[Doug64]

Orson Scott Card, in one of his emails, had an interesting experience involving his four-year-old granddaughter (the references to "puggles" comes from earlier in the column, when he mentions some of the odd names we have for baby animals -- he suggests we start using "puggle" (a baby platypus) for children):

Speaking of what's fair and what's not, it was fun watching our almost-four-year-old granddaughter learning the concept of property.

Generally speaking, we take it for granted that kids understand ownership because, from a very early age, babies grab things and say "mine." Civilizing adults generally believe they need to teach children to share.

But that's absolutely wrong. The concept of property is way more complicated than grabbing something and screaming "mine" at anybody who tries to take it away. That's not property, that's mere possession.

Property is something that you continue to own even when you're not holding it. Your house stays yours even when everybody leaves the house for hours or days or weeks at a time. Your car continues to be yours when you leave it in the parking lot.

This works because everybody agrees to respect property rights — and those who don't are put in jail.

Little children don't know this. They think that ownership ends when possession ends. Let go of it, and it isn't yours anymore.

So little children don't need to be forced to share things until after they've mastered the concept of property. Little children need to be reassured that yes, that toy you just got for Christmas is yours, and if you don't want your little sister to play with it, that is your right. It doesn't mean you're selfish or bad; it means that you're the owner.

My feeling is that any adult who forces a little puggle to share things that the puggle supposedly owns should then be willing to undergo a carjacking or home invasion without complaint. What's sauce for the gosling is sauce for the goose, isn't it?

I watched my (brilliant) daughter and son-in-law deal with their almost-four-year-old's insistence that her almost two-year-old sister not play with any of her toys.

What they did was agree completely: These are your toys, and if you don't want the little one to play with them, we'll make sure that happens. Nobody said, "It's better to share."

However — and here's where the puggles start to learn about sharing and, by the way, economics — she was also told that she could not play with any of her little sister's Christmas toys. If the rule was "no playing with each other's toys," it would be equally enforced for both little girls.

Fair. Fair fair fair, out the wazoo.

The little one got some really cool toys for Christmas. The older one thought about the world situation for about fifteen minutes. Then she came back into the room and announced that the little one could play with her toys after all. If, that is, the sharing went both directions.

Then the older girl spent several minutes enumerating all of her toys that she would now allow her little sister to play with. Nobody needed the enumeration; I think she was listing them as she realized, Oh, wow, sharing "all my toys" means sharing this one, too.

It was a very sophisticated bit of reasoning, to learn that reciprocity was a way to maximize the utility of scarce resources.

Now if we could just persuade our President-elect that free trade is better than protectionism, we might not suffer the disastrous economic consequences of trying to keep all our toys for ourselves.

Now this is the proper way to teach children -- first lay the foundation (property and reciprocity), and then teach them about the Christian virtue of charity. That would also give the kids the basic foundation of economics.

[One Degree]

I believe Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development would say the child has only advanced to stage 2, "what is in it for me", not a true understanding of sharing and a definitely Capitalist mentality.

Edit: Leaving the children to their own devices would have resulted in the younger child negotiating for possessions from a stronger adversary. This would perhaps result in a more communal idea.

[Doug64]

I believe Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development would say the child has only advanced to stage 2, "what is in it for me", not a true understanding of sharing and a definitely Capitalist mentality.

Actually, I'd say the concept of property rights and reciprocity falls into stage three or higher. "What's in it for me" couldn't care less about fairness.

[One Degree]

"What's in it for me" couldn't care less about fairness.

I guess it depends on how you interpret their words and actions. I reread it a couple of times and I don't see a real understanding of fairness. I don't believe a child that age could comprehend a 'fairness' that was not based upon 'what is in it for me'. Fairness for fairness sake is an abstract idea beyond their comprehension. Regardless they seem to have accomplished at least the same result as if they had let the children settle it.

[MistyTiger]

My parents did not teach my sister to be selfish. She was just always like that. She did not want to share her toys with me. She gave me the toys she no longer wanted.


I would love to see the concept used on drivers. They need to understand that the road is not theirs, share the road people!

[quetzalcoatl]

The OP addresses the least interesting aspects of 'property.' Nobody, aside from a few dreamers, objects to people maintaining control of a home or personal possessions. The interesting question is how far are you willing to extend the right of property.

