[snrplfth]

I would say yes, historically and presently in various "unowned" regions like international waters and more importantly in "cross-border" exchanges where parties to a trade generate some system of property trust due to the fact that recourse to the government of the "other" country is impossible. (Here we get into the thorny question of whether self-defending individuals/organizations are themselves governments, and so forth.)

But that's not the main point that most economists are making (except the rather unusual anarcho-capitalists like Rothbard and the like.) The point is that there are property rights that are more or less in accordance with certain aspects of reality, and attempts by governments (or indeed private actors) to enforce property rights at odds with physical and informational reality is going to cause serious problems. For example, if a system of property rights says that nobody can own title to exclusive use of land or water, then I've set up a system where the inevitability of needing to physically occupy some land or water conflicts with the impossibility of acquiring stable property in it. Conversely, if a system of property rights says that the first person to speak and claim a phrase owns all rights to it forever (like some super-copyright), then it's just made normal language extremely cumbersome. The primary point of economists in the whole Menger-Hayek-Mises-Hazlitt meta-tradition is that while a government of some kind is probably inevitable, it should recognize that appropriate property rights depend on certain properties of the things themselves, and not arbitrarily defined by the government. (This is a sort of compact way of saying "property rights need to be defined differently between private goods, public goods, club goods and pool goods, due to their actual physical differences.)

[sprafa]

International waters are still subject to the rule of law of "states" that exist on land. Unless you plan to live your whole life on sea you have to dock somewhere.

Also these people are only respecting the rules they have already interiorised from living in developed economies. If you look at history, individual private property does not show up as something innate. Tribes owned areas and fought for them, but they didn't have much individual property within themselves (neither did they have barter economies).

[snrplfth]

International waters are sort of a middle-space, where the precedence of property arrangements is not as fixed as on land or in territorial waters. As such it's a way of seeing systems of property at work in a vaguely "less government" sense. (And certainly there are enough people who've advocated some living-always-on-the-ocean for precisely these reasons.)

It's true that people interiorize rules to a certain degree. And to be sure, no set of property rights should be beyond question. However, once you get up beyond a certain small society size (a few hundred people, really) you need some kind of property right to distinguish whose stuff is whose - since you'll soon start making trades between strangers and middlemen who are not bound by familial/kin ties, or reciprocal gifting arrangements, or honor systems.

The point is that you need appropriate systems of property for various things. Apologies if this is just repeating what you already know, but consider, say, clothes. They're rivalrous (only one of us can wear them at the same time) and excludable (I can easily stop you from also wearing them, and can tell when you're trying to do so.) So, it's a "private good". On the other hand, a broadcast radio station is not rivalrous (you tuning in does not prevent me from doing so) and not excludable (I can't really tell if you're tuning in, and can't stop you specifically from doing so.) Therefore it's a "public good". These are material realities that imply certain (different) property rights - and attempting to ignore that fact is likely to lead to all kinds of problems. The point of theories of private property is to try to come to grips with these realities, and to acknowledge them in the creation of property rights systems - whether mono-centrically with a government, or poly-centrically with various contracts and arbitrations. The mistake I think Graeber and others make is to sort-of assume that any arrangement of property rights that we can imagine, can be successfully imposed on material/informational reality.

[sprafa]

You might know more Graeber than I do, but from what I remember his point is only that historically there's been a very wide variety of systems and many of them are far more interesting then the hypotheticals economists have been advancing for ages (fictional barter economies etc.)

I haven't read the he believes any system imaginable can be applied.

Its true many of the examples he gives were for small populations, but the principle of sharing in small tribes was reciprocity. You give something you get something back. The issue with reproducing that in bigger groups is that you can't hold people accountable anymore. But of course, maybe with modern information technology there is a way.

Anyway as I've said on my other comment (and getting back to the topic of discussion) it seems like we both know the data but arrived at different conclusions. I'm not sure how to convince you of anything other than ask you to reconsider. If current trends continue, the cost of global capitalism might end up being democracy itself.

[snrplfth]

When I say "any system imaginable" I mean his tendency to elevate the social/anthropological realities over the other realities: that if we can plausibly believe people could act in a certain way (and there's so many possible ways) then they can make it real in a world of real physical and informational limits. I think he takes it way too far in this sense.

Reciprocity is a perfectly good way to run a small economy. But note - you're still trading, in a significant sense. Accounts of who does what are kept, the relative value of items and acts are considered, and social honor and reputation are valuable goods in themselves (in a "capitalist" system as well.) One does not escape from "markets" or "property" just because some goods are social or symbolic.

I agree we've sort of ended up at different destinations. I'm aware that "global capitalism" is a strange beast - but not really any stranger than anything that's come before. It's sometimes hard, but works okay, and is probably worth keeping around on its own merits.

[sprafa]

It seems like I can't reply to your other comment. Just wanted to thank you for discussion and wish you a nice day.

This was very very good and I appreciate you taking the time to write all that.

Thanks

[snrplfth]

Likewise!