An interesting question I found pertaining to the nature of property:
In 1987, Plaintiff lost an expensive watch while attending a company picnic at a city park. When he realized the watch had been lost, he and his friends searched the grounds for an hour without success. He posted several signs in the area in which he described the lost watch, provided his telephone number, asked the finder of the watch to contact him, and indicated that he would pay a $50 reward for the return of the watch. (The signs lasted about two weeks before rain and wind ruined them.) In addition, Plaintiff circulated copies of the posted signs among coworkers.
In 2020, Defendant found the watch, which apparently had become lodged in the roots of a large tree at the park. Because the watch was almost completely buried and was encrusted with dirt, Defendant – properly – concluded it had been in the same position for a long time and that the person who lost the watch had done so many years before. As a result, Defendant decided to keep the watch. He had the watch cleaned and began wearing it.
As fate would have it, Plaintiff noticed the watch about six months later while standing next to Defendant in the checkout line at the local supermarket. Plaintiff immediately asked the Defendant to return the watch to him. The Defendant refused. The lawsuit resulted. Assume that Plaintiff can prove the watch was the one he lost and can prove that he took the steps described above to recover the watch.
Who is the rightful owner of the watch? To whom do you award title to, and possession of, the watch? Why?
The person that lost his watch had to be constantly searching for it all these years for it to be rightfully his.
If he searched lets say for a month or 2, then forgot about it, then i wouldnt think it would be his.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
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The US legal sytem, as far as I know, requires 6 months without a request for the item for you to lose "ownership" of it. I think this is reasonable.
What Aristophanes said.
I'd say the watch is still the property of the original owner, and that would be the case regardless of whether or how much the owner searched for the watch after he lost it.
Property ownership can only be lost through voluntary abandonment, voluntary exchange, restitution for a tort, or death of the owner - not as a result of the owner neglecting his property.
If you take the contrary position, and say that a condition of ownership is that the owner have some real connection to his property (to some arbitrary standard), problems arise. There can be no absentee ownership of anything.
not as a result of the owner neglecting his property.
So, if you forgot cash at the grocery store (let's say you got cash back at a u-scan) and come back a few years later and ask for it...you are entitled to the money?
Neglecting your kids or even animals will get them taken away from you. It is absurd to think that you can leave shit laying around for years on end then, one day you remember it, you can just wander back and claim it.
There can be no absentee ownership of anything.
Because homesteading is not possible. A tree, or rock or clover patch, is always owned by someone even if they don't remember that they own it and have not interacted with it in years.
Certainly.
Neglecting your kids or even animals will get them taken away from you.
Children are a special case, as they are neither property nor persons, but something in between. In other words. Child neglect/abuse is not a problem unique to my view of property.
It is absurd to think that you can leave shit laying around for years on end then, one day you remember it, you can just wander back and claim it.
What's absurd is that one's ownership of property should be terminated after some arbitrarily selected period of time has passed.
No, by my view homesteading is still possible. People do in fact die, and sometimes without heirs.
....Looking at this from a purely consequentialist perspective - if you allow for abandonment it leaves open the possibility of someone gaming the system and having some property declared abandoned so as to take possession of it from its legitimate owner. Whereas if you eliminate the notion of abandonment....what harm follows?
Whereas if you eliminate the notion of abandonment....what harm follows?
I'd think that all of the forgotten and neglected resources will go unused never to be heard of again. Plus, if you are going with "forgotten" property...the "owner" doesn't "know" that he/she/it owns said property. Who is to declare ownership of something if you know that it is owned, but the owner doesn't know that they own it...?
I'd think that all of the forgotten and neglected resources will go unused never to be heard of again.
What is stopping me from falsely claiming that you're dead and that therefore your house is unowned so that I can homestead it?
You. You are stopping me, because you can easily demonstrate that you are not dead.
But what if you're gone, nowhere to be found (whether alive or dead)?
Well then I can claim that you're dead and there's no one to prove otherwise.
So then your property is recognized by the community as being unowned, and I can go ahead and become the new owner through homesteading.
If you actually are dead, or are alive but never return, then the property is mine going forward.