Can I own thousands or millions of acres of land, and live off the rent from that land? Can I own intellectual property or sell/lease it to someone else? Can I own a bank and get free money from negative interest rates? Can I own a corporation that is itself a potentially immortal person with legal rights?

Conversely, do common rights exist? Such as the right to reserve land for parks, or maintaining wild habitat? Or taxation for the common good?

In my opinion, the worst thing you can teach a child is that property is absolute. But then Card has always been a jerk.

[One Degree]

But then Card has always been a jerk.

I did not find that out until after I had read the entire Enders series. I really liked his fiction, but everything else sucks.

[Doug64]

I guess it depends on how you interpret their words and actions. I reread it a couple of times and I don't see a real understanding of fairness.

The fairness comes in with the concept that "if my sister can't play with my toys, I can't play with her toys." The same rule applies across the board.

In my opinion, the worst thing you can teach a child is that property is absolute.

No, I'd say the worst thing you can teach anyone (including children) is that property is yours only so long as someone else doesn't need it more. That obliterates the concept of charity.

I did not find that out until after I had read the entire Enders series. I really liked his fiction, but everything else sucks.

I would say that the philosophy of his fiction is as much a part of him as everything else.

[anna]

Not the same issue, but I'm reminded of John F. Kennedy's famous quote:

"We cannot negotiate with those who say "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."

John F. Kennedy Speeches: Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961

[Truth To Power]

I did not find that out until after I had read the entire Enders series. I really liked his fiction, but everything else sucks.

Card wrote a brilliant short story, the original "Ender's Game," and has spun it into a career. But everything else he has written, including the novel, has been garbage.

[Truth To Power]

The interesting question is how far are you willing to extend the right of property.

Very true. Rightful property cannot consist of other people's rights to liberty. Yet that is what the bulk of all property, by value, currently consists of.

Can I own thousands or millions of acres of land, and live off the rent from that land?

Or a quarter-acre? The value of land is precisely equal to how much more the market expects the owner to take from society by owning the land than he will pay in taxes on it. No one has ever offered a consistently defensible justification for landowner parasitism, and no one ever will.

Can I own intellectual property or sell/lease it to someone else?

Intellectual "property" is nothing but a government-issued and -enforced legal entitlement to profit from the removal of others' liberty.

Can I own a bank and get free money from negative interest rates?

Or much more often, from positive ones?

Can I own a corporation that is itself a potentially immortal person with legal rights?

Corporations are not persons, except to liars.

Conversely, do common rights exist?

Rights that all individuals have in common.

Such as the right to reserve land for parks, or maintaining wild habitat?

That is not a right, as it is not something anyone would otherwise have.

Or taxation for the common good?

As above. The purpose of taxation is irrelevant to its rightfulness. Only the nature of the tax determines its validity. Taxes that recover publicly created value for public purposes and benefit are the only rightful ones.

In my opinion, the worst thing you can teach a child is that property is absolute.

IMO it's that the world is a haunted house.

But then Card has always been a jerk.

And a shitty writer, except for that one great short story.

[MistyTiger]

Can I own a corporation that is itself a potentially immortal person with legal rights?

A corporation can live for as long as it is kept alive by management and it is an entity made up of a huge group of people that keep it breathing. Yes, you can own a corporation as well as the stockholders who own pieces of it.

In my opinion, the worst thing you can teach a child is that property is absolute.

The worst thing is to teach them that by having something in your possession, it therefore belongs to you without a doubt.

And Card's writing is boring. I read one book by him and did not care to read another.

[Doug64]

The worst thing is to teach them that by having something in your possession, it therefore belongs to you without a doubt.

Absolutely -- the very concept of property -- that picking up another child's toy doesn't transfer ownership -- has to come first. Once that concept is in place, then you can teach the implications of the principle of ownership such as that it cuts both ways.

Not the same issue, but I'm reminded of John F. Kennedy's famous quote:

"We cannot negotiate with those who say "What's mine is mine, and what's yours is negotiable."

John F. Kennedy Speeches: Radio and Television Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis, July 25, 1961

Not that far off-topic, that's simply a memorable way of saying that the concept of ownership only applies to you and not the "them."