Is private property immoral?

[DMB]

I imagine that just about everyone who comes here owns stuff. But how comfortable do we feel about that when many other people round the world are destitute? Is a sort of basic communism, with all property being held communally the answer?

Years ago Margaret Thatcher was ridiculed for asserting that unless the Good Samaritan had had a certain amount of property in the first place, he wouldn't have been in a position to give the practical help that he did to the man who fell among thieves. But elsewhere Jesus tells someone that he should sell all he has and give the proceeeds to the poor. Presumably once you have done that, you can't do it again.

Are we immoral for wanting to own luxury goods? To have money to pay for entertainment, interesting food and fashionable clothes? If we contented ourselves with really basic necessities, most of us would have a surplus that we could give to those in need.

[Alex]

The slogan "Property is theft" has a certain jejune appeal. But the acquisition of property in the form of luxury goods can be seen as providing employment for people who would not otherwise have a job.

I don't know whether living an ascetic life in order to give our surplus to the needy would really work in such an apparently simple way. If we consumed fewer things, there might be less work and an increase in the unemployed. The question is about the nature of capitalism and whether it's the most efficient system for distributing goods and services to the many.

[Eudaimonist]

I imagine that just about everyone who comes here owns stuff. But how comfortable do we feel about that when many other people round the world are destitute?

I feel perfectly comfortable with that. Thanks for asking.

Private property rights help fuel production and prosperity, which is the only cure for destitute people. If I personally had no private property rights, I would not feel inclined to do any more than the bare minimum of work to keep from having society turn against me and threaten not to feed me. I would have no control over the fruits of my labor, and I couldn't even be charitable with this, because that wouldn't be my decision.

In any case, the fruits of my labor are created through my own work, and this is not at the expense of anyone else. I don't take anything away from anyone by being productive and deciding what happens with what I have earned.

Is a sort of basic communism, with all property being held communally the answer?

To creating poverty? Yes.


eudaimonia,

Mark

[Ray Moscow]

Most people, including me, are somewhere in the middle on this issue. We believe in property rights, but we also believe that we have some measure of responsibility toward the wellbeing of our fellow humans.

The extreme economic mess in the former Soviet countries has not been a good legacy of the "property is theft" meme.

[Valheru]

Property is merely a result of human nature - specifically the fact that humans are opportunistic animals.

The moment we threw off the hunter/gatherer cloak (and arguably even before) - property became a result of labour, and the means of protecting the results of the investment of labour.

It sounds very idealistic to imagine a world where everybody worked for the good of all, and shared unselfishly. The fact remains that many individuals would prefer to consume without working to produce, and this upsets the entire apple cart.

Is private property immoral? Only if you assert that consuming without producing isn't.

Where capitalism has missed the boat is that it allows consumption (I include the acquisition of wealth in this verb) that far outweighs the amount of effort put into production. It's immoral in the sense that there is an artificial aggregation of material benefits that have nothing to do with labour - indeed, it's the labouring class that produces most, yet is allowed the smallest slice of the pie.

I'm no socialist, but I can see the gaping holes in capitalism. Unfortunately it's the best we have until technology allows us to ignore the class-divide that is necessitated by the requirement for someone to perform labour.

[Preno]

I imagine that just about everyone who comes here owns stuff. But how comfortable do we feel about that when many other people round the world are destitute? Is a sort of basic communism, with all property being held communally the answer?No, communism only works for / allows for very primitive societies.
Are we immoral for wanting to own luxury goods? To have money to pay for entertainment, interesting food and fashionable clothes?No. And demonizing natural desires would be unhealthy, anyway.
Where capitalism has missed the boat is that it allows consumption (I include the acquisition of wealth in this verb) that far outweighs the amount of effort put into production.The way you put it, it sounds like a rather abstract and cosmetic concern. The reality is that globally, hundreds of millions of people work their asses off just to be able to get food and shelter.
Is private property immoral? Only if you assert that consuming without producing isn't.Eh? Are you implying that the only two options are: a) the means of production are owned privately, and b) the means of production are owned collectively and everyone gets to consume as much as they want no matter whether they work or not? Aren't you missing the option where they are owned collectively and, you know, people don't get to consume whatever they want regardless of the fact that they don't work? :dunno:

[Valheru]

people don't get to consume whatever they want regardless of the fact that they don't work? :dunno:

That's exactly what I'm referring to. This doesn't happen primarily because of the notion of ownership, and how the protection thereof has been codified by law.

[DMB]

I imagine that just about everyone who comes here owns stuff. But how comfortable do we feel about that when many other people round the world are destitute? Is a sort of basic communism, with all property being held communally the answer?No, communism only works for / allows for very primitive societies.
Are we immoral for wanting to own luxury goods? To have money to pay for entertainment, interesting food and fashionable clothes?No. And demonizing natural desires would be unhealthy, anyway.
Where capitalism has missed the boat is that it allows consumption (I include the acquisition of wealth in this verb) that far outweighs the amount of effort put into production.The way you put it, it sounds like a rather abstract and cosmetic concern. The reality is that globally, hundreds of millions of people work their asses off just to be able to get food and shelter.
Is private property immoral? Only if you assert that consuming without producing isn't.Eh? Are you implying that the only two options are: a) the means of production are owned privately, and b) the means of production are owned collectively and everyone gets to consume as much as they want no matter whether they work or not? Aren't you missing the option where they are owned collectively and, you know, people don't get to consume whatever they want regardless of the fact that they don't work? :dunno:

How do you draw the line? Is it OK for a woman to spend $5000 on a bag?

