Monday, February 20, 2023

Some thoughts on ownership

 Well let's start with the easy ones. Ownership is it it's core the right to deny access to others. Our society is currently made up with the idea that the default is that everything is already owned. We never really consider that mabe ownership shouldn't be the natural state of the world. Yes we should have spheres and levels of what can be considered "owned". Like you should 100% own your body. Nobody should be allowed access without your permission. Then we have items that are for supporting and maintaining that body. We should have some basic right to exclude others (like your toothbrush, it seems inherent that I should be allowed to limit who can access and use that). But then we get a bit bigger and the idea of individual ownership seems absurd.

Like my home. Surely I should have the right to exclude strangers from entering into it. But should I be allowed to prevent my infant from coming inside? How about my partner? 

Like aside from situations of assult and safety, it seems absurd that I have ownership of my home above others who also use the space as their home. Our current laws start with ownership of the house and actually do very little to differentiate house from home. 

So it seems that one should have less ownership over their home than their body, and maybe even less than their toothbrush.

What about my garden, here's where a whole lot of other things come into play. My family garden to grow food to enter our bodies seems to have a lot of connection to toothbrush type things, but it's actual land and so has some resemblance to home type things. And that's before we get to the idea of what happens if that garden produces a surplus. Do I own that food that I can't or won't use? So that my right to exclude access includes letting it rot while others starve? 

Like maybe I shouldn't have to allow anyone to come into the garden and do as they please so that it'll prevent my crops from maturing and prevent me from collecting seeds to replant next season. But surely it's just plain wrong for me to let food rot rather than feeding someone starving on the other side of the fence. 

Also what if my gardening skills and system is grossly inadequate. Should I be allowed to deny my neighbor access to the soil when their growing techniques could produce enough for both families to eat and have surplus, and my techniques barley produce enough for my own families consumption. Surely my right to exclude others from that space should also incur some responsibility to all those others that I'm denying. 

If I own a large space if land. That simply means I have a right to exclude all others to that parcel of land. There are 8 billion other people who I'm saying can't use it. My personal wants is to make a golf course. For just me to use. But that land could provide food for some of those others who I am preventing from using it. Surely I have some basic obligations to those that have agreed to allow me exclusive control. 

Shouldn't my right to exclude some obligations as to what's done with it?

What I start to see is that the idea that ownership is part of an agreement starts to crumble. What starts to come through is that ownership is a result and function of force. I don't want to cede to Adam Smith here but, force does simplify the equation. 

Partly because we live in a world that has embraced many of Smith's ideas. But also because it means "agreement" is so much easier to reach when disagreements are settled with killing everyone who dissents until everyone alive agrees that staying alive is more personally important than continued disagreement. 

And that's the real burn for all Leftist ideas. As along as one person or group is willing to resort to force and killing, we will need to develop our own force to maintain any society. This is why "Communism within one nation" is flawed. We will need to use force as our ultimate decider with outsiders. And when that force exists, how do we possibly prevent its use on insiders as well? 

.... I noticed I'm off topic now... Sorry

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