If in fact you are alive, and do return, then you retake the property.
In summary: resources aren't going to be sitting around unused, because someone other than the absentee owner is going to be using them without owning them, if not claiming that the absentee owner is dead and actually getting recognition as the new owner. All my view does it allow an absentee owner to regain his property if/when he does return.
I don't think that we're going to find a one-size-fits-all rule that's going to satisfy everyone's feelings on this.
Instead of looking for a rule I'm just thinking of a rough guideline and six months seems to be fair to me.
Obviously these two men might end up in court over the watch at which point they'd probably end up arguing over what the norms were in that area or some such thing.
Maybe in some areas the time between a loss and a claim normally has to be six months, perhaps it's just never.
I don't think I'd want to live in an area where the timeframe was never but maybe that's just me. Six months seems reasonable I could live with that.
I think putting a 6-month statute of limitations is applying a one-size-fits-all rule in the most egregious way and raises obvious issues: what if the finder comes upon the watch after one month and intentionally holds the watch in secret so that he may be sure that he attains ownership?
I don't think that you can arbitrarily put an expiration date on ownership, which is why I agree with Minarchist. I think it is a resolute and necessary principle to uphold that ownership can only be forfeited through the ways you listed.
However, I still have a couple questions:
1. If the original owner and finder both die, then would the original owner's heir have a just right to claim the watch from the finder's heir? What about 10 generations down the line?
2. If the story in the OP were taken to court and the defendant were ordered to return the watch, would he be entitled the original $50 reward promised in the flyers that the owner put up? What about cleaning/holding fees? Or would he be compensated with nothing?
Or in such a case, the watch should be destroyed. Actually this is not that bad of an idea at all, both parties are left unhappy, so therefore they cant attack each other.
It solves the conflict.
voluntary abandonment
Wouldn't voluntarily abandoning the search amount to that?
1. If the original owner and finder both die, then would the original owner's heir have a just right to claim the watch from the finder's heir?
Yes. The watch was the property of the original owner until he died, at which time it went to his heir (assuming he had one). So the heir has ownership over thw watch, regardless of who might have possession of it.
What about 10 generations down the line?
Same thing. There should be no arbitrary time-limit. Of course, practically speaking, the more time has passed the less likely the rightful owner is to care enough to track down the watch, the more difficult it would be for the rightful owner to actually prove the watch is his, etc.
2. If the story in the OP were taken to court and the defendant were ordered to return the watch, would he be entitled the original $50 reward promised in the flyers that the owner put up?
That's an interesting question, I'm not sure - guess it depends on the details of the reward flier.
What about cleaning/holding fees?
No, the original owner cannot be obligated to pay the finder for services which he never requested. By way of analogy, suppose you come over one day and mow my lawn, without ever asking me if I wanted my lawn mowed. Do I have to pay you for services rendered? Certainly not.
Willy Truth: I think putting a 6-month statute of limitations is applying a one-size-fits-all rule in the most egregious way
It doesn't have to be six months. It could be six months, eight months, a year, two years etc. I can imagine that the market process would give us an idea of the general view.
The market process could determine which kind of norm fit people's general feelings on this issue. Not everyone is going to be satisfied though. But I suppose the idea behind free market law is that more people would be satisfied than they would be under state-provided law because while a free market could conceivably allow for more than one norm, state-provided law tends to yield one-size-fits-all solutions.
In my mind different companies would offer different interpretations and consumers would gravitate towards whichever one felt fairest to them.
I don't really see a right or a wrong answer to this question, it really comes down to what is generally perceived as fair. That's why I think of this sort of thing as a shifting guideline rather than a permanent rule.
Willy Truth: what if the finder comes upon the watch after one month and intentionally holds the watch in secret so that he may be sure that he attains ownership?
That might be seen as relevant and it might not be seen as relevant by the judge.
Willy Truth:I don't think that you can arbitrarily put an expiration date on ownership, which is why I agree with Minarchist.
Well I think I can. The question is: would the market yield the same sort of opinion or not?
Arbitrariness is not necessarily unappealing to me. It just depends on how close it comes to my natural feeling. I cannot give you a complex argument for why six months seems reasonable to me it just does. I don't really need to explain myself I just have to hope that my sense of reasonableness is widely shared within whatever community I end up living in.
