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> You got this the other way around. Private property needs force to be upheld. I don't follow this at all, but I'm willing to listen? How does private propert

> You got this the other way around. Private property needs force to be upheld. I don't follow this at all, but I'm willing to listen? How does private property require any more force to uphold compared to any other possible system? Even anarchy, if you want it to stay anarchy requires force if you have defectors.

puranjay 6y ago
Private property implies ownership. The moment you assume ownership, you have to be ready to defend your claim against a counter claimant. How you defend this claim depends on where (and when) you live, but almost uniformly requires force - either directly (violence) or indirectly (court systems and police, aka violence by proxy). If there is no concept of private property, the need to defend ownership ceases. If no one owns anything, there can be no claims - and counter claims. Like a happy family where your brother's meal is also yours, and vice versa - depending on how hungry you are. For the record, I don't support the latter stance and believe Marxism is catastrophically ignorant of innate human tendencies. But as an ideology, it is worth exploring to reexamine our own relationship with and understanding of private property.
- disposekinetics 6y ago
  Thank you, I think I understand now. I appreciate you taking the time to make me get it.
jahaja 6y ago
How do you imagine absentee landlords would be able to collect rent without force? Or an even more extreme example, how would the property right of the only water source in town be upheld without force? These things are far from natural, private property in the modern sense, is a social construct upheld by force.
- disposekinetics 6y ago
  Without force everything is voluntary, private property doesn't cease to exist as long as people have honor and abide by their word. It seems any reasonable system of people upholding their contracts would eventually result in private property?
  - jahaja 6y ago
    There is nothing natural nor reasonable about absentee ownership. It has always been upheld by force. By kings, feudal lords etc. For other cultures, like for example native americans, the entire concept was completely foreign.
    - moneytalks 6y ago
      If it really was a totally foreign concept to native Americans, who did the European invaders steal the land from?
      - yellowapple 6y ago
        European invaders stole it from Native Americans as a whole. Just because no specific individual owns it doesn't mean it's free real estate. From a purely anarchistic point of view, European settlers were within their rights to settle upon and use that unowned land. They weren't, however, within their rights to to use that "unowned" land at the expense of other people already using that land, and thus the Native Americans were within their rights to defend against such a deprivation of access. Unfortunately, the Europeans had numbers, guns, and smallpox on their side, and as the Native Americans retreated further West the Europeans continued to spread. And to be clear: the Native Americans were using that land. A reasonably-healthy wilderness ecosystem is crucial for hunting, as any hunter can attest even in the modern-day; kinda hard to hunt bison if there ain't any bison.
yellowapple 6y ago
> I don't follow this at all, but I'm willing to listen? How does private property require any more force to uphold compared to any other possible system? Property (and we're mostly talking in the context of "real" property - i.e. land and maybe structures/improvements - since that's what's typically most scarce/valuable in a society given the fixed supply, though some resources like water might be subject to similar discussions for similar reasons) has two states: "owned" and "not owned". Asserting ownership inherently requires force. Not asserting ownership requires no force at all. Typically, in an implementation of absolute anarchy, there would be no ownership of property beyond, at most, two categories: 1. Property which you individually (plus perhaps your family) are actively occupying/improving/using and can prevent use by others 2. Property which you and other people interested in occupying/improving/using that property (a.k.a. a "community") can cooperatively do so Category #1 is a difficult proposition in a stateless society, since it definitionally means that your occupation is at the exclusion of a broader community. All but the absolute smallest of "communities" (if you could call them that) would likely outnumber you. You could probably recruit other community members to your cause, but - definitionally speaking - if you're able to get enough people on your side to avoid being outnumbered, then congrats, your property is probably in Category #2 and collectively-used. You're right that private property and community property require an equal amount of force to uphold, but the thing is that per person community property requires less force per occupant. Thus, unless you've got a force multiplier that's unavailable to the broader community, you're gonna have a pretty hard time asserting "private" ownership of anything that the broader community claims to "own".

puranjay 6y ago

Private property implies ownership. The moment you assume ownership, you have to be ready to defend your claim against a counter claimant. How you defend this claim depends on where (and when) you live, but almost uniformly requires force - either directly (violence) or indirectly (court systems and police, aka violence by proxy). If there is no concept of private property, the need to defend ownership ceases. If no one owns anything, there can be no claims - and counter claims. Like a happy family where your brother's meal is also yours, and vice versa - depending on how hungry you are. For the record, I don't support the latter stance and believe Marxism is catastrophically ignorant of innate human tendencies. But as an ideology, it is worth exploring to reexamine our own relationship with and understanding of private property.

disposekinetics 6y ago
Thank you, I think I understand now. I appreciate you taking the time to make me get it.

jahaja 6y ago

How do you imagine absentee landlords would be able to collect rent without force? Or an even more extreme example, how would the property right of the only water source in town be upheld without force? These things are far from natural, private property in the modern sense, is a social construct upheld by force.

disposekinetics 6y ago
Without force everything is voluntary, private property doesn't cease to exist as long as people have honor and abide by their word. It seems any reasonable system of people upholding their contracts would eventually result in private property?
- jahaja 6y ago
  There is nothing natural nor reasonable about absentee ownership. It has always been upheld by force. By kings, feudal lords etc. For other cultures, like for example native americans, the entire concept was completely foreign.
  - moneytalks 6y ago
    If it really was a totally foreign concept to native Americans, who did the European invaders steal the land from?
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      European invaders stole it from Native Americans as a whole. Just because no specific individual owns it doesn't mean it's free real estate. From a purely anarchistic point of view, European settlers were within their rights to settle upon and use that unowned land. They weren't, however, within their rights to to use that "unowned" land at the expense of other people already using that land, and thus the Native Americans were within their rights to defend against such a deprivation of access. Unfortunately, the Europeans had numbers, guns, and smallpox on their side, and as the Native Americans retreated further West the Europeans continued to spread. And to be clear: the Native Americans were using that land. A reasonably-healthy wilderness ecosystem is crucial for hunting, as any hunter can attest even in the modern-day; kinda hard to hunt bison if there ain't any bison.

yellowapple 6y ago

> I don't follow this at all, but I'm willing to listen? How does private property require any more force to uphold compared to any other possible system? Property (and we're mostly talking in the context of "real" property - i.e. land and maybe structures/improvements - since that's what's typically most scarce/valuable in a society given the fixed supply, though some resources like water might be subject to similar discussions for similar reasons) has two states: "owned" and "not owned". Asserting ownership inherently requires force. Not asserting ownership requires no force at all. Typically, in an implementation of absolute anarchy, there would be no ownership of property beyond, at most, two categories: 1. Property which you individually (plus perhaps your family) are actively occupying/improving/using and can prevent use by others 2. Property which you and other people interested in occupying/improving/using that property (a.k.a. a "community") can cooperatively do so Category #1 is a difficult proposition in a stateless society, since it definitionally means that your occupation is at the exclusion of a broader community. All but the absolute smallest of "communities" (if you could call them that) would likely outnumber you. You could probably recruit other community members to your cause, but - definitionally speaking - if you're able to get enough people on your side to avoid being outnumbered, then congrats, your property is probably in Category #2 and collectively-used. You're right that private property and community property require an equal amount of force to uphold, but the thing is that per person community property requires less force per occupant. Thus, unless you've got a force multiplier that's unavailable to the broader community, you're gonna have a pretty hard time asserting "private" ownership of anything that the broader community claims to "own".