Socialism is the ideal way to go. Change my Mind - Page 19 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#15006501
Pants-of-dog wrote:Okay. You actually made several claims about this, and even the part you quoted has more than one claim. I assume you are trying to support your claim about animals or about the ubiquitousness of private land ownership, and you are only supporting your claim about it being older than Rome.

So, just to be clear, other societies at the time of ancient Sumer did not have private property as we know it?

The paper linked to confirms that private property is older than pagan Rome. It also supports but does not prove that private property is ubiquitous because it covers only three ancient MENA civilisations rather than all civilisations (it would be an extrordinarily long paper if it did!). It does not look at the Indus Valley or Chinese or Mayan civilisations for example. My claim about animals is best served by checking in with "nature studies" rather than human history.

Nomads don't bother with private property in land because they move about. I doubt very much that it is generally true that they have some kind of cognitive impairment similar to yours that prevents them understanding it though. They understand private property in tents and horses no problem. It is not a great leap of intellect to repeat that feat for land. If a bird or badger can do it then so can a human, nomad or not.
#15006639
It doesn't matter PoD. The concept of private property could have come from any era, but if the era was under civilization and within a social contract and with abiding laws for its residents it isn't savagery under a natural law is it, duh!!. The very thing SolarCross can't understand no matter how many smacks with the dildo he has whipped across his face.

Also animals do not understand what private property is as it is a legal concept. They understand territorial instinct by natural selection. They are just as likely to fight to gain territory as they are to protect it if it is dependent on their life. An animal does not just accept that another animal owns land because they built a sett or den previously. And if they do fight to gain territory their limitations are only their might. There is no legal structure to prevent them from doing so or protections for the other side to fall back onto. So animals work off a natural order not a social construct.
#15006651
Pants-of-dog wrote:So you see that your evidence does not support any claim about the ubiquitousness of modern private property concepts in the ancient world.

Well it is necessary for installation building people: farmers and city dwellers. If you see significant building (more investment heavy than a tent) then you should expect private property to be there. Excepting pure pastoralists (many pastoralists are semi-nomadic) everybody builds something.

FYI you did not provide any evidence for your claim that private property was invented by "anglos" just for spite. Perhaps you would like to provide some evidence of... well anything? Just for a change.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Before we go on, I need you to define what private property means in terms of owning land.


Done:

private - webster
a : intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class. eg: a private park
b : belonging to or concerning an individual person, company, or interest. eg: a private house

property - webster
a : something owned or possessed specifically : a piece of real estate
b : the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing : ownership

I just raided the dictionary. Now what is your definition? I guess it is something idiosyncratic to yourself and crazy clowns like @B0ycey.
#15006696
SolarCross wrote:Well it is necessary for installation building people: farmers and city dwellers. If you see significant building (more investment heavy than a tent) then you should expect private property to be there. Excepting pure pastoralists (many pastoralists are semi-nomadic) everybody builds something.


The mere fact of building something more permanent than a tent does not necessitate private land ownership.

Stonehenge would be an example of a large built project, involving many people from the community, and was not built on private land.

FYI you did not provide any evidence for your claim that private property was invented by "anglos" just for spite. Perhaps you would like to provide some evidence of... well anything? Just for a change.


Actually, I already pointed out that this was a strawman.

Done:

private - webster
a : intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class. eg: a private park
b : belonging to or concerning an individual person, company, or interest. eg: a private house

property - webster
a : something owned or possessed specifically : a piece of real estate
b : the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing : ownership

I just raided the dictionary. Now what is your definition? I guess it is something idiosyncratic to yourself and ... B0ycey.


Then according to this definition, private property did not exist in ancient MENA cultures, since private property is defined differently in the study you cited.
#15006708
Pants-of-dog wrote:The mere fact of building something more permanent than a tent does not necessitate private land ownership.

Stonehenge would be an example of a large built project, involving many people from the community, and was not built on private land.

You don't know that it wasn't. Stonehenge is a open air monument so not really private as such. But we are talking about farms and houses rather than monuments.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Actually, I already pointed out that this was a strawman.

