From: Michael Lorrey (mike@lorrey.com)
Date: Tue Dec 15 1998 - 11:28:49 MST
Samael wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dick.Gray@bull.com <Dick.Gray@bull.com>
> To: extropians@maxwell.kumo.com <extropians@maxwell.kumo.com>
> Date: 14 December 1998 18:29
> Subject: Re: Property
>
> >"Samael" <Samael@dial.pipex.com> has a problem with semantics:
> >
> >>An object starts off as unowned. Everyone could use it. Then somneone
> >>comes along and claims it. Now only they can use it. How is this not
> >>theft?
> >
> >It can't be theft because the idea of theft presupposes the idea of
> >property: specifically, it is the wrongful taking of someone else's
> >property. Where there's no property, there can't be theft.
>
> If everyone has access to something, it 'belongs' to all of them, yes?
> Maybe I'm stretching the word belongs a little bit there, but I presume you
> can see what I'm trying to say.
You are contradicting yourself though. You say there is no such thing as
property, yet you say that things belong to everyone. If something belongs to
everyone then something is the PROPERTY of everyone. If everyone decides that
someone can use something better than everyone or just anyone, then everyone
will sell somthing to someone for some price which both everyone and someone
finds agreeable, so that everyone can still enjoy some benefit from something.
That something now is the property of someone and hasn't been stolen from
everyone or anyone, because since anyone is just a part of everyone, and
everyone agreed to sell somthing, then something wasn't stolen from anyone, was
it? So therefore, property is not theft.
Mike Lorrey
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