[Ray Moscow]

How do you draw the line? Is it OK for a woman to spend $5000 on a bag?

That's a tough one. At one level it seems completely wrong.

But when I worked in India, I'd spend more on a meal (say, $10) than many people there made in a month. Sometimes it bugged the hell out of me, but then I didn't volunteer to trade places with them, either.

[Preno]

people don't get to consume whatever they want regardless of the fact that they don't work? :dunno:That's exactly what I'm referring to. This doesn't happen primarily because of the notion of ownership, and how the protection thereof has been codified by law.Yes, obviously.
How do you draw the line? Is it OK for a woman to spend $5000 on a bag?It's okay for anyone to spend anything on whatever they want. It's not okay for people to be rewarded for owning collectively-used facilities such as the means of production (thus effectively extorting money from the society).

The problem is with how the person earned the money (obviously not by working 5000 times harder than half the world's population), not with how they chose to spend it.

[DMB]

Preno, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean. If I invent something completely new and set up a small factory (owned by me) to make it, is that immoral?

[Preno]

Preno, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean. If I invent something completely new and set up a small factory (owned by me) to make it, is that immoral?That's not how production works, though, is it? People who invent stuff don't start factories. For one thing, they don't have the money. The advances of the 20th century were invented by people who were working for someone, not by people who invented something and started a small factory. While as a thought experiment, it may be interesting, I hope we agree that it has very little relevance to the real world.

So anyway, the problem is with you owning the factory, not with you being rewarded for inventing a new product. I'm not sure why you should have to own the factory in order to be able to get rewarded for the invention. (Strictly speaking, I'm talking about which kinds of rules are un/desirable, not about what kind of behaviour is im/moral. It doesn't follow from the fact that given such and such rules, such and such behaviour is moral that the rules themselves are not immoral.)

[Valheru]

So anyway, the problem is with you owning the factory, not with you being rewarded for inventing a new product.

That's exactly why copyrights exist (it's merely ownership of knowledge, after all). If people didn't exploit that knowledge, there would be no point to the knowledge anyway.

It becomes immoral when the people actually working in the factory get unfairly exploited. THAT's a slippery slope, however. When is it exploitation?

What people forget is that nobody should be forced to work in a factory, and that everybody in a democratic, capitalist society has the right to leave for greener pastures. That is the greatest irony of communism - it talks about the emancipation of the proletariat as it's greatest accomplishment, but the reality is that the proletariat get TOLD when and where to work. That's not emancipation.

But it was all "scientifically" worked out, wasn't it? :evil:

[Ray Moscow]

Preno, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean. If I invent something completely new and set up a small factory (owned by me) to make it, is that immoral?That's not how production works, though, is it? People who invent stuff don't start factories. For one thing, they don't have the money. The advances of the 20th century were invented by people who were working for someone, not by people who invented something and started a small factory. While as a thought experiment, it may be interesting, I hope we agree that it has very little relevance to the real world.

So anyway, the problem is with you owning the factory, not with you being rewarded for inventing a new product. I'm not sure why you should have to own the factory in order to be able to get rewarded for the invention. (Strictly speaking, I'm talking about which kinds of rules are un/desirable, not about what kind of behaviour is im/moral. It doesn't follow from the fact that given such and such rules, such and such behaviour is moral that the rules themselves are not immoral.)

I suppose this comes back to Marx's observation that capital for investment comes from the labour of the workers. According to his theory, if an individual only has "capital" to invest because he has ripped off the workers who created that capital in the first place.

[Preno]

I suppose this comes back to Marx's observation that capital for investment comes from the labour of the workers. According to his theory, if an individual only has "capital" to invest because he has ripped off the workers who created that capital in the first place.Yeah, that's probably the case most of the time. But even if it weren't, even if someone worked in a sweatshop for several thousand years and eventually saved up enough money to start his own, the point would still stand that being rewarded for its ownership is effectively extorting money from the society.

[Preno]

It becomes immoral when the people actually working in the factory get unfairly exploited. THAT's a slippery slope, however. When is it exploitation?

What people forget is that nobody should be forced to work in a factory, and that everybody in a democratic, capitalist society has the right to leave for greener pastures. That is the greatest irony of communism - it talks about the emancipation of the proletariat as it's greatest accomplishment, but the reality is that the proletariat get TOLD when and where to work. That's not emancipation.You're conflating voluntariness wrt given conditions and rules with voluntariness in some absolute sense. Saying that they are working there voluntarily in the first sense is not saying anything at all, as anyone who doesn't work somewhere illegally is working there voluntarily in the first sense, even in North Korea. Saying that they are working there voluntarily in the second sense is merely begging the question, though.

[Cath B]

Are we immoral for wanting to own luxury goods? To have money to pay for entertainment, interesting food and fashionable clothes? If we contented ourselves with really basic necessities, most of us would have a surplus that we could give to those in need.

I'm less inclined to use the word immoral than I was in my youth, when I sanctimoniously bandied such words around all too freely.

But I think that our current profligate attitude towards the world's natural resources is not sustainable in the long term.

Interesting food, for example, is fine if it is mostly grown or gathered locally in a sustainable way. It is more of a problem if it is the result of farming and economic practices which damage the soil, reduce the availability of food for locals (as happened during the Irish Potato famine where grain was exported while the population starved) and profligate transport costs to the environment as opposed to the purse strings.

