I believe that the notions of ownership and property are problematic. And they seem to play a significant role in the Israeli/Arab conflict as well as other issues.

I do not think that it is possible to own something. In the sense that you some how have exclusive rights to something on earth.

I do not think a government official or state law declaring that you own X is anything more than words. As opposed to some metaphysical connection tying you inextricably to some property. So for example you could by a sandwich and then a Seagull snatches it from you and eats it. Or you buy something and die or it goes missing or is destroyed.

So I think land and property are only kept by brute force. The government or tribes leader with a police force and or army commit to defending objects and lands that are legally recognised as yours. In countries like here in the Uk we have a large well equipped and highly sophisticated army to protect citizens and nationwide interests. In this sense the property and land are not defended by reason.

If there were just a few humans there would be so much land and resources that no person would need to make property claims. Now there are large numbers of people vying for limited resources and small objects and areas are worth a lot. This seems to lead to inevitable conflict or at the very least everything being very expensive.

Andrew4Handel wrote:...I think land and property are only kept by brute force...

Are they not rather kept by agreement among the inhabitants of the relevant country? Rousseau's social contract? (says this person who has never actually read Rousseau). And force is only used in those rare cases when someone obstinately refuses to abide by that agreement and seeks to impose their own wishes; by force, if need be?

Property and ownership go way back as concepts in Western thought. Both can be encompassed by the Roman legal principle of Abusus, which held that property could be defined in terms of use and of an owner's rightful ability to destroy a thing. For example, a table could be said to be your property if you could show that nobody else had a rightful claim to its use, and therefore there could be no rightfui objection if, say, you set it on fire in the back yard. The fact that you could destroy the table without rightful objection is legal proof of your ownership of it. It's worth noting that this principle was also applied to the ownership of people too.

This still holds today and is deeply engrained in our legal and social frameworks. I could could go out and buy 10,000 wheelchairs and then flatten them with a steamroller, and although such an act would be considered morally objectionable by most people, most people would also have to accept that my ownship of the wheelchairs legally entitles me to do whatever I want with them - turn them into a 40 foot high sculpture of my dick, fire them into space, resell them for profit or give them away for free, or deny others any use from them by crushinh them all beneath the wheels of heavy plant machinery.

What's happening with the wheelchairs here is that the idea of private or exclusive use subordinates or overrides any and all claims to common or general use. The fact that I've denied 10,000 wheelchair users access to a necessary mobility aid is simply overridden by my ownership thereof. When this is broadened to apply to necessary resources such as land, water, housing, food, clothing, and energy etc then it soon becomes obvious where the conflict between the private and the common will arise, and will probably always arise under such principles.

'Property" then is anything that is protected against all common claims to use. It's probably not a coincidence that these legal concepts were developed by, and so continue to be promoted and endorsed by those who already assert an exclusive claim to use over the majority of necessary resources, including people - claims which are typically enforced by the threat of military/paramilitary force, or the kind of force sometimes referred to as 'legal consequence'.

THWOTH wrote:...fire them into space...

You might encounter some limitations on your legal ability to do that. But those limitations wouldn't turn on your legal title to the wheelchairs, or lack thereof; so fair enough.

I agree (with the OP) that property is not an objective feature of the thing owned; like mass, or charge, or, I don't know, pH value. In law we pretend that it is, and courts go into deep discussions about what the law actually provides in a particular real-life case; but the fact that property, like (I suppose) all other legal concepts, is not objective but arbitrary, is demonstrated by the fact that it can always be changed by going through the prescribed process of legislation.

The German constitution (adopted after WWII) has a two-word article: "Eigentum verpflichtet." (The Luxembourg constitution has exactly the same article; evidently very willing to adopt good ideas from abroad.) The two words literally mean "property obliges", or "creates obligations", and is an enjoinder to the citizens and the courts to conduct themselves according to the principle of responsible ownership.

The_Metatron wrote:I suspect our friend Andy here has never had his property taken from him.

I had new bike stolen the next day and it was a very comfortable ride.

It has never been returned but I am still legally considered the owner. But it is useless to me.

I belive in stewardship. I don't recklessly damage my possessions so someone can use them after me. Likewise if I own a lake I should not be able to pollute it. There are legally limits on what people can do with property in some case like a historical protected building there is very little the owner can do.

We all value public spaces like parks and libraries and scenic walks. So few people would endorse everything being private property.

Andrew4Handel wrote: ... ownership and property are problematic.

Yes, ownership and property are social constructs. As are, rights, laws, principles etc.

Now what?

Evolving wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:...I think land and property are only kept by brute force...

Are they not rather kept by agreement among the inhabitants of the relevant country? Rousseau's social contract? (says this person who has never actually read Rousseau). And force is only used in those rare cases when someone obstinately refuses to abide by that agreement and seeks to impose their own wishes; by force, if need be?

As far as I am aware we don't agree to a social contract.

I have to obey the laws of the UK because I was born here. I don't have a choice but I can vote for a government that might change laws.

I think we could make an official social contract but then people couldn't be compelled to agree to it unless they endorsed it. Instead I think most people accept a lot of the systems in place at their birth.

I think the development of private property was influenced by the growing middle class becoming affluent and influential and being able negotiate for it.

But we essential rely on the police and army. Otherwise we would not need a police and army. We face threat of war and theft happens frequently. In one sense a valid criticism of the west is that our laws only protect our own interests at the disadvantage of other parts of the world.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
If there were just a few humans there would be so much land and resources that no person would need to make property claims. Now there are large numbers of people vying for limited resources and small objects and areas are worth a lot. This seems to lead to inevitable conflict or at the very least everything being very expensive.

We can look at it the following way. The concept of a territory is not a human-made concept nor is defending it with a brute force. Human-made laws are trying to prevent (territory-related) conflicts, which are not inevitable because of the laws but because of human nature.

