General

Re: Rights and Culture

revolutionist — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:16:25 GMT

AndrewKemendo:

revolutionist:

It's not dependent on culture per se, but it's dependent on scarcity. There was no scarcity in terms of land, so there was no property in terms of land.

I hadnt heard that before. Certainly an interesting take. Does it have historical context? in other words can you verify that they had no scarcity of land? They must have had scarcity of some property or another correct?

If they did have scarcity (which they undoubtedly did) and still held that property or otherwise the resultants from them was not ownable then how is this reconciled?

Well, look at the way the iroqouis conducted agriculture. They cut down trees and burned everything. They then farmed the land and moved on. There was no need to fence the land and keep it because they would quickly exhaust the land and move on. The same principle applies with hunting grounds.

Another factor was that tribes were set up to provide mutual security and things of that sort. The economies were so simple that the best way to conduct their lifestyle was commutarian. The tribes were essentially extended families, so they shared everything. There was strife between tribes over tribal boundaries and such, so essentially the whole tribe "owned" sections of land. The economies were not developed enough to warrant the need for private property.

When you go farther south to Mexico, however, there was private property in the more advanced civilizations.

Re: Rights and Culture

AndrewKemendo — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:49:02 GMT

revolutionist:

It's not dependent on culture per se, but it's dependent on scarcity. There was no scarcity in terms of land, so there was no property in terms of land.

I hadnt heard that before. Certainly an interesting take. Does it have historical context? in other words can you verify that they had no scarcity of land? They must have had scarcity of some property or another correct?

If they did have scarcity (which they undoubtedly did) and still held that property or otherwise the resultants from them was not ownable then how is this reconciled?

Re: Rights and Culture

ama gi — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:50:22 GMT

Look at John Locke's labor theory of property. Somebody can legitimately own property by finding unused, unowned property and laboring on it.

Three hundred years ago, the Indians did not "labor" on land in the traditional sense; they were nomads, hunter-gatherers, who wandered over hundreds of miles in search of food. Territorial disputes between tribes were solved by the club. Nobody had a legitimate claim to exclusive ownership. Thus, the Indian would be perfectly justified in calling land ownership an "abomination".

Re: Rights and Culture

revolutionist — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:30:40 GMT

It's not dependent on culture per se, but it's dependent on scarcity. There was no scarcity in terms of land, so there was no property in terms of land.

Rights and Culture

eliotn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:11:14 GMT

Basically, I wanted to discuss human rights with my father, and when I got to the part about properity rights, he went, "no, that depends on culture". For example, he claimed, you could ask an Indian 300 years ago about ownership of land, and he would disagree with it, calling it an abomination.

My question is this. Are rights independent of culture and if so, why?