Yes.
Stratego:Is ownership an inherent relationship between owner and owned, or does it require a social construct?
If by relationship you mean interpersonal relationship, and by social construct you mean the contratual agreement of a group of people, then no and no.
Ownership, in the economic sense (not to be confused with the legal sense) exist even with Robinson Crusoe alone on his Island.
Ownership means "full control of a resource", as understood by Rothbard in MES:
Rothbard in MES: Ownership by one or more owners implies exclusive control and use of the goods owned, and the goods owned are known as property. [...] Whoever performs these functions [i.e. control of the goods] in effect owns these goods as property, regardless of the legal definition of ownership.
Ownership by one or more owners implies exclusive control and use of the goods owned, and the goods owned are known as property.
[...]
Whoever performs these functions [i.e. control of the goods] in effect owns these goods as property, regardless of the legal definition of ownership.
and Mises in Human Action:
Human Action, p682: Ownership means full control of the services that can be derived from a good. This catallactic notion of ownership and property rights is not to be confused with the legal definition of ownership and property rights as stated in the laws of various countries.
Ownership means full control of the services that can be derived from a
good. This catallactic notion of ownership and property rights is not to be
confused with the legal definition of ownership and property rights as stated
in the laws of various countries.
Ownership means superior control of something by a person. That is the relationship you mentioned. As for the social contract, that depends on what you mean. Legitimate ownership requires that the property was acquired voluntarily - but beyond that, nothing is required.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
MacFall: Ownership means superior control of something by a person. That is the relationship you mentioned. As for the social contract, that depends on what you mean. Legitimate ownership requires that the property was acquired voluntarily - but beyond that, nothing is required.
Wouldn't 'superior ownership' entail not being dependant on the state's monopoly of various services (if one is talking about self-ownership), and in effect, require self-sufficiency?
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
intplee: Note: it is not the ability to command a resource which makes someone owner, otherwise a theif would be the owner of whatever he steals. The title of ownership is determined relative to a system of property laws, and therefore, the owner's ability to command a resource is distinct from his right to command it.
You are mixing the economic definition of ownership, and the legal definition.
In economics, a value free discipline, you can't say that someone is the rightful owner or not. The thief, by demonstration his control of a resource previously owned by someone else, effectively take ownership of it.
The legal definition of ownership, which states the context in which the use of state coercion can be used to defend a property title, is different.
If a national socialist state (think nazi germany) says the capitalists own their factories, but the state decides what they can produce, how much, when, at what price, and who they can or cannot sell their factory to, the state effectively owns the factories in the economic sense, and not the capitalists, no matter what is written in a piece of paper in a government court.
sergebeauchamp: intplee: Note: it is not the ability to command a resource which makes someone owner, otherwise a theif would be the owner of whatever he steals. The title of ownership is determined relative to a system of property laws, and therefore, the owner's ability to command a resource is distinct from his right to command it. You are mixing the economic definition of ownership, and the legal definition. In economics, a value free discipline, you can't say that someone is the rightful owner or not. The thief, by demonstration his control of a resource previously owned by someone else, effectively take ownership of it. The legal definition of ownership, which states the context in which the use of state coercion can be used to defend a property title, is different. If a national socialist state (think nazi germany) says the capitalists own their factories, but the state decides what they can produce, how much, when, at what price, and who they can or cannot sell their factory to, the state effectively owns the factories in the economic sense, and not the capitalists, no matter what is written in a piece of paper in a government court.
Actually there's a third definition that is distinct from both the economic and legal definition: the ethical definition based on the product of one's labor, voluntary exchange or gift; or some variation thereof. This may come into conflict with the legal definition, and I find myself using the ethical definition to deconstruct the state enforcement of arbitrary property title claims.
What I think the poster you are responding to was indirectly getting at though is the is/ought dichotomy basically - the distinction between ownership, as in something being controled by someone (this is merely descriptive of that which is effectively "owned" in the present), and a claim of a right to ownership (an ethical claim).
So basically there are three different contexts of "ownership": (1) the mere fact that something is under the control of someone (2) the ethical right to actually control the thing; the justification for why one "ought" to own it (3) the legal construct that either defends the right to control the thing or upholds the control in some way regaurdless or in defiance of the ethical right.
One should be careful not to blur these lines. It would be erroneous or naive to absolutely support or oppose "ownership" as such, divorced from context, a mistake sometimes selectively slipped into and out of by libertarians and non-libertarians alike. The mistake is in either defending the control itself or the legal construct outside of the context of the ethical right (a conservative fallacy), or to oppose the ethical right by confusing it with the legal construct or mere existance of control (a socialist fallacy).
sergebeauchamp: intplee: Note: it is not the ability to command a resource which makes someone owner, otherwise a theif would be the owner of whatever he steals. The title of ownership is determined relative to a system of property laws, and therefore, the owner's ability to command a resource is distinct from his right to command it. You are mixing the economic definition of ownership, and the legal definition. In economics, a value free discipline, you can't say that someone is the rightful owner or not. The thief, by demonstration his control of a resource previously owned by someone else, effectively take ownership of it. The legal definition of ownership, which states the context in which the use of state coercion can be used to defend a property title, is different.
Stratego:That's approximately the distinction I was getting at. The control exercised by a thief would establish the de facto state of inherent ownership determined exclusively in terms of owner and owned without reference to external social constructs. On the other hand, a status of legal ownership would require two litigants each claiming to own something to opt into a common code of law or the like in order to resolve their difference of opinion.
Don't you see though that both of those are irrelevant (or at least secondary) to the principle of the matter? The question that is entirely avoided is the matter of what actually justifies a particular case of ownership. The mere fact that something is in control or owned at the moment or the mere fact that the legal code recognizes and defends said control does not justify it per se. I think that there is an independant normative ethical criteria for legitimate or just ownership that the economic and legal senses of ownership that you refer to must be held up to, and if they do not pass muster then they must be recognized as illegitimate. Otherwise, our only real options are to accept whatever the law happens to recognize as being owned or to consider anything that just so happens to be currently controlled as justified.