led to worker ennui, political corruption, and despotism. FDR and his generation worked on the matter and improved things for a lot of people, but they failed to find ways for people at the lower end of the scale to remain self-supporting and meaningfully productive and off the dole.

I think we're still waiting for our Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein of economics.

Well, first quibble is that Adam Smith was not a laissez-faire industrialist and was critical of the tendencies among mercantilists that became "robber-barons" of future generations. John C. Médaille (http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.html) wrote an interesting article on Smith called The Forgotten Agrarian (http://www.medaille.com/the%20forgotten%20agrarian.pdf) - it's a good read. Second quibble, I think you need to read more Marx if you think that he "got right ... many fewer" things than Adam Smith. I can develop a list of readings around his "lacks" if you're interested in discussing it. (I'm not a Marxist in any orthodox sense, but I can't deny his genius, and I think that too many people in North America get a truncated caricature of him)

As far as the rest of it goes, neither Smith nor Marx "took a crack" at the economy - they theorized about it. FDR was more in a position to take cracks, but still, the economy isn't organized and instructed by one person or set of people, but is made of a mass of interdependent activities. This is why an Einstein of economics wouldn't make much difference without a mass of people eager to reshape their economic relations. An Einstein of economics has to propagate these theories to the multiple to use them to change economic reality. At that point, such an Einstein ceases to be a theorist and becomes a revolutionist.

[Sheepdog]

James Peter posed a very good question which I believe deserves careful consideration. Where does title to property come from? What exactly does it mean to own something?

in our society, arguably, it extends from the Christian tradition, which extends from the Jewish tradition (e.g. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and the implications thereof), which extends etc etc.



Many people hold dear the sentiment that the government should keep its hands off of what is mine. So how do things get to be mine?

i won't bore anyone by rehashing what others have said. though i do propose an interesting social experiment. next time you are about to go into a board meeting, bring in a manila folder with various documents in it (preferably relevant for the meeting, though for our purposes it doesn't matter). Take the documents and spread them out over the table in front of you, as far as your arms can reach. Then, watch people as they come in and take a seat at the table.

You've effectively established "your territory" at the meeting table. there is certainly something biological, or at least subconcious, going on here.


If we say that it is the work you put into something that establishes your ownership of it, how does it happen that some poor people work very hard but possess very little while some rich people work very little but possess much?

unfortunately, it's not just the effort put in that matters, but the value. if i create a widget which streamlines some manufacturing process, saving companies millions of dollars a year, i have "earned" a portion of those millions. certainly the worker who actually makes the widget should earn some of that as well, but not as much as far as the market place is concerned. and this makes sense, because that worker wouldn't even be making that widget if i didn't invent it in the first place.

the moral of the story is, then, that workers should work to get off the assembly line and into the widget research and development department. figuratively speaking.

[edit to add:]
this, by the way, is one item on the monstrous lists of why the New Deal failed to lift people out of poverty. it was second world war that brought back economic prosperity. F.D. Roosevelt, probably with good intentions, sought to give people jobs and work to do, even if that work wasn't meaningful. you had cases as extreme as people digging ditches one week, then filling them in the next. FDR bought into a flawed economic theory which, like your questions, didn't take into account the actual value of the work. it didn't matter how much federal cash was spent, it was believed that as long as you give people work to do, they'll fill their bellies and be happy. therefore, the economy will turn around, and we would prosper again. the problem is, aside from a few projects like with the utilities, there was no value created by the work. and arguably, where there was value, it was outstripped by the resources expended.

in the end, the only thing these projects accomplished was that they filled the bellies of the workers and their families. don't misunderstand, that is a good thing, but it only lasted the few weeks / months the projects ran for. the cycle repeated itself with each new project, but in the end society was no better off. i would say we were worse off, since funds were wasted that could have been better used elsewhere.
[end edit]



If we say that it is your power and ingenuity - your ability to capture and hold onto property with cleverness and force - that establishes ownership, then are we saying that whatever you can grab is rightfully yours? Why, then, would thievery be wrong?

as noted, it requires contract (verbal, written, or what have you) between two parties. i should not steal something that the owner doesn't want to part with, but i may purchase it if he is willing to make a deal.

the concept of thievery, by the way, implies the concept of ownership. if i steal something, it implies that that thing is owned by someone other than myself.


Does society, through the instrument of government, use rational principles to determine who owns what? But if what is mine is based on a government blessing, how can anyone consistently say that the government should keep its hands off of what is mine?

simplistically, government is just society's agreement with itself to forgo "vigilante justice" and set up third party system to settle disputes. there is more to it than that, but in sum, government's purpose is to maintain domestic and interstate tranquility.

the problem occurs when the government, contrary to that purpose, creates and promotes class envy. that is the implication behind "government should keep its hands off what is mine." set aside the fact that it isn't true: as part of our agreement with ourselves, we have agreed to finance that agreement through taxation. but what happens when government goes beyond that burden, and decides that not only does it resolve real disputes (theft, violent crimes, etc.) but it hast to resolve ideological disputes. not only shall we litigate between the real thieved and the thief, but the perceived or theoretical. this "make all people equal at all costs" mentality is more harmful than beneficial. rather than making all equal, the government creates two new classes; rather than the haves and have nots, you have the taxed and the welfare class. Rather than create equality, this mentality creates *MORE* class strife. furthermore, it cripples the marketplace, driving up prices on essential goods like food and clothing, and bumping the least essential workers out of the employment roles. In other words, the law of unintended consequences kick in, dealing more harm than good to the poorest and lowest skilled: indeed those we are seeking to help!

