> Property rights are a purely governmental construct. purely governmental? Really? Property rights exist wherever people successfully claim stuff and are will

> Property rights are a purely governmental construct. purely governmental? Really? Property rights exist wherever people successfully claim stuff and are willing to defend their claim. Even dogs have property rights (and help us have them!). The idea of property is a social construct, not a government one. When it comes to land, the government role started by setting up a system where people could register the pre-existing territorial claims they'd made under the local customs, thereby making it easier to arbitrate disputes. But you don't need government to do either of those functions. (Neither running a registry nor arbitrating a dispute requires a monopoly of force, so both of those can be done privately. And have been, and sometimes still are.)