Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> At 06:38 PM 11/12/00 -0800, samantha wrote:
>
> >Property is theft from whom? You can['t] steal if no one has any ownership
> >rights. :-)
>
> This standard retort to a snappy slogan (or counter-slogan) entirely avoids
> the case being implied.
>
> I make no assertion on the legitimacy of the following case, but it strikes
> me as far from incoherent let alone meaningless:
>
> In the first instance, the world's natural abundance has no owners. People
> emerge in communities, with shared language and skills, who learn to turn
> this abundance to their advantage. This wealth can be broadly shared (by
> some algorithm of distribution), or sequestered to the possession of a few,
> often by force of arms. If theft is the wrongful confiscation of hard-won
> or even widely available wealth (naturally occurring, cultivated or wholly
> contrived by intelligent human effort), it is easy to see how the fiat
> assertion of `property' might be regarded with indignation as theft from
> the commonwealth or commonweal.
>
But of course the problem with this is that except for a few extremely
blessed and temperate spots on earth very little is simply there for the
taking for human needs. Agriculture had to be invented before we could
go beyond hunter/gatherer stage. Even at that earlier level not every
person participated equally in finding or preparing food and not every
person had an equal share. If one believes that intelligence and
ambition just flow naturally and have nothing to do with an individual's
choices and work and merit then I suppose one could claim that that
individual does not have first rights to the fruits of their efforts.
But not otherwise. Natural materials are not wealth until shaped by
human minds and hands. A forest of trees by itself with no use made of
it is naturally beautiful but it is not wealth.
Property may make less sense in its current manifestation post nanotech
when all things are easily abundant. But in the meantime property
serves a quite useful purpose of apportioning the limited natural and
manmade goods and services according (hopefully) to who can make the
best use of them. One can argue that a capitalist money based system is
not the best way to determine this or to compete for limited resources.
But it has not been bested by any other alternative as of yet.
And of course the fundamental right to property grows out of one's right
to one's own life and to make one's own decisions and to live with the
consequences. If one has no right to property then there is no right to
one's life or to the outcome of one's decisions.
I do believe that property in many realms of ideas, especially software,
is theft however. Or not exactly theft, but that applying property
notions to software diminishes us and our abilities.
- samantha
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