Personally, i would rather talk about personal responsibility. there is no freedom (including property rights) without responsibility. responsibility without freedom is tyranny. it's noble to want to give a man a fish so he may eat a day. certainly. of all people i'll be the last to criticize voluntary philanthropy. but, it is better to teach a man to fish so he may eat his whole lifetime. i don't mind supporting a "welfare" scheme, but only if it lifts people up so that if they can work they will.





Jesus, beholding, him loved him, and said unto him, one thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

such verses imply personal property rights. if the rich man didn't own his property, it would not be his to sell and give to the poor.

[Genesius]

I once heard Peter Fonda talk about how the reason he owns a boat is because it's the only place he can truly live and claim to be his.

He suggested that people who think they own their property should think about what would happen should you stop paying property taxes.

[Storico]

I think you really only own what you don't owe anyone something for. What you build with your own hands is yours. Your ideas are yours. What you purchase and pay for in full is yours. I've always found "house ownership" a little interesting because, really, are you ACTUALLY going to have it be yours always? While you're using it, you've got it... but you always owe the government for something, be it property taxes or land taxes... and if you die, it isn't yours anymore. If you go bankrupt, it isn't yours anymore. Your house can potentially be taken from you, legally. So can anything you haven't paid for in full.

Of course, anything, owed for or not, can be stolen illegally, but that isn't really the issue.

Some people would say "I own my own life, my life is mine and my body is mine to do with as I see fit". I disagree. I see my body much like I see my home. It's mine to live in while I'm here, but since I didn't build it myself and since I'm in it only for as long as something else/someone else determines, I don't "own" it. It isn't mine as property, it's mine as a dwelling place. I've realized that lately when I look back and see how different my philosophy used to be. Back when I thought it was mine to be dangerous with, I lived accordingly and quickly found out that our bodies are no more ours, that our lives are no more ours alone, than our houses are.

There's good news, though. When a house or other property is repossessed, it's taken by people who probably care little or nothing for the house or property, other than in a monetary sense. Our lives are different. When God takes our lives back, it's only because they have always been His.

[Teallaura]

:thumb:

I like it! Has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, but I like it!




:wink:

[Storico]

I like philosophy, not economics. :hehe: :tongue:

[joel]

First of all, I agree with those who have said God owns everything but makes us agents, and in that sense we say we have property rights in a legal sense.
So the question is how does this ownership come about:



If we say that it is your power and ingenuity - your ability to capture and hold onto property with cleverness and force - that establishes ownership, then are we saying that whatever you can grab is rightfully yours? Why, then, would thievery be wrong?

Anything that you aquire by initiation of force or fraud against another person is not your property. The original owner still owns it.



Does society, through the instrument of government, use rational principles to determine who owns what?Absolutely not.



If we say that it is the work you put into something that establishes your ownership of it, how does it happen that some poor people work very hard but possess very little while some rich people work very little but possess much?
In a state of nature, no one owns anything but themselves. But when they create something out of materials that they own or no one owns, then they own that creation. If someone finds copper on the ground that no one owns, and creates something with it, then they own their own creation. If someone creates a fruitful field on land that no one owns, then that person owns the field. Etc.
As for your question, why someone could work very hard but possess very little & vice versa. There are a few possible reasons:
1) It is possible that one person's work creates more than another person's work. It is not the effort that counts, but what you create.
2) One case in which you do not automatically own your own creation is when you have entered a contract with another person to create something for him. Essentially, you voluntarily agree to give him the fruit of your labor, in exchange for whatever his obligation is in the contract (e.g., wages). You both benefit from the contract (otherwise one of you would not enter it voluntarily), but it is still possible for one party to benefit more than the other party. As long as it is voluntary for all parties involved, it is just.

[joel]

The members of a community can hold some things in common, while families own some things specifically, a family can own things in common, while individuals within that family can own things specifically.

Sometimes even these hierarchies are not simple. For example, it's possible that one may be considered to own something specifically within a family or community, and yet those ownership rights do not extend to one's removing it from the family or community.There's no such thing as a collective property right. Only individual rights.



everything we as humans own we owe in part to a community. I may own a car, but I only own that car because I worked for the money; but I was only able to work for that money because I live in a social environment which makes that work and the subsequent transfer of wealth possible. I can only keep the car because a social system exists which punishes someone bigger or meaner who would seek to take it from me.Definitely. We must protect all individual rights, if we are going to be able to exercise our property rights.



...nothing else in wealth has any meaning.The meaning of wealth is the ability to acomplish purposes.



And beyond subsistence, and beyond that shorthand, even those little piles of stuff and units of work have precious little meaning outside of a social community.An individual's self, creative work, and property that increases the ability for accomplishing purposes is very meaningful (valuable) to himself, apart from the collective.

[joel]

But when it comes down to it, your "territory" is what you need to survive.
Now this is distorted thinking. You are equating needs with rights, which is absurd. No one has the right to something (i.e., deserves or is owed it), simply by needing it. Such a philosophy would allow all kinds of injustice.

Furthermore, needs can conflict but rights cannot. Two people may need the same thing to survive, but it is a logical contradiction to say that they both have a right to the same thing.