[meanduck]

> Consider Proudhons famous "property is theft" for a moment.

> His point is that enforcing property rights explicitly deprives others. If something is scarce, then the moment I wall it off, others become poorer for it.

I keep hearing this argument. And its so obviously illogical.

Establishing the concept/law of property and property ownership is probably the first thing a society does as soon as it gets formed.

[Frondo]

Pre-property rights, I have the freedom to walk and inhabit any space I want.

Post-property rights, I no longer have the freedom to walk and inhabit any space I want. I can't walk into your living room and stay there. I can't sleep in your bed. Your "right to own property" has severely curtailed my ability to move freely about the world. Men with guns will come after me if I don't leave your bedroom.

Your "private property" has imprisoned me into a tiny rabbit warren of publicly-owned spaces.

[aminok]

There's never been a pre-property era. Humans have always been territorial, and even intra-group, have recognized private property. Non-human animals are also territorial and observe principles like First Possession, which is the foundation of property rights.

[meanduck]

Right to freedom is not your birth right. Its society given.

[vidarh]

Even if I could make sense of that, it doesn't change the argument in any way.

[meanduck]

Everything is a contract including basic human rights. By birth, you have not signed any. You dont have anything that you can lose. But usually you would implicitly sign "right to freedom" and "property laws" with people around you.

So you did not lose right to move in private properties (because you did not have any) but you gain right/assurance to move freely in public properties without danger to your person.

If aliens invade earth and set their own property laws it would not be stealing. It would be nothing. Because we dont have any contracts with aliens that we can claim aliens have broken.

[vidarh]

Then give an example, because the existence of property law, and the fact that property laws can be used for good, does not in any way imply that restricting access to property does not also reduce liberty for those affected.

That does not automatically mean it is bad - to determine that you need to first consider whether a given reduction in liberty is justified. Sometimes it will be, and sometimes it isn't.

[kmm]

> Establishing the concept/law of property and property ownership is probably the first thing a society does as soon as it gets formed.

And so are autocracies, inequality between genders, slavery, feudalism, rule of the strongest etc...

Private (not personal) property doesn't a priori have to be more of a natural law than any of those.

[aminok]

>Private (not personal) property doesn't a priori have to be more of a natural law than any of those.

Private property is every bit as natural as personal property. Both are enforcing exclusive usage of some part of the natural world for one's own self. Both are required for one to be able to enjoy the full value that they create through their own efforts. The personal/private distinction an arbitrary one with no philosophical basis. It's purely done for sophistry.

[vidarh]

> Both are required for one to be able to enjoy the full value that they create through their own efforts.

That is demonstrably wrong, given that a large number of people throughout history has enjoyed the full value that they create without enforcing property rights.

If you want to make an argument that property rights are beneficial, then make that argument, because that is an argument that you may be able to defend depending on your underlying assumptions.

But the very point of property law is to limits others ability to make use of property. Its very point is to reduce the liberty of those who does not have ownership.

It's ok to feel that this is an acceptable, justifiable reduction of liberty, but it doesn't change the fact that it places substantial restrictions on others, and trying to pretend that it doesn't will not change that.

[aminok]

>That is demonstrably wrong, given that a large number of people throughout history has enjoyed the full value that they create without enforcing property rights.

That is not demonstrable at all. That's idealising the past for ideological convenience.

>But the very point of property law is to limits others ability to make use of property. Its very point is to reduce the liberty of those who does not have ownership.

Liberty is historically and conventionally defined as rightful action with one's own person and property. Denying someone access to your own person and property does not limit anyone's liberty. That is simply contrary to what liberty means.

[kmm]

When enforcing the access to scarce natural resources or paying someone only part of what their labor is worth, you're enjoying more than just the value of your own efforts. It is way less natural that owning a toothbrush or a laptop.

I can image a society where the first is considered ridiculous. The second, not so much

[aminok]

>When enforcing the access to scarce natural resources

We could require all owners of property to pay rent for their use of natural resources, at a rate commensurate with the value of said natural resources, and there would still be trillions of dollars worth of private property, and socialists claiming a right to an equal share of it based on some contrived justification.

>or paying someone only part of what their labor is worth, you're enjoying more than just the value of your own efforts.

If someone voluntarily gives you more labour than what you pay them for, that's still a voluntary transaction, and anything you earn from that labour is legitimately yours. If you build me a shed in exchange for $1, because you're such a generous guy, I still have full rights to that shed. Of course in most cases people do not accept a job that pays them below market rates.

I assume you're implying that profits are the surplus value of labour that is unfairly provided to employers, which is simple Marxist ignorance.

Profits are the compensation the employer earns for the organisation and capital they provide. Labour is worth whatever its market price is, not whatever revenues are generated in enterprises where it's employed.

It's sad that I have to debunk 150 year old Marxist fairy tales on hackernews.

[meanduck]

Theft implies concept of ownership exist. Proudhons says ownership imples theft. Its just useless nonsense.

So my point was not that if something is accepted in society ==> Its right. There is no such thing as right/wrong/moral/etc. Its about consistencies in the contracts we humans sign with each other.