I think we could make an official social contract but then people couldn't be compelled to agree to it unless they endorsed it.

A social contract is not similar to a contract, despite having the word in the phrase.

A social contract is an implicit acceptance of the fundamental legitimacy of the state you're born into. Were you able to deny that implicit social contract then, definitionally, the society within which you live would not recognize you as a member of that society and thus its legal protections wouldn't extend to you. This wouldn't work out well for anyone, least of all you.

tuco wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote:
If there were just a few humans there would be so much land and resources that no person would need to make property claims. Now there are large numbers of people vying for limited resources and small objects and areas are worth a lot. This seems to lead to inevitable conflict or at the very least everything being very expensive.

We can look at it the following way. The concept of a territory is not a human-made concept nor is defending it with a brute force. Human-made laws are trying to prevent (territory-related) conflicts, which are not inevitable because of the laws but because of human nature.

Very well put.

Evolving wrote:

THWOTH wrote:...fire them into space...

You might encounter some limitations on your legal ability to do that. But those limitations wouldn't turn on your legal title to the wheelchairs, or lack thereof; so fair enough.

I agree (with the OP) that property is not an objective feature of the thing owned; like mass, or charge, or, I don't know, pH value. In law we pretend that it is, and courts go into deep discussions about what the law actually provides in a particular real-life case; but the fact that property, like (I suppose) all other legal concepts, is not objective but arbitrary, is demonstrated by the fact that it can always be changed by going through the prescribed process of legislation...

My comment was more philosophical than legal. I also agree (with the OP) that Property is not an objective/inherent feature or quality of the thing itself. Instead I frame it as a claim-to-use, authorised by force. Ownership therefore is the enforcement of that claim, whether by legal or other means. I believe this raises some issues when it comes to the ownership of the necessities for life (like land), because, as in my wheelchair example, ownership entails a forced denial-of-use of said necessities, in the same manner as my ownership subordinates any and all common claims-to-use of the wheelchairs. I say subordinates because ultimately my abusus right to destroy the thing is protected over any competing claim-to-use or moral objection.

Aye, it's pretty basal to any form of society.

Even if no one owns any material laying about - sticks for example (except for when they're being used by early hominids to fight off predators ) - but an individual collects those sticks and makes something from them, the resulting object is their property. This means that at some level, property is derived from labour. It's as wrong for someone to come and take my crafted object as it would be were they to force me to spend my time collecting sticks and making the object for them.

This isn't the same logic as ownership of land, but it's basal for ownership of property.

Spearthrower wrote:Aye, it's pretty basal to any form of society.

Even if no one owns any material laying about - sticks for example (except for when they're being used by early hominids to fight off predators ) - but an individual collects those sticks and makes something from them, the resulting object is their property...

Why/how? You suggest here that the creation of a thing automatically renders it the property of its creator, where I suggest that property merely entails an enforceable claim to use.

This means that at some level, property is derived from labour.

Not necessarily. A person can assert a claim to use for something where no labour is involved. A riverbed, for example.

It's as wrong for someone to come and take my crafted object as it would be were they to force me to spend my time collecting sticks and making the object for them.

Why/how? If another's claim to use of your object is enforced then you no longer own it. Simples. This doesn't invalidate your claim, it's just that you probably won't be able to do much about it! See my remarks on enforcement - this applies to labour too; another can own your time and effort as-if they were property if their claim is enforceable and enforced.

This isn't the same logic as ownership of land, but it's basal for ownership of property.

That reads like a cultural or political presupposition to me.

THWOTH wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Aye, it's pretty basal to any form of society.

Even if no one owns any material laying about - sticks for example (except for when they're being used by early hominids to fight off predators ) - but an individual collects those sticks and makes something from them, the resulting object is their property...

Why/how? You suggest here that the creation of a thing automatically renders it the property of its creator, where I suggest that property merely entails an enforceable claim to use.

I already answered that in the remainder of my post.

For the same reason you can't force me to labour to produce something for you, so you can't take away something I produce. Therein lies a basic element of property, and by basic, I mean something original, a way in which the concept of ownership first arose among humans.

In turn, this can stretch back to pre-linguistic codification. A piece of fruit on a tree is any monkey's - whoever gets to it first. But if a monkey puts in the labour to pick that fruit, it becomes theirs and they're going to be mighty grumpy if one of their fellows tries to take it.

THWOTH wrote:

This means that at some level, property is derived from labour.

Not necessarily. A person can assert a claim to use for something where no labour is involved.

I didn't say that there any no other ways that ownership can be obtained, only that a basal one is labour.

THWOTH wrote:

It's as wrong for someone to come and take my crafted object as it would be were they to force me to spend my time collecting sticks and making the object for them.

Why/how? If another's claim to use of your object is enforced then you no longer own it.

Then you've stolen my labour in the same way is if you forced me to labour for you to produce that item.

THWOTH wrote:This doesn't invalidate your claim, it's just that you probably won't be able to do much about it! See my remarks on enforcement - this applies to labour too; another can own your time and effort as-if they were property if their claim is enforceable and enforced.

I'm not talking about enforcement as that's another issue altogether. I'm talking about how society recognizes ownership.

THWOTH wrote:

This isn't the same logic as ownership of land, but it's basal for ownership of property.

That reads like a cultural or political presupposition to me.

What part of my sentence does?

As an aside, the reason I am purposely separating away land ownership is that I do believe it originates and persists only through application of force. This predates humanity by hundreds of millions of years through territoriality - so a lizard owns its sunbathing rock only so long and to the extent that it can fight off any would-be supplanters. Any lizard who wants to disagree with that lizard's ownership is obligated to engage in a trial of force. Might has the right.