If people gravitate towards a system where ownership dies off after six months without a claim then that's what the rules will probably be. But perhaps people would rather live in a society where ownership is forever. I really can't say. I think I'd prefer to live in a society where there was a clear statute of limitations.
Willy Truth: which is why I agree with Minarchist.
Alright. And in a free society you would vote with your dollars and I would vote with mine.
Wouldn't voluntarily abandoning the search amount to [voluntary abandonment]?
Not in my view.
There's a big difference between saying that an owner may abandon property by declaring his intent to abandon it, and saying that an owner (whether he likes it or not) loses ownership when he gives up the search, or when some other arbitrary condition (time period e.g.) is met.
If someone actually abandons property, someone else will come and start using it, and eventually claim that the rightful owner is dead, and thereby become the new owner of the property.....if the original owner really abandoned the property, because if he didn't, he'll come back some day and reclaim it. So you see, everyone wins. We eliminate the possibility that someone could appropriate another person's property who actually did not intend to abandon that property, while still allowing for genuinely abandoned property to be homesteaded by others.
It doesn't have to be six months. It could be six months, eight months, a year, two years etc. I can imagine that the market process would give us an idea of the general view. The market process could determine which kind of norm fit people's general feelings on this issue.
The market process could determine which kind of norm fit people's general feelings on this issue.
It isn't the fact that the time period of arbitrary which is the real problem. The real problem is that it amounts to democratic control over private property. The community has a "feeling" that they should be able to take your property from you if in their opinion you aren't using it often enough, or looking for it hard enough, etc. That doesn't make me feel too secure as a property owner.
Not everyone is going to be satisfied though. But I suppose the idea behind free market law is that more people would be satisfied than they would be under state-provided law because while a free market could conceivably allow for more than one norm, state-provided law tends to yield one-size-fits-all solutions.
It's a truism that market-produced law will meet the demand of the consumer. But that isn't the end of the story. We as libertarians cannot just say "whatever the market produces is good" when it comes to law. We want libertarian law, do we not?
I'm curious not so much about why you intuitively prefer 6 months, but why you intuitively believe a time-limit is needed in the first place? Are you worried about property sitting around unused? Or what? I can't fathom why any libertarian would advocate laws that strip property owners of their property based on the feelings of his neighbors about how he uses (or doesn't use) said property.
Yeah, once again, Minarchist beat me to it. My problem is with the idea of a statute of limitation itself, not the length that is decided upon by whatever legislative body. I think that, regardless of what the statutes may say about time constraints, if a plaintiff can prove that they are still the true owners and have been the whole time (i.e., they did not voluntarily trade or abandon it), then it should be their rightful property.
On a completely note, I have trouble understanding how we could live in a society with a rule of law that recognizes ownership being both "forever" and having "a clear statute of limitations".
Put differently, I don't get how the idea of competing courts is a viable option. If I want to file a suit against you to retain possession of the watch, I'll take you to the court that supports the notion of ownership being unlimited. If you want to appeal the case after you've been ordered by the court to relinquish it, you'd take me to the court that supports the statue of limitations notion. Since the courts would be supplying a service, you'd obviously want to choose the court that matches what your endgame is: winning the suit.
Minarchist: The real problem is that it amounts to democratic control over private property.
Yeah I suppose it does. But that doesn't really bother me. You'd have to vote with your dollars and hope that more people were like you than like me.
Minarchist: The community has a "feeling" that they should be able to take your property from you if in their opinion you aren't using it often enough, or looking for it hard enough, etc. That doesn't make me feel too secure as a property owner.
Yes well as a statist imagining a free society that's how I imagine things playing out.
I don't expect to ever be completely secure as a property owner.
Perhaps that's static thinking but I can't really fathom a free society completely anyways.
Minarchist: We want libertarian law, do we not?
Well I'm not a libertarian. I just want laws that basically agree with my worldview which is decidely more statist than yours.
Minarchist: but why you intuitively believe a time-limit is needed in the first place? Are you worried about property sitting around unused? Or what?