I'm now thinking of three books which deal with this subject from diverse angles:-

Oryx and Crake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oryx_and_crake) by Margaret Atwood. One of the grimmest works of fiction I have ever read, dealing through the memories of an apparently sole survivor of the last years of a high-tech society en route to self-destruction.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(book)) hy Jared Diamond. Tells the stories of societies in the past which failed to survive due to bad resource management, bad luck or a combination thereof.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Omnivore%27s_Dilemma) by Michael Pollan. Contrasts different methods of obtaining food for a single meal in the USA - hunter-gathering, organic, sustainable farming and intensive farming.

[Valheru]

You're conflating voluntariness wrt given conditions and rules with voluntariness in some absolute sense. Saying that they are working there voluntarily in the first sense is not saying anything at all, as anyone who doesn't work somewhere illegally is working there voluntarily in the first sense, even in North Korea. Saying that they are working there voluntarily in the second sense is merely begging the question, though.

What I'm saying is that there really isn't any voluntary element at all for the proletariate of neither communism or capitalism - it's just an illusion due to the fact that you're forced to labour despite the apparent control of your own destiny.

Private property laws ensure that you cannot legally sidestep the requirement of having to work to eat. Corporate ownership and protection of the elite is how it's done via capitalism - for the wealthy, it separates the need to produce from the need to consume, whereas the poorer classes are locked into it by necessity, and the wealthy will attempt to maintain that status quo. That's where the immorality lies.

[DMB]

Preno, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean. If I invent something completely new and set up a small factory (owned by me) to make it, is that immoral?That's not how production works, though, is it? People who invent stuff don't start factories. For one thing, they don't have the money. The advances of the 20th century were invented by people who were working for someone, not by people who invented something and started a small factory. While as a thought experiment, it may be interesting, I hope we agree that it has very little relevance to the real world.

So anyway, the problem is with you owning the factory, not with you being rewarded for inventing a new product. I'm not sure why you should have to own the factory in order to be able to get rewarded for the invention. (Strictly speaking, I'm talking about which kinds of rules are un/desirable, not about what kind of behaviour is im/moral. It doesn't follow from the fact that given such and such rules, such and such behaviour is moral that the rules themselves are not immoral.)

Ok to refine my example. I invent something and start to manufacture and sell it myself from my small workshop. Eventually it is a great success and I can't meet the demand. So at this point I employ a second person to work for me. I train him and pay him a wage that satisfies him. Do you now feel that that I am doing something wrong?

[Ray Moscow]

Preno, I'm not quite sure exactly what you mean. If I invent something completely new and set up a small factory (owned by me) to make it, is that immoral?That's not how production works, though, is it? People who invent stuff don't start factories. For one thing, they don't have the money. The advances of the 20th century were invented by people who were working for someone, not by people who invented something and started a small factory. While as a thought experiment, it may be interesting, I hope we agree that it has very little relevance to the real world.

So anyway, the problem is with you owning the factory, not with you being rewarded for inventing a new product. I'm not sure why you should have to own the factory in order to be able to get rewarded for the invention. (Strictly speaking, I'm talking about which kinds of rules are un/desirable, not about what kind of behaviour is im/moral. It doesn't follow from the fact that given such and such rules, such and such behaviour is moral that the rules themselves are not immoral.)

Ok to refine my example. I invent something and start to manufacture and sell it myself from my small workshop. Eventually it is a great success and I can't meet the demand. So at this point I employ a second person to work for me. I train him and pay him a wage that satisfies him. Do you now feel that that I am doing something wrong?

I think where Marxist theory (not necessarily Preno theory!) fails here is that (AFAIK) no value is given for having the ideas or taking the initiative and risks of starting the production or expanding it. Supposedly the benefits need to flow equally to those hired to do whatever work is involved in the enterprise.

[Cath B]

Here's a real life story.

Following my husband's death accrued capital includes the Life Assurance Endowment on our mortgage (already paid off) and Life Assurance from his workplace.

Sitting in the bank in the current economic climate this money was failing to accrue significant interest and, more importantly perhaps, being used by the bank in ways in which I had little control and are morally dubious.

So tomorrow I'm buying a house for letting out.

Years ago I considered owning a second home to be very wrong. Nowadays I take the stance that this is a way in which I can directly control my assets to provide a place to live for a couple of postgrad students while extracting an income for myself and retaining (I hope) the value of the capital.

I am also doing my small bit to retain fluidity in the buying and selling of houses.

I'm functioning as effectively and morally as I know how short of giving the whole lot to Oxfam which I'm not selfless enough to do.

[Ray Moscow]

"Having" brings a very different set of moral problems than "not having".

[Alex]

Sitting in the bank in the current economic climate this money was failing to accrue significant interest and, more importantly perhaps, being used by the bank in ways in which I had little control and are morally dubious.

So tomorrow I'm buying a house for letting out.

Years ago I considered owning a second home to be very wrong. Nowadays I take the stance that this is a way in which I can directly control my assets to provide a place to live for a couple of postgrad students while extracting an income for myself and retaining (I hope) the value of the capital.

I am also doing my small bit to retain fluidity in the buying and selling of houses.

I'm functioning as effectively and morally as I know how short of giving the whole lot to Oxfam which I'm not selfless enough to do.

In your situation, I would do exactly the same - while observing that I was rationalizing something with which I was formerly uncomfortable. This indicates a progression from radicalism to conservatism as one gets older, I think.

