On Property

My recent posts on anarchism have received some replies from users voicing their criticisms, particularly in regards to my views on property.  I love experiencing this, because it gets me to think and fine tune my perspective.  I want to start by diving right into some instances that I think will better convey my views on property.

Spoken Words

Let’s imagine that you and I are the only two people living on a deserted island.  I walk up to you for the first time and say “hello”.  You see me, acknowledge me, and say “hello” back.

What we have both done, is utilize air, our vocal cords, and our brains to convey to one another our thoughts.  Yes, we did not invent the words we used, but we did independently construct our dialogue.  You would not doubt who said “hello” and would not confuse my words with someone else’s.  If, for some reason, you asked me “whose words were those?” I would respond and say that they were my words, I assembled them, they came out of my body that I control, they are mine.

This is the first instance of property that I want to point out.  Property doesn’t have to be land or things.  I claimed ownership of my words, and while I can’t hold them in my hands, or take them back out of the air, I was clearly the creator and, ultimately, the owner of the words I spoke, and I assume you would agree.

Written Words

Let’s imagine I write my name on a rock on the island.  You walk up to me and ask, “who wrote this?”  I respond by saying that I did, and that they are my words.  The fact that they are written on a rock instead of verbally conveyed, does not change the fact that I am responsible for their existence and ultimately am the individual to whom they belong.

Food

Now, let’s imagine that I catch a fish.  We are both hungry and you decide that you need food more than I do, so you take my fish, while I am down at the beach cleaning myself off.  I come back to see you lying on the ground with a fish skeleton next to your gut.  You have taken something that I have produced through my efforts, without my consent.  This is stealing.

You didn’t use violence to take my fish, but you now own the fish, since it is in your belly digesting.  The claim of ownership has changed.  While it has changed in an unethical fashion, the fact remains that I owned the fish, you took it, and now you own the fish.

How something changes ownership does not define what ownership is.

Clothes

Next, I decide to make myself a grass moo-moo.  The thing breathes like crazy in this humidity and fits like a charm.  If you walk up to me and take my grass moo-moo right off my back, I hope that we now would all recognize this as theft.  This time, I decide to threaten you with violence if you do not return my moo-moo, since I value it much more than the fish you stole.  This bring up my next point.

Property is Violence?

Violence is not a pre-requisite for claiming ownership of something, but rather it is tool that can be used to protect that which you claim to own.  The violence would be completely optional, as perhaps it could be avoided through some dialogue or negotiation.  Violence does not define property, it merely is a means to either protect or acquire property.

I’d also like to point out that for most of us, violent exchanges involving property are a relatively uncommon occurrence.  Most of us agree that if we go to a coffee truck for some drinks, the coffee in my hand is mine and the one in your hand is yours.  Do some people steal coffee from others?  I suppose so, but does that mean that every time we get a coffee, we tell ourselves that it is only ours so long as we can defend it?  Of course not!  While that is the honest truth of the situation, I believe that the vast majority of people behave on a day to day basis as if no violence is required to maintain their various claims of ownership.

Property is Theft?

I honestly don’t understand this at all.  Theft is the stealing of someone else’s property.  Property can’t be theft itself because that would redefine what theft is.  I believe that this is a very fringe view on property, one which has no logical backing and no real world grounding.  When I go back to the coffee truck and order another coffee I am not stealing from the coffee truck barista.  I am offering them money for something they have and they are agreeing to the terms.  We have voluntarily exchanged ownership of both the coffee and the money.  When the barista acquired the coffee for their truck from their distributor, they did the same exact thing, as did the farmer who sold his coffee to the distributor.  To distort this voluntary exchange of property to the level of calling it theft, simply doesn’t make sense to me.

I would love to hear back from people who found some issues with my posts.  I am a complete amateur writer, so I may often not properly convey my thoughts.  I know on more than one occasion I have failed in getting across what I was trying to say, so I am trying my best to make up for that.

If I am wrong or completely missed the points being made to me, please let me know, because I believe that I am an open minded individual and I love learning new things.  I am not attached to my conclusions, since I arrived at them through reason and evidence.  I am more than happy to arrive at different conclusions with new reason and evidence, even if that means fighting through some cognitive dissonance on my end.

@derekareith