So you have no evidence, fine.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Then according to this definition, private property did not exist in ancient MENA cultures, since private property is defined differently in the study you cited.

You didn't read it. There is no substantial difference in definitions. Regardless you have not shared your secret definition of private property. We will have to dismiss all your claims unless you can do at least that one little thing.
#15006711
SolarCross wrote:You don't know that it wasn't. Stonehenge is a open air monument so not really private as such. But we are talking about farms and houses rather than monuments.


Considering how “uncivilised” English people were before the arrival of the Romans, I would doubt very much that private property existed in any codified manner.

So you have no evidence, fine.


Yes, I have no evidence for a claim I did not make and that I do not think is true.

You didn't read it. There is no substantial difference in definitions. Regardless you have not shared your secret definition of private property. We will have to dismiss all your claims unless you can do at least that one little thing.


Tell you what, you said the entire paper supports your claim.

Please quote anything from the first sixteen (16) pages that clearly shows that modern concepts of private property were around back then.

Remember, it has to be in the first sixteen pages.
#15006715
Pants-of-dog wrote:Considering how “uncivilised” English people were before the arrival of the Romans, I would doubt very much that private property existed in any codified manner.

They weren't "English" at all at that time. "english" is derived from "Angle" a Germanic tribe that did not migrate to the British Isles until after the Romans arrived. The various "celtic" people that lived there before the Romans were not literate people but they did have private property: houses and farms. They were agricultural rather than nomadic. Even their pastoralists were only semi-nomadic.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Tell you what, you said the entire paper supports your claim.

Please quote anything from the first sixteen (16) pages that clearly shows that modern concepts of private property were around back then.

Remember, it has to be in the first sixteen pages.

What is your definition?
Last edited by SolarCross on 22 May 2019 17:30, edited 1 time in total.
#15006717
SolarCross wrote:They weren't English at all at that time. "english" is derived from "Angle" a Germanic tribe that did not migrate to the British Isles until after the Romans arrived. The various "celtic" people that lived there before the Romans were not literate people but they did have private property: houses and farms. They were agricultural rather than nomadic. Even their pastoralists were only semi-nomadic.


Please provide evidence for this claim.

What is your definition?


I have given it to you many times and we always end up with you insulting me and other Marxists and avoiding the argument.

If the definition is as you already gave, then private property did not exist in ancient MENA nations.

And since you are unable to quote from the text, it seems reasonable to assume that you did not read the paper you cited. Not even the first 16 pages.
#15006719
Pants-of-dog wrote:Please provide evidence for this claim.

Why wouldn't they have private property? What is even the point in denying it?

Pants-of-dog wrote:I have given it to you many times and we always end up with you insulting me and other Marxists and avoiding the argument.

So is this mysterious secret definition known only to yourself actually different from the standard definition I have given?

Pants-of-dog wrote:If the definition is as you already gave, then private property did not exist in ancient MENA nations.

Why? Where is your evidence?
#15006724
SolarCross wrote:Why wouldn't they have private property? What is even the point in denying it?


You are assuming history and economics are a certain way simply because you can not imagine otherwise.

This is not a logical reason. It is called an argument from ignorance.

Stonehenge is an example of a monumental permanent structure that was built by a cohesive community that may or may not have had private property.

So is this mysterious secret definition known only to yourself actually different from the standard definition I have given?


Let us use your definition for the purposes of analysing the Yale paper.

Why? Where is your evidence?


It is in the paper you cited.

The private property that was present in ancient Mesopotamia was different from your definition.
#15006728
Seems to me that the concept of private property as understood today by libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, as if it were held in absolute allodial title and unalienable, is a modern thing as opposed to what obtained throughout history, property such as land held in usufruct.

But maybe that's the former Real Estate Agent talking in me :D
#15006735
Pants-of-dog wrote:You are assuming history and economics are a certain way simply because you can not imagine otherwise.

This is not a logical reason. It is called an argument from ignorance.

Stonehenge is an example of a monumental permanent structure that was built by a cohesive community that may or may not have had private property.

Apparently neither can you imagine people being cool with burglary.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Let us use your definition for the purposes of analysing the Yale paper.

