I'd make the argument that what emerges as an economy cannot exist with some "shared" acceptance (meaning social norms at a minimum) for resolving disputes and for defining property. Even more so, I'd argue that the economic actions and the products of those productive efforts are directly related in kind and scope to the type of political technology that the social group has.
In an audio lecture I was listening to, Rothbard is speaking about hunter/gatherer societies and the "superabundance" of land in such a society means that other than shelter, clothing, houses, tools, and current foodstores, there's no concept of property in the land, because there's no scarcity. Or it there is scarcity, might makes right, if you want the animals in this area, you chase out the other guy.
In order to reach the next level of productive capability (agriculture) the property concept had to expand to include physical land and the natural resources of that land in order to enable higher order food production like raising herds of domesticated animals and raising food crops. We had to increase the productive output of the natural resources, instead of waiting for it to naturally produce what we needed to live.
One can imagine a hunter-gatherer tribe, who comes upon a tribe engaged in farming. To the hunter-gatherer the rule has always been, take from the land. No one owns the land, if you want the land someone else has, move them out.
These property concepts have a root fact (an IS) at their core though, which is that two people can't use the same matter (in this case the food arising naturally or through productive effort) at the same time. When there was enough land, and one could just move somewhere else and get food, this is fine. There's no pressure to come up with new norms to deal with these disputes. The weaker tribe just moves somewhere else and gets slightly lower quality food (or keeps moving and finds a new location that's even better).
But no matter where you go, humans are so significantly more intelligent than the rest of other land-based competing species, we can not only survive in most of the different terrain and climates on the earth, we can adapt to and thrive in them. This capability is centered in our ability to accumulate technology. We reuse the naturally occuring resources in new ways that enable a higher level of production. Fire, Clubs, clothing, shelter, weaving, pottery, animal domestication and husbandry, etc. This is going to lead to an expansion of population and new selective pressures that force new technology to be invented, or force us to stop expandng.
At the end of the day, there will be a small set of basic fundamental requirements that will provide the boundaries for human expansion:
Any type of property arrangement is going to have natural side effects associated with it. Meaning that social norms related to dispute resolution over use of resources will provide a substrate from which a culture and it's economic production will emerge.
Collective ownership has very specific side effects. Collective ownership means that the only productive use you get from the resource is what you can maximize in the short term due to the potential use by others. It's the equivalent of renting. Private ownerhips allows you to examine the social and economic ecosystem and plan for the long term profit from the property.
No ownership means there is superabundance, and there is insufficient economic value to be gained from the resource (see oxygen, salt water at sea, etc) from stewardship.
Anyway, my point was that if one examines human society in this way, we see that productive efforts designed to enhance survival necessarily produce social norms that resolve the resource allocation problem which arises from scarcity. The nature and shape of the social norms provide a substrate from which human society emerges as a phenomena. Those norms that enable more efficient productive efforts will thrive and dominate in competition with other norms within a social group. And when groups with different social norms bump into each other those with norms that enable higher levels of production will thrive in competition with those with norms that don't produce higher levels of production.
The IS (vs. Ought) construction for private property is about the productive use of natural resources to enhance the survival of the individual. That is the IS criteria which provides the selective pressure.
I'd like to hear comments on this issue. I'm most concerned that Natural Rights Law is pursuing some way of resolving the Is/Ought Problem by varying obvious logical fallacies, like appeal to authority (God arguments), or one of my favorites, "Everyone agrees that <some subjective value> is Right".
Collectivist theories of all types, need to be recast in terms of dispute resolution and de facto ownership assignment, because regardless of what anyone says at the end of the day, one man directs an instance of matter. Regardless of how many people work in concert on a project the emergent behavior consists of actions by individuals on specific instances of matter in specific locations at specific times. If those actions and the consequences of them are not tied directly to the actors you end up with potentially destructive positive feedback loops.
I say potentially destructive, because the facts are they aren't always destructive, because in any complex system there will be other signals and pressures in the system that can mitigate or mask the destructive feedback signals. But all of our explosively destructive systemic failures can be traced to positive feedback loops.
we see that productive efforts designed to enhance survival necessarily produce social norms that resolve the resource allocation problem which arises from scarcity.
Even with that given, politics comes from discrepancies that people have in their economic situation.
there's no concept of property in the land, because there's no scarcity. Or it there is scarcity, might makes right, if you want the animals in this area, you chase out the other guy.
This is the opposite of "political capital." Or "social norm."
Philosophy (if they have one) ------------------------------------- Economic Circumstance ------------------------------------ Political System