On Dec 17, 3:13 pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
> On 2007-12-17 13:37:06 -0800, Quadibloc <jsav...@ecn.ab.ca> said:

> > Sure, some of the details varied from one society to another, but the
> > concept that a man gets to keep the fruits of his labors is something
> > that has been considered fair by all men who labored from the
> > beginning of time.
>
> But the idea that land can be owned is not.
>
> Nor is the idea that you can use something, put it down, walk away for
> days and come back and it's still yours. Property, as we use the term,
> is more complicated that "I own what I made."
>
> And for that matter, it hasn't always been recognized by society that
> the fruits of a man's labors belong to him.
>
> I think you and I would agree that they should -- and that men can even
> bargain them away in advance -- but it's clearly not true that they
> have been. Whether this is something that's "considered fair by men
> who labored" is one thing, whether it was considered true by the
> society they labored in is something else.

You raise interesting questions.

Can land be owned?

It's true that the Earth wasn't put here by Man.

When people started building houses on land, and planting crops in
land, then they started to think in terms of land ownership; when they
had to wander nomadically in search of game, they did not. I see this
as a question of changing circumstances, and not really as a shift in
morals.

But the conflict between hunter-gatherers and the early civilizations
was, of course, real and painful.

What does the society that "all men who labored in" consist of except
the men who labored? If the king felt that everything belonged to him,
and had thugs to back it up, I would tend to argue that this isn't
really what the "society" thought, just what its *government* thought.

On the other hand, I'm not trying to build a case against... child
support payments!

But property seems to be a fairly uniform concept. People do work,
finding things, making things, or improving things, that previously
belonged to no one else, and thus gain property. They can incur debts
and responsibilities for various reasons, and they can be expected to
contribute to the common interest of their tribe or nation.

The air is free, and at one time, when people were few upon the Earth,
the land was too: property exists where it's worth keeping track of
it.

John Savard

On 2007-12-19 15:25:41 -0800, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> said:

> You raise interesting questions.
>
> Can land be owned?

I own some. So yes.

In some societies, it can't be. This is one of the ways in which
ownership is a social construct.

> When people started building houses on land, and planting crops in
> land, then they started to think in terms of land ownership; when they
> had to wander nomadically in search of game, they did not. I see this
> as a question of changing circumstances, and not really as a shift in
> morals.

I didn't say it was moral; I said it was a social construct. Different
social, different constructs.

> What does the society that "all men who labored in" consist of except
> the men who labored?

Everyone else, in addition to them.

> If the king felt that everything belonged to him,
> and had thugs to back it up, I would tend to argue that this isn't
> really what the "society" thought, just what its *government* thought.

I think that's an interesting philosophical point, but it assumes that
social constructs are democratic and consensus-built, and I don't think
that's universally true. Again, it depends on the society.

Also, of course, assuming that the society will think things through is
rather a stretch -- tell enough people that God says women are chattel
and shouuld do what their husbands say, while wearing fancy enough
robes, and you can build a consensus that it's true. Even among women.
Lobby against it long enough and hard enough and articulately enough,
and you can start to change people's minds.

In a medieval kingdom, if you asked a bunch of peasants if everything
belonged to the king, would they tell you no, property doesn't work
that way but their society is backward and benighted and they'll get
beat up if they say anything? Or will they say yes, of course it
belongs to the king, and the guardians of our souls in that church over
there tell us that this is just and fair and god's will, and the king
and the nobility are all smarter than we are anyway and we're lucky to
have them guide us?

Allowing for variation, I think you'll find a variety of responses, but
you won't find that most people take the view of citizens in a modern
democracy. A huge number of them will believe what they've been
taught. Even those social constructs that are the result of consensus
will be affected by that, in major ways.

> But property seems to be a fairly uniform concept.

I don't think so. In some societies, property belongs to the state.
In some, land can be owned; in others it can't. That's not uniform.

kdb

On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:25:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>You raise interesting questions.
>
>Can land be owned?
>
>It's true that the Earth wasn't put here by Man.

Hey, finders-keepers!
--
Marilee J. Layman
http://mjlayman.livejournal.com

Marilee J. Layman wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 15:25:41 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
> <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>You raise interesting questions.
>>
>>Can land be owned?
>>
>>It's true that the Earth wasn't put here by Man.
>
>
> Hey, finders-keepers!

Yeah. Even if God made it, He's not DOING anything with it, and he
hasn't even complained about us using it for YEARS. Any court would
agree he's at least abandoned any reasonable claim to control our
access to and use of the land.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com