You know your secret definition is wrong don't you?

Pants-of-dog wrote:It is in the paper you cited.

The private property that was present in ancient Mesopotamia was different from your definition.

How so? Quotes please!
#15006740
SolarCross wrote:Apparently neither can you imagine people being cool with burglary.


Sorry, but this makes no sense. Can you rewrite this more clearly?

You know your secret definition is wrong don't you?


It is not secret. I use the usual two definitions: the common one you already mentioned, and the Marxist one.

Since wr are discussing your claims, it is your definition that matters.

How so? Quotes please!


Yes, I have asked you for quotes. You have not provided them.

If you live in a state where the ruler can arbitrarily seize your assets with impunity, there is no private property in actual practice.

If the restrictions on selling or giving land are such that you cannot sell or buy land without the permission of the monarch, then there is no market in actual practice.

If anyone above you in the rigid hierarchy can not be excluded from your land, then there is no exclusive use of land for the vast majority of people.

It seems more correct to say that a few powerful people in this society were able to make land transactions that were comparable to modern concepts of private property, but that this was not the case for the system as a whole.
#15006751
SolarCross wrote:The sidewalk is likely owned either by the owner of the house or by a municipal authority.

I have a default right to use it, proving you objectively wrong. OBJECTIVELY.
If you don't own it then you don't have a liberty right to use it by default.

Yes, I most certainly do, as that is what having a right to liberty means. That is how our ancestors lived for millions of years before greedy, parasitic, thieving murderers figured out that they could enslave everyone else if they could just get ownership of their rights to liberty by owning the gifts of nature they would otherwise be at liberty to use.
But there is implied consent to use in that the function of a "sidewalk", as yanks call it, is for people to walk upon thus whoever owns and maintains it does so exactly so that people can walk upon it.

You are evading the facts again. Even if no such structure existed, I would have a default right to walk there.
Occasionally access might be restricted by maintenance or some security incident in which case that implied consent is explicitly withdrawn.

No, in such cases the default right to liberty is temporarily in abeyance in the interest of public safety.
If no one owned it then for sure you can rightfully use it without anyone's consent, implied or otherwise.

Proving your claim that I don't have a right to use anything I don't own objectively false. Your whole "argument" thus collapses. The onus is on the one claiming to own others' rights to liberty to explain why that is rightful, not on them to explain why it is not.
A sidewalk is not a personal space however so it is not safe to assume that what is right for a sidewalk is also right for someone's private bedroom...

You are again just trying to evade the facts of objectively physical reality that prove your beliefs are false and evil by trying to change the subject from land to built space. I have already stipulated that products of labor -- like a bedroom -- are rightly private property, initially of their producers and subsequently of those who acquire them in consensual exchange. But there is no act of production at the root of property in land, only an act of theft.
No one is doing that with air so I don't really see what that has to do with anything.

No one is doing it with air because your claim that people have no right to use what they do not own is so obviously false.
Generally a landowner is exercising some authority over a space not just because it is empty space but because that space has structures, tools or other possessions upon or in it which he is interested in preserving.

No, he has simply been given a legal privilege of abrogating others' rights to liberty without making just compensation, same as a slave owner, or a hypothetical owner of the earth's atmosphere.
Even when people just walk around they claim the immediate space around them even as they move about.

No, that's just another bald falsehood from you. They OCCUPY the space their bodies fill, but they do not claim to own it. Try to learn the difference.
Ownership claims are generally functional not whimsical.

Of course. Same as the claim to own slaves was -- and in some places still is -- functional and not whimsical. Owning slaves solves some very real problems. We just have better, consent-based solutions to those problems now, as we do with land. The only difference is that the case of land is subtler, less direct, and distributed rather than individual, so most people haven't understood it yet.
That depends on what that something is. You can't assume that the rights of using an alphabet is the same as the rights of entering someone's private space, especially without their knowledge. Otherwise you are basically saying burglary is a right.

No. You are again trying to change the subject from land to built space. I agree that products of labor like built space are rightly the private property of, initially, their producers, and subsequently anyone who has obtained them in consensual exchange. Burglars take products of labor, not land.
I wonder if you have the courage of your convictions?