I wouldn't say I intuitively think a time-limit is "necessary." I just think a time-limit seems reasonable. I could accept it. I could probably accept no time limit as well to be honest, I think I'd just prefer a time limit. Why? Can't really say, I don't pretend to understand all my intuitions, this is just the intuition I have.
Minarchist: I can't fathom why any libertarian would advocate laws that strip property owners of their property based on the feelings of his neighbors about how he uses (or doesn't use) said property.
I can't either but I generally find libertarians very difficult to comprehend which is why I spend so much time on this forum to begin with.
Willy Truth: I think that, regardless of what the statutes may say about time constraints, if a plaintiff can prove that they are still the true owners and have been the whole time (i.e., they did not voluntarily trade or abandon it), then it should be their rightful property.
Well that's cool. In a free society the market would determine what the law would actually be. I can't really say which side would be more popular. I'd like to think mine but that might just be wishful thinking.
Willy Truth: Put differently, I don't get how the idea of competing courts is a viable option. If I want to file a suit against you to retain possession of the watch, I'll take you to the court that supports the notion of ownership being unlimited. If you want to appeal the case after you've been ordered by the court to relinquish it, you'd take me to the court that supports the statue of limitations notion. Since the courts would be supplying a service, you'd obviously want to choose the court that matches what your endgame is: winning the suit.
Yeah I've never been able to wrap my head around it either. I'm sure someone here can explain it though.
Fair enough. If we don't begin with the same premises, we certainly aren't going to arrive at the same conclusions.
I'm curious though, what exactly is your world-view? You say it's more statist than mine - how much more? What powers do you think the State should have?
@Kelvin_silva: "Or in such a case, the watch should be destroyed. Actually this is not that bad of an idea at all, both parties are left unhappy, so therefore they cant attack each other.
It solves the conflict."
Lol what? I'm not even sure what this accomplishes, there's no reason to destroy the object in question. Both parties are more apt to attack one another if they're unhappy anyways. Is this a parody of the Judgment of Solomon or something?
bloomj31: Yeah I suppose it does. But that doesn't really bother me. You'd have to vote with your dollars and hope that more people were like you than like me.
There's nothing wrong with voting with your dollar, but when your dollar can violate other's property rights, there's something troubling about the system that you're participating in. But that's just me.
I'm also curious about your political affiliation and why you have so many posts yet don't ascribe to libertarianism.
Willy Truth: I'm also curious about your political affiliation and why you have so many posts yet don't ascribe to libertarianism.
Meh, labels. I'm a right wing statist I suppose.
I've been coming here a long time. I've accumulated these posts over several years.
I participate on forums where the people tend to think more like me but frankly I find it just as interesting to observe and talk to people who I often disagree with.
I'm a right wing statist I suppose.
Right wing meaning what....favoring free markets? Because "right wing" tends to also mean hawkish/interventionist in terms of foreign policy, and socially authoritarian.
Original owner.
Private property is a social construct. What is and what isnt property is up to the people to decide. It is whatever people find reasonable with edge cases investigated under court. In principle it wouldnt be any different under ancap system than it is today.
boniek:Private property is a social construct. What is and what isn't property is up to the people to decide. It is whatever people find reasonable with edge cases investigated under court. in principle it wouldn't be any different under ancap system than it is today.
This is the right answer. Ancaps, there is no One True Law out there for you to find that will act just like the State and let you know what is right and what isn't. Only the ever-changing values of free people in voluntary action can reveal that.
Boniek: Private property is a social construct. What is and what isnt property is up to the people to decide. It is whatever people find reasonable with edge cases investigated under court. In principle it wouldnt be any different under ancap system than it is today.
+1, I think this is what I've been trying to say.
Make the 'expensive watch' from your example into a 'family album' and you will see it is the case. And if it is true for one it is true for another.
what if the finder comes upon the watch after one month and intentionally holds the watch in secret so that he may be sure that he attains ownership?
All you must do is prove that you are actually looking for it. If someone finds your shit and keeps it even though you are looking they have successfully stolen from you.
True, I'm just pointing out an obvious flaw with a statute of limitations.