[Christina]

I thought about this a lot when I was running the shelter because I had so much more than my clients did but in the end I decided that it was going to help them far more for me to fit into the mainstream world and work my ass off to get them more than it would for me to sell all of my stuff and join them on the street out of some half-baked notion of sympathy and equality. I think that looking poverty in the face right in front of you and not even trying to help is far more immoral than accumulating some stuff is.

Many if not most of my hippie friends with pseudo-communist ideas were raising their children in poverty also and seemed to feel that there was something enlightened about it. Their kids looked as dirty, neglected, miserable and uneducated to me as the kids I grew up with in the South Bronx and I wasn't buying it. It's not impossible to find yourself while providing hot running water, clothing and decent food for your kids.

[Anne]

We just bought our dream house.

And a friend is waiting on a liver transplant and a Habitat for Humanity house in a fringe area.

I feel guilt.

[Preno]

Ok to refine my example. I invent something and start to manufacture and sell it myself from my small workshop. Eventually it is a great success and I can't meet the demand. So at this point I employ a second person to work for me. I train him and pay him a wage that satisfies him. Do you now feel that that I am doing something wrong?No, I don't think you're doing something wrong. The question of whether it would be wrong for you to do x has little to do with whether a system that allows for x is desirable, though.

[Garrett]

It's okay for anyone to spend anything on whatever they want. It's not okay for people to be rewarded for owning collectively-used facilities such as the means of production (thus effectively extorting money from the society).
Is it okay to inherit a country because your daddy owned it?

[Hevvin Machine]

Is it okay to inherit a country because your daddy owned it?
Is it OK to inherit a country because your great grand daddy killed off everybody who lived there?
I think the problem with the OP is that "private property" is not clearly defined. DMB started a little discussion based on an anecdote, but it doesn't have much to do with reality. Very little private property is based on inventing something and then creating employment. Far more is based on inheriting wealth, and exploiting natural resources, and using the power of the state to protect personal interests.
Hev

[DMB]

Hev, I don't think you can just brush off my example because it is not necessarily generally applicable. Preno seems to be arguing for a system that would not permit my example. I'd like to know why.

[Hevvin Machine]

Hev, I don't think you can just brush off my example because it is not necessarily generally applicable. Yes, I can brush off your example because it is not generally applicable. The situation you described doesn't involve any immoral behaviour, but it was very simple and had little if anything to do with the human situation. It isn't relevant to "private property" as a concept. It just doesn't happen.

On the other hand plenty of private wealth is created by some means that you don't discuss. If someone owns a piece of property which has access to wealth that wasn't created by the owner, is it moral for him to take possession? Take for instance, an oil well. If the owner of the property on which oil is found, does he own the oil? He didn't put it there. The value of the oil depends heavily on the right to pump the aftereffects of burning it into the atmosphere. Does he own the oil, but not the climate change that goes along with selling it for burning?
Why does he own any of it at all? He didn't make it and he doesn't take any responsiblity for pumping it or the aftereffects. He justs takes the "private property" in the form of money. I don't see anything moral about that.
And that is far more common than your I invent something and start to manufacture and sell it myself from my small workshop. Eventually it is a great success and I can't meet the demand. So at this point I employ a second person to work for me. I train him and pay him a wage that satisfies him.scenario. You are talking about something that could theoretically happen, but in fact doesn't much. I'm talking about what happens everyday, on a huge global scale. Your scenario just doesn't have much to do with private property as a concept.
Hev

[dancer_rnb]

There are also big problems with patents nowadays. (intellectual property.)

[Cath B]

Returning to one of the questions in the OP:-

Is a sort of basic communism, with all property being held communally the answer?



Not on a large scale methinks because of the complexity of the system required to hold it all together and keep corruption and incompetence in check.


On the small scale, in a community whose assets are not sufficiently attractive to warrant outside interference, possibly.

[DMB]

Hev, my scenario does happen and quite possibly a lot more frequently than you think. I don't know how you think new businesses get off the ground.

[Monad]

Just wanted to point out that Marx never said "All property is theft" (just as Darwin never used the phrase "Survival of the fittest"). It was from Bakunin (who was an anarchist, not as Marxist or even Socialist). Marxists really don't see this as a moral issue anyway - it's about the evolution of social forms - at certain points in our social development (as a society) property is useful and necessary as it enables the development of society, at others it starts to hold it back. There is no abstract ahistorical "good" or "bad" even though at each stage there are bad consequences for certain groups (such as the highland clearances or enclosure for example).

[DMB]

I didn't write the OP as a challenge to marxism. I am interested in the morality of our position in the rich world.

[Monad]

I didn't write the OP as a challenge to marxism. I am interested in the morality of our position in the rich world.

I know I'm just clarifying the matter as it does come up a few times - Marx is even more misunderstood than Darwin (especially in the States).

[Preno]

Hev, I don't think you can just brush off my example because it is not necessarily generally applicable. Preno seems to be arguing for a system that would not permit my example. I'd like to know why.I wasn't trying ot brush it off, I was saying that the morality of individual actions has little to do with the desirability of the system which allows for them, and if your concern is with whether the person is doing something is immoral, then no, I don't think they necessarily are. (I am a bit reluctant to speak about the morality of a system, it makes more sense to reserve that word for a person's actions.)

As for whether such behaviour should be acceptable, that depends on the other choices the person has (i.e. whether they are forced to choose between several equally bad options). Tbh, I don't have any particular opinion about these kinds of cases - on a small scale, markets can be quite efficient and socializing every single place of production may require too much overhead.