You mean your lie about my convictions:
Do you actually trespass against your neighbours? Do you think any jury in the world would let you off for entering some woman's bedroom at night without permission? Perhaps you think she should be punished instead for calling the police on you?

See?
Not true because animals will claim spaces even if they have not built on them

Claiming is not owning, as thieves prove every day. Brute, animal possession must be defended by the possessor. Ownership of property is defended by the community.
and anyway it hardly matters that which is built must occupy some space so whether the animals is claiming and defending the structure or the space is moot because the result is the same and humans are functionally doing the same thing anyway.

Wrong again. Claiming something you have added to the sum of wealth does not deprive anyone else of anything they would otherwise have. Claiming something that was already there, ready to use, with no help from you DOES deprive others of something they would otherwise have.

GET IT???
If it is wrong for the human then it must also be wrong for the beaver.

:lol: Beaver don't have rights. Humans do. You just want to take those human rights to liberty away from people by force and give them to landowners as their private property because you know that will effectively enable landowners to enslave the landless. You want the landless to be enslaved by landowners, as has happened in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD where private landowning has been well established, but government has not intervened massively to rescue the landless from enslavement by landowners.
Yet no one, human or otherwise, except for you thinks so.

No, you are just makin' $#!+ up again. Just because you want people's rights to liberty removed and given to landowners as their private property doesn't mean everyone else wants that, too.
Simply wrong.

No, I am objectively correct.
The right or wrong of a property claim is quite independent of whether force is available to defend it or what allies may help defend it.

Right. It has nothing to do with making claims, applying force or having "allies," but only on whether a property claim is socially recognized as validly grounded in justice, as the property right of the producer to his product is. In which case, society will generally support and defend the claim. But valid property rights cannot be based only on custom, tradition, social acceptance, functionality or convenience, as chattel slavery proved.
Your very personal mis-definition of "ownership" is idiosyncratic to yourself and irrational.

There is nothing idiosyncratic about it. It is a dictionary definition.
If it were true that rights are a mere popularity contest of who has the most allies then the conventional idea that people can rightfully claim ownership of space is ubiquitous to every culture and people throughout all history

No, that's just indisputably false. The notion of private property in land is unknown, even inconceivable, in pre-agricultural societies until it is forcibly imposed on them by more advanced ones. Even in agricultural societies, it was not until Roman law that property in land was considered analogous to property in products of labor. Before that, it was always understood that land was a communal resource, and exclusive private tenure was temporary and conditional.
with only yourself and a handful of other nutcases saying otherwise

As you would have said to the abolitionists 250 years ago.
which would leave your position completely wrong by your own just-made-up-now standard.

Your claims continue to be reliably false.
#15006754
SolarCross wrote:Nomads don't bother with private property in land because they move about.

Neither do settled hunter-gatherers. They just use land non-exclusively.
I doubt very much that it is generally true that they have some kind of cognitive impairment similar to yours that prevents them understanding it though.

It is you who have the cognitive impairment called, "greed for unearned wealth."
They understand private property in tents and horses no problem.

Because they are products of labor.
It is not a great leap of intellect to repeat that feat for land.

OTC, history shows it is effectively inconceivable to them.
If a bird or badger can do it then so can a human, nomad or not.

Nomads understand taking things by force, as birds and badgers do. They don't understand why anyone else would respect a claim to own land on any other basis.
SolarCross wrote:No, it is ubiquitous and definitely older.

No. You are factually incorrect. Exclusive land tenure is as old as agriculture -- though no older -- but exclusive tenure is not ownership as private property. The village commons had provision for temporary exclusive tenure allocated by household.
It is at least as old as Sumer the first city dwelling civilisation.

Evidence? Most credible scholars agree that private landowning effectively began with Roman law.
Arguably many animals do it too, those that are not completely nomadic.

Nope. No animal has private property in land, as already proved. Brute, animal possession is not property.
If you would like to try to be less ignorant you could try reading this:

Ancient Land Law: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel

Where does that support your claim?
SolarCross wrote:Well it is necessary for installation building people: farmers and city dwellers.

