So in this daily, Hoppe says that private property is not a convention.
Hoppe:Contrary to the frequently heard claim that the institution of private property is only a convention, it must be categorically stated: a convention serves a purpose, and it is something to which an alternative exists.
And from this Hoppe argues that property serves the purpose of conflict avoidance, but has no alternatives:
Only private (exclusive) property makes it possible that all otherwise unavoidable conflicts can be avoided. And only the principle of property acquisition through acts of original appropriation, performed by specific individuals at a specific time and location, makes it possible to avoid conflict from the beginning of mankind onward, because only the first appropriation of some previously unappropriated good can be conflict-free — simply, because — per definitionem — no one else had any previous dealings with the good.
Although I agree with what he says here, I'm not convinced that property still can't be called conventional.
Any current arrangement of property is a matter of convention. For example, married couples may have joint legal claims to property or they may keep their belongings separate. Communes may share their property among members while other societies delineate property by household or individual. These examples are conventions within property.
If the concept of property as a whole isn't a convention though, it wouldn't be for the reasons Hoppe explains. His example of the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet being conventional are akin to my ideas of property arrangements being conventional. In other words, he would need to compare property as a class with alphabets as a class, or, property assignments as a case with a given alphabet as a case.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
I think it is.
"Other People You come across another person. He has different skills and a different environment. What the two of you can do is that each spends his time doing what he's best at, and then you trade with each other, making you both better off. This means you'll be important to each other. After you've specialized, those skills will keep improving. A third and fourth person show up. You'll only do a trade if you think it benefits you. Someone has to offer you that good of a price where you can stop making it yourself; and that is based on your skills, environment and wants. This is the way all can coordinate their production, which they also keep adjusting over time. Becoming wealthier here is a case of producing and trading a lot of what the others value. Interfering with the work or the trading of the individuals means there will be less to trade or it will distort the coordination of work in the group. To prevent this, the concept property can be adopted. It means: what you make out of nature becomes yours, and you are free to trade it. You can choose to hold your property in common ownership with someone else, but it means you stop checking if you're materially benefited between you and that person, which would be the case under trading."
http://www.vforvoluntary.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=82
We can reason why, objectively, private property makes sense and why, objectively, arguments against it are inconsistent or fallacious in another way, but it still needs to be adopted in society.
I think that what Hoppe is saying is that it's axiomatic.
It seems to me like there is no alternative to the general notion of property or rules to coordinate action, but there is certainly an alternative to the liberal conception of private property through first use or consensual transfer. That none of these alternatives are all that good does not mean they are not conceivable. "All that which a person holds is his property, and once he lets go of it the good becomes unowned" is a valid norm which people could adopt and respect, and among those who do so there will be no conflicts. I doubt this norm would ever arise, as superior rules would 'outcompete' it, but it's conceivable. It could happen.
I would say the objection of Gene Callahan and others applies here. These rules only prevent conflict if enough people adopt them - if they become norms. To say these norms allow us to avoid conflicts is circular.
^
Yep, there are other alternatives as well such as geolibertarianism. The Lockean property rights are definitely not the only solution for conflict avoidance, even though it is probably more inline with human nature than the other types, and more conductive to economic growth.
anything where you can shrug your shoulders, say "who cares", and continue asserting your will is all that matters - there is no need for anyone to try to make any more ornate statements abouts anything
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
Perhaps a given property arrangement is conventional, like a given alphabet, but the concept of property in general is akin to language in general. We can hardly debate the existence of language, as we must use it to debate, and we can likewise hardly debate the existence of property - the fact that used stuff is owned - because we implicitly recognise property rights by debating or negotiating our point of view and differences instead of struggling against each other brutally in a state of nature. Didn't Hoppe base his argumentation ethic on such an axiom?
I don't think property is so natural to human beings, before agriculture property barely played any part. Humans through most of their history lived in small communities, so a communitarian, socialist approach is more natural to them than property rights and individualism.
Maybe there was and still is the human animal, and then there were human beings as well, and what is natural for the one is not entirely natural for the other.