If we're talking about the kind of workshop basically anyone can start, then obviously you wouldn't be rewarded much for merely owning the means of production. As the production grows, though, so do you become rewarded increasingly for owning the MoP rather than for the work you do (you also acquire a stronger bargaining position as far as working conditions go).

Also on a large scale, markets become inefficient due to the limited information each market player has, a lack of coordination between the competitors, the resources spent on market competition and the duplication of efforts. (Although that's probably only tangentially related to the "morality" of private property.)

[Hevvin Machine]

Hev, my scenario does happen and quite possibly a lot more frequently than you think. I don't know how you think new businesses get off the ground. DMB, I started my own business when I was 23. I worked factory jobs while I was in school for the money. But I've never had a paid vacation day in my life, or a dollars worth of medical care that I didn't pay for myself. I do know something about starting business. One thing that I know is that it doesn't happen very often. For every entrepreneur like myself, there are probably twenty "minimum wage slaves", fifty better paid corporate workers, and ten "non-workers" living on government and charitable handouts. Maybe things are different in Switzerland, what I know is the USA.
Hev

[Notta]

How do you draw the line? Is it OK for a woman to spend $5000 on a bag?Now we're getting to the truth of this matter! Are you thinking about Victoria "Posh" Beckham (http://www.stylelist.com/blog/2009/05/19/victoria-beckham-birkin-bag-lady/print/) and her collection of 100 Birkin bags, or have you spotted a particularly pricey handbag you covet?

Seriously, I personally think any woman who thinks it's okay to spend $5000 on a handbag should spend a week living in an African village to get her values straightened out.

[Garrett]

Seriously, I personally think any woman who thinks it's okay to spend $5000 on a handbag should spend a week living in an African village to get her values straightened out.
I have the idea that when a kid starts kicking his heels up in high school, it's time to send them somewhere with, for example, the Peace Corps. What we do now is lock them in a cage and take money from their parents.

[DMB]

Hev, my scenario does happen and quite possibly a lot more frequently than you think. I don't know how you think new businesses get off the ground. DMB, I started my own business when I was 23. I worked factory jobs while I was in school for the money. But I've never had a paid vacation day in my life, or a dollars worth of medical care that I didn't pay for myself. I do know something about starting business. One thing that I know is that it doesn't happen very often. For every entrepreneur like myself, there are probably twenty "minimum wage slaves", fifty better paid corporate workers, and ten "non-workers" living on government and charitable handouts. Maybe things are different in Switzerland, what I know is the USA.
Hev

Well I know about starting a business as well. And I know other people who have gone this route. Of course, not all are successful.

[Valheru]

The GF and I were talking about this earlier in the week. My GF's family has had shared ownership of a farm in Mpumalanga, in the northeast of South Africa, for a number of generations.

It's a beautiful area, with a dam and a river running through it, with beautiful flora and mountains. The farm isn't currently being used for anything atm, as there isn't anybody who has got the time to farm the farm. Although it contains a beautiful farmhouse and numerous mod cons and improvements, it's too far off the beaten track, and so the land is wild and the cultivated bits have returned to nature.

Until recently, there lived an old, bent, grey, wizened black man called Lukas. He was as old as the mountains, and he passed away a few weeks ago. He lived alone somewhere on the farm, and he was a part of the farm since he was a boy. It was his home for his entire life.

As a young lad he helped build the dam (built in 1924) - that should give you an idea of how old he became). He worked the land, he knew every rock and tree and shrub, where every bird's nest is.

He spent his ENTIRE life on that farm, the hills, valleys, rivers and trees were his to know. He spent more time on that farm than anybody else. He watched the passing of his wives and children, he watched the passing of apartheid, of supposed emancipation for him and his progeny. Yet, he passed away alone, in the middle of nowhere, without a cent to his name, on land that he had more right to belong to, and to have it belong to him, than the white settlers who "legally" owned the land, but who couldn't really give a shit because they have their own lives in the city.

THAT, my friends, is the immorality of ownership, right there.

[Ray Moscow]

^^To me this implies that those who live and work "on the land" should have some share of "ownership" of it.

[Cath B]

Yes, I'd kinda agree with that.

[Free in Freeport]

Meh.
Fuck guilt.
I can and do support persons in 3rd world countries via such organizations as Kiva, etc. The causes of poverty are many and complex. They need to be addressed at the national and global level.

[Alex]

Property in land seems uncontroversial, but at some point unscrupulous and powerful men grabbed what did not belong to them, or indeed anyone else, and had their ownership subsequently legitimized by possession or positive law.

I have a piece of land that I consider rightfully mine since I paid for it, but how can I "own" part of the natural world that was here long before I came on the scene and will remain here long after I'm gone. Of course others will live on and "own" the same plot in the future, but it seems more sensible to think of landowners as stewards. Do I "own" everything underneath the surface of my land right down to the centre of the earth?

[Cath B]

Do I "own" everything underneath the surface of my land right down to the centre of the earth?

In the UK probably not.

I've just bought a house but mineral rights are excluded.

Property in land seems uncontroversial, but at some point unscrupulous and powerful men grabbed what did not belong to them, or indeed anyone else, and had their ownership subsequently legitimized by possession or positive law.

I have a piece of land that I consider rightfully mine since I paid for it, but how can I "own" part of the natural world that was here long before I came on the scene and will remain here long after I'm gone. Of course others will live on and "own" the same plot in the future, but it seems more sensible to think of landowners as stewards.

I pretty much agree with what you're saying here.

The house I live in is a listed building because of its historic status and I am considered in law, rightly IMV, as a steward as well as owner.

[Preno]

Meh.
Fuck guilt.
I can and do support persons in 3rd world countries via such organizations as Kiva, etc. The causes of poverty are many and complex. They need to be addressed at the national and global level.Exactly. Guilt is irrelevant, especially if you can't personally solve or significantly contribute to solving the problem.
I have a piece of land that I consider rightfully mine since I paid for it, but how can I "own" part of the natural world that was here long before I came on the scene and will remain here long after I'm gone.Easily. Owning x means being able to prevent others from using x. You can very easily prevent people from using a piece of land.

[Cath B]

Owning x means being able to prevent others from using x. You can very easily prevent people from using a piece of land.

These lines by Robert Frost jumped out at me when I read your words:-

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

[Celsus]

Economic concepts should never be judged through a moral lens, tempting as it is.

The key reason for providing property rights is because of the "Tragedy of the Commons (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html)", whereby communal ownership encourages predatory behaviour for short term gain, often leading to the destruction of the resource itself.

Sure, people can argue that values can overcome things, but the reality is that values take centuries to change substantially, and until then, private property should exist. Once you acknowledge that, then what people do with their property, or what value they may place on something they want, like a handbag, is really none of your business. All you can say is that their values diverge from yours (which tends to happen because the rich have different values from the poor, thanks to the way in which each group makes their living).

[Ray Moscow]

I think basic fairness principles as well as practical considerations push us to embrace some measure of private property rights. Don't those who build up something deserve the lion's share of the benefits?

The fairness principle breaks down where we see some examples already cited, like those who live or work on the land for decades and get nothing much in return, whereas some guy living elsewhere and doing fuck-all "owns" it.

[Valheru]

^^^ I love reading new things. Thanks for the link.

[Alex]

It may be true that land held as private property will be more efficiently exploited than common land - which was the rationale supposedly behind the Enclosure Acts and the Highland Clearances. However, the acquisition of private land in an "original position" deprives the many for the benefit of a few. Injustice can be another aspect of the question, "Is private property immoral?"

[Celsus]

If a society faces no scarcity, then there's no need for private property. Maybe on such a world, their inhabitants might see it as immoral. But if there is scarcity, how will you manage resources?

[Alex]

Even in a situation of scarcity, economic advantage is not the only consideration that drives people to acquire private property - especially if we're talking about "virgin" lands or the wilderness.

To claim that privatisation of a natural resource is the best way to manage it sounds noble and might be morally neutral, but avarice and the desire for power and status are not.

[Celsus]

Land grabs are usually committed, however, with the expectation of future scarcity. Which on our planet, is a fairly certain thing.

[Cath B]

An argument in favour of private ownership of land is that the owners may be motivated to carry out technological improvements.

But if miscalculations are made the effects can be large scale and devastating:-

During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, the region in which the Dust Bowl occurred was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; indeed, the region was known as the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture. However, following the Civil War, settlement in the area increased, encouraged by the Homestead Act and westward expansion.[3][4] An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and government to believe that "rain follows the plow" and that the climate of the region had changed permanently.[5] The initial agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching with some cultivation; however, a series of harsh winters beginning in 1886, coupled with overgrazing followed by a short drought in 1890, led to an expansion of land under cultivation.

Immigration began again at the beginning of the 20th century. A return of unusually wet weather confirmed the previously held opinion that the "formerly" semi-arid area could support large-scale agriculture. Technological improvements led to increased automation, which allowed for cultivation on an ever greater scale. World War I increased agricultural prices, which also encouraged farmers to drastically increase cultivation. In the Llano Estacado, farmland area doubled between 1900 and 1920, and land under cultivation more than tripled between 1925 and 1930.[6] Finally, farmers used agricultural practices that encouraged erosion[1]. For example, cotton farmers left fields bare over winter months, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and burned the stubble, which deprived the soil of organic nutrients and increased exposure to erosion.

This increased exposure to erosion was revealed when a severe drought struck the Great Plains in 1934. The native grasses that covered the prairie lands for centuries, holding the soil in place and maintaining its moisture had been eliminated by the intensively increased plowing. The drought conditions caused the topsoil to grow dry and friable and it was simply carried away by the wind. The dusty soil aggregated in the air forming immense dust clouds which further prevented rainfall. It was not until the government promoted soil conservation programs that the area slowly began to rehabilitate.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

[DMB]

Governments can be equally responsible for getting it wrong.

This (http://www.themeister.co.uk/economics/groundnut_scheme.htm) was a classic case.

[Cath B]

Governments can be equally responsible for getting it wrong.

This (http://www.themeister.co.uk/economics/groundnut_scheme.htm) was a classic case.

Fair enough, I thought someone would make that point pretty sharpish. :D

I should've made it clear that I was responding to the idea of private property being a solution to the Tragedy of the Commons.

I'm inclined to think that some form of local control of resources is usually the least bad option.

But that didn't pan out too well in Rapa Nui (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Island#Destruction_of_the_ecosystem).

No general panacea that I can come up with.

[Preno]

Economic concepts should never be judged through a moral lens, tempting as it is.

The key reason for providing property rights is because of the "Tragedy of the Commons (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html)", whereby communal ownership encourages predatory behaviour for short term gain, often leading to the destruction of the resource itself.You do realize the Tragedy of the Commons applies to unmanaged commons, i.e. not "communal ownership"? Historically, the Tragedy of the Commons didn't apply to actual commons, precisely because they were communally owned.

[Cath B]

Economic concepts should never be judged through a moral lens, tempting as it is.

The key reason for providing property rights is because of the "Tragedy of the Commons (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/TragedyoftheCommons.html)", whereby communal ownership encourages predatory behaviour for short term gain, often leading to the destruction of the resource itself.You do realize the Tragedy of the Commons applies to unmanaged commons, i.e. not "communal ownership"? Historically, the Tragedy of the Commons didn't apply to actual commons, precisely because they were communally owned.

I'm pretty sure Oliver Rackham (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Rackham) makes this point rather well in one of his books about woodland.

I'll maybe see if I can hunt out the relevant quote tomorrow when I'm not so tired.

[Celsus]

You do realize the Tragedy of the Commons applies to unmanaged commons, i.e. not "communal ownership"? Historically, the Tragedy of the Commons didn't apply to actual commons, precisely because they were communally owned.
Not really. Even in a managed environment, you cannot avoid the imbalance in low individual cost for great personal gain to find ways to circumvent or get more than a fair share (though of course a managed common is better than an unmanaged one). Take for example a public library - a managed 'common'. In libraries with few people, you may find shared resources like computer terminals well looked after. But in libraries that have large numbers of people, you will find that computers are often badly maintained, filled with malware, often poor physical condition, etc.

And of course, in things on a larger scale such as security, you get the infinite regress problem (who watches the watchers? how do you handle secrets?) or in the economy, you have problems in allocating useage efficiently (the socialist/command economy problem).

It does not escape the fundamental problem, which is the cost vs reward for an individual cheating in a common. Impose too high a cost, and you basically get the Soviet state and destroy initiative. Impose too low a cost, and predation becomes rampant. All bureaucracies have this fundamental problem in that they can't act as fast as an individual and individuals have too wide a range of actions that you can't create a system that fits everyone. A mix - perhaps like Cuba or Libya (ignoring the political dimension) - would perhaps be acceptable, but there still isn't room for growth (note the largest growing industry in Cuba is tourism, run by private companies owning prime land (and rejecting use of state-managed beaches), and Cuba has never revoked the right to private property).

[Alex]

I think the generalisation that public assets and utilities will be less efficiently managed than resources and services controlled as private enterprises is usually true. We can almost always count on the profit motive to ensure this.

How goods and lands that were once held in common came to be owned by private individuals (and their descendants) isn't necessarily a question of economic efficiency but of morality. The current Duke of Norfolk "owns" 16,000 acres in the county of Sussex and another 30,000 acres elsewhere in England. Of course, the present owner inherited these lands, but how did the Duke's family acquire them in the first place?

[Preno]

You do realize the Tragedy of the Commons applies to unmanaged commons, i.e. not "communal ownership"? Historically, the Tragedy of the Commons didn't apply to actual commons, precisely because they were communally owned.Not really. Even in a managed environment, you cannot avoid the imbalance in low individual cost for great personal gain to find ways to circumvent or get more than a fair share (though of course a managed common is better than an unmanaged one). Take for example a public library - a managed 'common'. In libraries with few people, you may find shared resources like computer terminals well looked after. But in libraries that have large numbers of people, you will find that computers are often badly maintained, filled with malware, often poor physical condition, etc.So how would private ownership solve that? O wate, it would solve it by charging people for the service. And sure, you can give an argument that charging people for the service is a better option, but you cannot just compare the two situations and say that one of them may result in badly maintained computers, you also have to take into account the fact that in the other situations, less people will be able to use the service.
And of course, in things on a larger scale such as security, you get the infinite regress problem (who watches the watchers? how do you handle secrets?) or in the economy, you have problems in allocating useage efficiently (the socialist/command economy problem).What do you mean by "efficiently"? If the market is capable of achieving an allocation, so is a socialist economy. The difference is that a socialist economy also has other allocations to choose from. What is a capitalist capable of that a socialist economy isn't?
It does not escape the fundamental problem, which is the cost vs reward for an individual cheating in a common. Impose too high a cost, and you basically get the Soviet state and destroy initiative.That seems like a complete non-sequitur to me, please explain. What connection do you see between regulating the usage of a collectively used resource and "destroying initiative"? What initiative?
Impose too low a cost, and predation becomes rampant. All bureaucracies have this fundamental problem in that they can't act as fast as an individual and individuals have too wide a range of actions that you can't create a system that fits everyone. And all individuals have the fundamental problem that they cannot efficiently coordinate their actions. They're essentially stuck in a multi-player prisonner's dilemma.

[Celsus]

Preno, I haven't mentioned markets once, and I've no desire to get into a long drawn out argument about socialism vs free markets. I too have my concerns about equitable distribution in markets, but to paraphrase Churchill, free markets are the worst system, except for all the rest. My point is that the disjoint between costs and benefits for an individual in a communal system lead to an incentive for predation. Or a totalitarian regime that prohibits personal initiative by putting huge penalties for individual gain by co-opting them from the creator. It's Marx's classic theory of alienation by other means.

The reasoning for this is also simple. If a person works to improve a communal system, the rewards are divided equally within the commune and so if (for example) his new production technique results in 50% more goods but there's 5,000 people in his commune, he's going to see very little personal benefit as it gets split between 5,000 people, who didn't have to lift a finger to reap the benefits. At best, he'll do it out of pride. And as I said, working based on values when there's such enormous incentive for cheating or predation, is idealistic and results in the sorts of socialist economies racked with corruption and low production that we have seen throughout the last century.