No, I have already proved you wrong by the example of Hong Kong, which is all built on publicly owned land.
#15006773
@Truth To Power What is your source for this little idea of yours about Hong Kong? And how much ideological fantasising have you layered on top of it? I looked at the Heritage foundations entry on Hong Kong and also the wiki article and neither says anything about Hong Kong's land ownership regime which suggests that whatever it is it isn't very peculiar. On my own there are a couple of things that occur to me that you may not have considered:

1. Hong Kong was a British administered territory. In British parlance "public" does not mean "owned by the public" because Britain is not a republic. It rather means "accessible to" or "for the use of the public". For example our bars are called "pubs" which is short for "public house" as in a house which is open to the public, none of them are owned by the government or by the public as a whole, but by private individuals or companies. Our private schools are similarly called "public schools" because these schools were the first schools open to the public (founded centuries and centuries ago long before the state got into the education business).

2. The king at the time did not acquire full ownership of Hong Kong but only a lease from the Chinese monarchy. Consequently when it came to redistributing the land to interested users such as members of the public the king and his agents could not rightfully transfer full ownership of plots of the land given the king didn't really own it himself. So rightfully he could only offer sub-lets. So there would not be a ideological motivation for what you are calling "public" ownership.

3. Hong Kong wasn't and isn't now a democracy so to all intents and purposes the Hong Kong governorship is functionally a (massive) private landlord.
#15006782
SolarCross wrote:@Truth To Power What is your source for this little idea of yours about Hong Kong?

To which fact of objective physical reality that proves your beliefs are false are you referring?
And how much ideological fantasising have you layered on top of it? I looked at the Heritage foundations entry on Hong Kong and also the wiki article and neither says anything about Hong Kong's land ownership regime which suggests that whatever it is it isn't very peculiar.

Of course apologists for capitalism won't mention it: they don't want you to know there has been no private landowning in HK for over 160 years.
1. Hong Kong was a British administered territory.

Right. There has been no private landowning in HK for over 160 years because the whole place was leased from China. They had no legal authority to grant private land titles.
In British parlance "public" does not mean "owned by the public" because Britain is not a republic.

Right. And unlike the UK, it wasn't Crown land either. It was leased from China, and therefore could not be privately owned.
It rather means "accessible to" or "for the use of the public". For example our bars are called "pubs" which is short for "public house" as in a house which is open to the public, none of them are owned by the government or by the public as a whole, but by private individuals or companies. Our private schools are similarly called "public schools" because these schools were the first schools open to the public (founded centuries and centuries ago long before the state got into the education business).

Yes, it's bizarre that the British call their private schools, "public schools." Sort of like Americans call a corporation "publicly held" if a lot of private individuals own shares.
2. The king at the time did not acquire full ownership of Hong Kong but only a lease from the Chinese monarchy. Consequently when it came to redistributing the land to interested users such as members of the public the king and his agents could not rightfully transfer full ownership of plots of the land given the king didn't really own it himself. So rightfully he could only offer sub-lets. So there would not be a ideological motivation for what you are calling "public" ownership.

Correct. There was no ideological motive behind it. They would no doubt have preferred to grant private ownership titles, as they did in other colonies. But they couldn't, so they got the benefit of public ownership of land accidentally.
3. Hong Kong wasn't and isn't now a democracy so to all intents and purposes the Hong Kong governorship is functionally a (massive) private landlord.

No, the landlord was the British Crown, which represents the people of Britain, and is now the HK SRA.
#15006783
Truth To Power wrote:Yes, it's bizarre that the British call their private schools, "public schools." Sort of like Americans call a corporation "publicly held" if a lot of private individuals own shares.

Did it never occur to you that "the public" is just an arbitrary aggregate of private individuals? Really?
#15006916
SolarCross wrote:Did it never occur to you that "the public" is just an arbitrary aggregate of private individuals? Really?

No, because there is nothing arbitrary about it. The people of a community share laws, interests, history, culture, customs, language, etc. The notion that that is all just arbitrary is borderline autistic, maybe sociopathic.
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