Property rights

[tjohnson]

I hear a lot about property rights on this list and how it's fundamental in the "objectivist" scheme of things. I wonder how do you reconcile this with the fact that our ancestors pretty well stole all of this property from the native people of North America? Or does this concept of property ownership only begin after a deed is drawn up and so the natives had no rights to it anyway?

[Brant Gaede]

I hear a lot about property rights on this list and how it's fundamental in the "objectivist" scheme of things. I wonder how do you reconcile this with the fact that our ancestors pretty well stole all of this property from the native people of North America? Or does this concept of property ownership only begin after a deed is drawn up and so the natives had no rights to it anyway?

Well, if they did they were wrong to do so. So also were all those native tribes that continually stole from each other, back then.

It seems, GS, you are attempting to attack the idea of property rights by using the idea itself to do so.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The primitive beginning of all property rights was simply squatting or taking by force. That has been mankind's history.

Production adds a dimension to property that wilderness-like real estate does not have. Force is no longer good enough. You need a brain to produce. To me, that is when civilized property rights and the rule of objective law start. Primitive people will always bash each other over turf and the only constant value will be the will of each tribe's leader.

As for pioneers and settlers bashing primitive people over turf, I hate to say it because it sounds so ugly, but that's just the way it is. And it has been that way throughout all of mankind's history. I have seen no philosophical justification for this using the "civilized property" mold as a standard that convinces me of anything other than observing a rationalization.

We started out as primitives and there are some leftovers of that in our nature. I see nothing wrong in accepting that fact. I agree we should move beyond it to ensure universal individual rights for all human beings, but you can't move beyond a point with any consistency if you refuse to see it.

Michael

[tjohnson]

I hate to say this but I don't know what my point was I think maybe it was the arbitrariness of it all. I'm more of the mind set that we don't own land we are only caretakers of it.