[Preno]

In a socialist economy, rewards aren't "divided equally within the commune", though. I agree that doing so would be blatantly idiotic.
Or a totalitarian regime that prohibits personal initiative by putting huge penalties for individual gain by co-opting them from the creator.Most innovation in the modern world is done by people who are employed by others, so nothing would change for them. Also, by referring to it as "penalties", you're implicitly assuming that the market is the default state, deviations from which constitutes penalties.

[Celsus]

In a socialist economy, rewards aren't "divided equally within the commune", though. I agree that doing so would be blatantly idiotic.
How would rewards be divided and by whom?
Most innovation in the modern world is done by people who are employed by others, so nothing would change for them. Also, by referring to it as "penalties", you're implicitly assuming that the market is the default state, deviations from which constitutes penalties.
It's the existing, real world state.

[Preno]

In a socialist economy, rewards aren't "divided equally within the commune", though. I agree that doing so would be blatantly idiotic.How would rewards be divided and by whom?Doesn't matter. They could be divided according to the same principles capitalists use to divide rewards among their employees, for example.

[Celsus]

First you have to establish a baseline. How much do you pay a janitor? A receptionist? An office manager? An oil worker? A news anchor? A policy-maker? A florist? A military officer? A comedian? A farmer? A waitress? A doctor? A mechanic? A sportsman? An actor?

Capitalists set wages according to prevailing rates in labour markets (why do doctors get paid more than janitors? Because there's less doctors and people will pay a lot more to get medical treatment than to have their places cleaned). Rewards (bonuses) tend to be based on the value the employee adds to the company via things like sales, profits, as well as what the competition offers. When a company wants to attract the best talent, it goes over the market rate.

What happens in a command economy when the government decides it needs more engineers? How do they attract them?

[Hevvin Machine]

This thread has seemed to wander all over the place, probably because the OP and the thread title aren't very well connected. Of course, private property as a concept isn't immoral. A hungry child's bowl of rice is just as much private property as Bill Gates' Microsoft shares. And while I am not at all convinced that capitalism is any more efficient at distibuting rewards based on production than some form of socialism, that isn't why a fourth of the human race did not get enough to eat yesterday to survive.

There are all kinds of other assumptions made by capitalists that aren't inherent to the concept of private property. Why should somebody who hasn't done anything particularly useful be a multimillionaire? It happens all the time. They are called "heirs". Why should somebody get rich selling timber, diamonds, iron, oil or anything else that they had nothing to do with creating? If you can make a lot of money selling heroin how is that different from selling perfume, according to laissez faire capitalist theory? It's not.
Hev

[Hevvin Machine]

I think the generalisation that public assets and utilities will be less efficiently managed than resources and services controlled as private enterprises is usually true. We can almost always count on the profit motive to ensure this.
I don't understand why anyone still believes this. Anyone who looks at American history can see that it isn't true, at least not here.

You can always find an anecdote about some industry that arose because of capitalist freedom. But if you look at the actual history, you will see that before America adopted it's many socialist policies the economy was generally a mess. Cycles of booms and busts, labor held in near slavery conditions, the rich becoming so rich they rivalled the aristocracy of Europe, laissez faire capitalism nearly destroyed America. That's private property rights in action, if you ask me. Fortunately for America, we started instituting socialist endeavors. Like unions, anti-trust laws, Social Security, public schools, and the like. After WWII we bumped this trend up, riding the crest of a wave created by having the worlds sole remaining industrial infrastructure. The GI Bill, tax benefits for home mortgages, The Great Society, AFDC, the "freeway" highway system, the list grew and grew.
America boomed.
Now we are reverting to the olden days. The government doesn't want to go to the expense of maintaining the infrastructure or funding the schools. They can borrow whatever is needed to start wars or prop up AIG and GM, but provide health-care? What an outrageous concept! What kind of Commie Pinko Fag would expect children to get their shots or dental care? Who has time to investigate Country Wide Finance Corp, when there are all those kids out there smoking a joint? We are reverting to the olden days, where the rich and the ruthless win, and everybody else loses. Laissez faire capitalism at it's finest.
Hev

[Valheru]

I don't understand why anyone still believes this. Anyone who looks at American history can see that it isn't true, at least not here.

There are two things that ruined it for the US (as far as my knowledge goes) - 1) Excessive (i.e too easily available) economic assistance from the government, and 2) Unions.

[premjan]

It totally depends I think. Everything need not be most efficiently delivered by private insitutions. After all why not privatize the government? So some types of things are efficiently delivered by government, such as government. But a lot of things are more efficiently delivered by private producers.

[Alex]

There are a few public utilities (like the supply of water and electricity) that I'd prefer to be under government control. They might be run less efficiently than would be the case as private businesses, but sometimes moral judgments of the wider "social good" trump narrow market considerations.

State intervention isn't necessarily a bad thing. Not every economic decision should be made entirely on the assessment of material advantages.

[Ray Moscow]

Natural monopolies at the very least need to be closely regulated (e.g., public utilities), if not operated outright by the state.

"Private" is not a magic key to being efficient or good for consumers.

[Alex]

^ I agree with you, Ray.

Competition in the domestic supply of water, electricity and gas is entirely notional. Commodities and services that are essential to survival ought not to be in the hands of private monopolies. It's better that absolutely indispensable goods that cannot be sold on a competitive basis should be supplied by a state monopoly, I think.

[Valheru]

^ I also agree. You could argue that the profit motive could lead to a reduction in the quality of the service.

"This here clorine is costing us a wack, Jim".

"Well, cut the dosage in half, idiot!"