I have debated a friend of mine, who also believes in anarchism, on the issue of whether or not there is legitimacy in nature for "property." He holds that there is no real justification for property in nature. I disagree and usually site Madison (Federalist #10) just because he makes it simple. Since people have variations in faculty ability, then they have a right to work for glasses to fix vision, a cane to help walking, etc.
Now, this kid really doesn't read anything, but says that those are all invented reasons and artificial justifications. He reminds me of Max Stirner (An Extreme Egoist Anarchist) who basically says "Property" is whatever you can acquire and prevent others from having. A kind of darwinistic, nihilisitic, anarachy and property theory. But in reading on this point of view i found this; ILLEGALISM. A philosophic justification to live a life of crime. It is a "type" of anarchy.
I had never heard of this, but it basically means that even though you need glasses and worked hard to acquire them to correct naturally bad vision and if you are not big enough to fight the person who is trying to take them off of your face, you're shit out of luck. I retorted his claim on this, "Well if that's the case extreme violence would prevail. Murder would be the only recourse a weaker person would have." If someone legitimately thought that they could just take and keep what they can, it amounts to this illegalism, something i had never heard of. I would have thought it called piracy...
I'm assuming most people here do not agree with this point of view as markets kind of require property in the parameters for society to even develop, but what do people think of this? If you were to converse with this kid, what retort could there possibly be to combat that? It should be self- evident, but he doesn't think so...
There is no ultimate justification for property; a justification of anything is based purely upon value. If one values society then one must value SOME sort of property norm, it doesn't even have to be private but there must some legitimate and lasting claim to hold physical goods without the threat of force. If this does not exist then there will indeed by violence and domination by the strongest party, such would only be anarchism for a short time before disintegrating into statism once more by necessity.
I would point out that egoists such as Benjamin Tucker claimed that even though might makes right, basic human goodness as well as self-interest would bring about general law and collective defense.
So basically some norm must be accepted for society to survive, otherwise there will be a war of man against man until the strongest party wins and forms a state to consolidate its holdings.
One must abhore violence and respect property if society is to survive.
It is a shame that the legacy of Max Stirner is only preserved by fringe political theorists and anarchists who do not understand him. Stirner was a philosopher and an ontologist, notthe founder of an ad hoc political ideology, nor is he a moral philosopher or some post structuralist "anti-concept" non philosopher - anyone who thinks otherwise simply does not "get it". His ontology is 100% true, and neccesary for Austrian economics to exist and to understand how to come up with biological narratives to help explain society. He furthermore turned / clarified / aped Hegelian Idealism to it's more essentialist Aristotelian aspects and hammered on the ontological consequences of such a thing. This is an indespensible foundation when considering the importance of the subjective in the social sciences. Stirner ought be embraced, especially by Austrian economists, as a true forebearer into the importance of subjectivism within the social sciences.
There is a very obvious answer to this. We simply aren't designed that way as a whole, it is not in good custom - the same holds true for any social animal. A "war of all against all" type of animal is not a social one, and in the fact that one comes up with a sociological theory, they simply undermined their position by stating such a case. Even in the world of the subjective, there is still the "inter-subjective", and there are very real consequences of those actions that we can study and talk about in universal laws.
"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
@vive
provide some links to useful reading and try not to speak down on people. Your post sounds very....egotistical.
You wrote a whole paragraph on the ontological, which i didn't consider, but you could use a lesson in rhetoric to soften the blow of your mighty intellect on us hoi polloi.
You need to specify what type of links you want.
Either way, I don't have much online links for Stirner - most of the commentary I have on him is in 4 or 5 books that I don't think are online...though all of his primary texts are online for free. If you want a link to bhis works or links to commentary on him you can find on amazon, let me know.
There is this, as far as his relation with Hegel, if that is what your concern was:
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/maxundhegel.html
And there is this essay which goes into Aristotlianism the ontological, Austrian Econ, and very briefly mention how Hegel could be taken in such a context:
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/articles/menger.html
Those are my best guesses as what you may want.
And there is this essay which goes into Aristotlianism, the ontological, Austrian Econ, and very briefly mention how Hegel could be taken in such a context.
In a civilized society there will be cases where people try to forcefully take property or prevent other people from coming on to land that they do not even rightfully own.
But this sort of thing happens in today's society. Take the recent case of the woman who had rented her house out to people who stopped paying the rent. Under squatting laws in the UK, they remained at the property for several months after not paying. They ended up stealing all the furniture from the premises. Remember this is with a state in place. Sure not all countries have such lenient squatting laws. But theft and the threat of other people over powering other people by force is still apparent. Whether the government of today's society makes such a difference to that matter is the debatable aspect.
Without the government police that we have today would we end up with a few sets of violent groups that would own all the property through force? I would hope we are more civilized than that, but at the least their would be competition... (joke)
On the source of ethics/norms/morality (including "property") from Hayek on Spontaneous Order and Constitutional Design by Boykin posted in this thread recently: