Free Capitalist Network - Community Archive
Mises Community Archive
An online community for fans of Austrian economics and libertarianism, featuring forums, user blogs, and more.

Ownership Critique: Your response?

rated by 0 users
This post has 10 Replies | 3 Followers

Top 75 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,008
Points 16,185
Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo Posted: Wed, Jan 19 2011 4:17 PM

The concept of ownership is a complete fraud.  If you accept the concept the ownership, then you must accept the fact that one person can own the entire planet and everything on it.  Or how about the universe?  All reality itself?

this is of course not me saying this but  it is a critique that I have heard of ownership. What are some of your responses to this quote?

My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/

Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises

  • | Post Points: 125
Top 150 Contributor
Male
Posts 550
Points 8,575

If you adhere strictly to a narrow principle of property rights, then sure, you must accept that a person is within his rights to homestead and buy all goods on the planet. So? And not that this person is making any sense to begin with, but where does the fraud come in?

Of course, those who fancy Locke can fall back on the Lockean proviso, that enough and as good is left over for others. But that can easily be taken to the other extreme, in which no one may own anything.

"People kill each other for prophetic certainties, hardly for falsifiable hypotheses." - Peter Berger
  • | Post Points: 5
Top 150 Contributor
Male
Posts 645
Points 9,865
James replied on Wed, Jan 19 2011 4:52 PM

It's a silly non sequitur.

I'm also inclined to think that it's a statist projection, since world government is pretty much where you're forced to run if you cling to basic statist premises when pressed.

Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro
  • | Post Points: 5
Top 75 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,289
Points 18,820
MaikU replied on Wed, Jan 19 2011 5:24 PM

Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo:

The concept of ownership is a complete fraud.  If you accept the concept the ownership, then you must accept the fact that one person can own the entire planet and everything on it.  Or how about the universe?  All reality itself?

this is of course not me saying this but  it is a critique that I have heard of ownership. What are some of your responses to this quote?

 

 

I think it's damn funny. We better discuss it fast, or all libertarian philosophy collapses right now.

"Dude... Roderick Long is the most anarchisty anarchist that has ever anarchisted!" - Evilsceptic

(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 500 Contributor
Male
Posts 266
Points 4,465

By that logic, you can also build a castle in the sky.  But you have no means of getting there do you?

 

All ownership really means in possession.  How can you not accept the idea of possession?

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 25 Contributor
Posts 4,532
Points 84,495
Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 19 2011 5:39 PM

Diminishing returns means that it is actually to the benefit of a person that owns the entire universe to subdivide it and sell it.

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 100 Contributor
Male
Posts 850
Points 13,615

I want to know where he lives. Because he doesn't reject libertarian property rights as such, but apparently _any_ (limited) concept of property though. Very interesting...

The state is not the enemy. The idea of the state is. 

  • | Post Points: 20
Top 75 Contributor
Male
Posts 1,008
Points 16,185

yes... he is another one of those''left'' anarchists

My Blog: http://www.anarchico.net/

Production is 'anarchistic' - Ludwig von Mises

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 150 Contributor
Male
Posts 696
Points 12,900
AnonLLF replied on Sun, Jan 30 2011 7:13 AM

Technically it's possible but in reality no one could achieve that before anyone else homesteaded it.

 

I don't really want to comment or read anything here.I have near zero in common with many of you.I may return periodically when there's something you need to know.

Near Mutualist/Libertarian Socialist.

 

  • | Post Points: 5
Top 200 Contributor
Male
Posts 480
Points 9,370
Moderator

Izzy:
this is of course not me saying this but  it is a critique that I have heard of ownership. What are some of your responses to this quote?
My response would be to simply agree with him. 

Then, I tell him that I am not worried about such a problem because EVEN IF God came down and declared one lowly man to be the rightful owner of the entire planet, the rest of the people will always have an opportunity to threaten a revolt and wrestle that ownership away from him.   Protecting your ownership of property is never cheap.  That is ancap and it is hardly an original problem. 

Before calling yourself a libertarian or an anarchist, read this.  
  • | Post Points: 20
Not Ranked
Male
Posts 87
Points 1,215
Albert replied on Sun, Jan 30 2011 11:42 AM

Yes that argument is usually held by Communists so that the next step in the argument is "since nobody owns anything, the state then has to come in and control everything." (and the secret corollary is that now the state also has the right to kill and confiscate from the "haves" with the blessing of the "have nots")

Here is a possible response.

If nobody owns anything, that is exactly the scenario that would lead to one person or one group (the strongest) taking control and owning or rather controlling everything (temporarily) There would be no courts protecting others from this person or government "controlling" everything, even though they wouldn't call it ownership. But even in these impossible scenarios, some kind of free market rental or illegal use of hunting grounds would evolve and some form of barter would be needed, even if it is sexual favors or being each other bodyguard..

In a world where ownership is recognized, and free enterprise rules apply, it is impossible for one person to own everything because: (It's called the "Who takes out the garbage" argument)

  • He could only become sole owner of everything by trading the last piece of privately owned property for something- what would that be- something the seller now posesses? Defeating the argument. Just like monopolies can only exist with the help of a state, universal ownership can only exist from force, not free trade.
  • Even if only one serf owns, the very last knife or the very last gun just before the ultimate owner confiscates it- that night he could kill him and become the next dictator and so on and so on. What incentives do his serfs have to protect him?
  • How would he pay his presidential guard to protect him? Who would plant his crops? Who would run his power plants? How would he protect his property in all the furthest regions of the universe? What purpose would all the gold in the world serve him if nobody has any product or any service to sell him?
  • | Post Points: 5
Page 1 of 1 (11 items) | RSS