Lack of private property

[bailey_187]

We generaly argue that private property has not always existed among humans - mostly pointing to towards hunter gatherer societies. To what extent can hunting tools such as spears, nets, even primitive stone hammers be considerd private property though? Isnt this private property of means of production? Although everyone has access to these tools...

Or what about land that hunter gatherer groups would prevent other groups from using (if this happened), is that not private property?

[mikelepore]

Possessions that people can hold and carry were always around. Even our cats and dogs have them, so certainly tribal human societies had them. The thing that was invented only about 5,000 years ago was _abstract_ private property, the legal right to call yourself the owner of land that may be too large for you to use, or land that you have never even seen, "yours" merely because a government record says that you own it.

[bailey_187]

The thing that was invented only about 5,000 years ago was _abstract_ private property, the legal right to call yourself the owner of land that may be too large for you to use, or land that you have never even seen, "yours" merely because a government record says that you own it.

Do you know good modernish writings on this?

[danyboy27]

why is it so important that our primitive encestor did or didnt had any notion of private property?

I think its more relevant to deal with private property with more modern views.

Private property of the mean of production=bad
private ownership of product and good=good

see, its really that simple!

[bailey_187]

why is it so important that our primitive encestor did or didnt had any notion of private property?

Because some may say that it is "natural" to have private property, that it has always existed and so must always. So if we can establish that humans have not always had private property, there is not much of a case for saying they always will.

[danyboy27]

Because some may say that it is "natural" to have private property, that it has always existed and so must always. So if we can establish that humans have not always had private property, there is not much of a case for saying they always will.

it was also natural for our ancestor to eat raw meat, to brutalize women, to perform ritual witchcraft.
shit changed in 6000 year

[bailey_187]

it was also natural for our ancestor to eat raw meat, to brutalize women, to perform ritual witchcraft.
shit changed in 6000 year

Thats the point; things change. I'm saying we go back to how people live before private property. The point is that if at one point in time people didnt have private property, it proves there is not innate human need for private property.

[danyboy27]

Thats the point; things change. I'm saying we go back to how people live before private property. The point is that if at one point in time people didnt have private property, it proves there is not innate human need for private property.

Look, innate or not, MANY charasteristic of our society changed in 6000 year, and if private ownership of good would be one of them, i couldnt care less.

private ownership of good work well today, what dosnt work is private ownership of the mean of production.

[bailey_187]

Look, innate or not, MANY charasteristic of our society changed in 6000 year, and if private ownership of good would be one of them, i couldnt care less.

private ownership of good work well today, what dosnt work is private ownership of the mean of production.

Huh? Wtf are you even trying argue against.

[danyboy27]

Huh? Wtf are you even trying argue against.

what i am saying is, its a pointless exercise to try to prove that our ancestor where more egalitarian than today.

We evolve, period.

[bailey_187]

what i am saying is, its a pointless exercise to try to prove that our ancestor where more egalitarian than today.

We evolve, period.

No but if people say private property is part of 'human nature'; surely it is useful to point out that humans have not always had private property.

[danyboy27]

No but if people say private property is part of 'human nature'; surely it is useful to point out that humans have not always had private property.

and human have not always enslaved peoples.

the thing is, the best way to win this game is not playing it. Communism, capitalism, human nature have nothing with it, the mutation of our society have nothing to do with human nature, it goes way beyond that.

[Uppercut]

and human have not always enslaved peoples.

the thing is, the best way to win this game is not playing it. Communism, capitalism, human nature have nothing with it, the mutation of our society have nothing to do with human nature, it goes way beyond that.

What we're trying to say is that although things change over time and although civilization has progressed in many ways (especially in terms of technology), we need to pay attention to the beginnings of human development and study how these societies worked. There are many ideas and methods that our ancestors had practiced that we seem to have forgotten about, like living off the hand, and having a high degree of respect for the environment that they lived in.

In short, keep the technology, but move towards common ownership of land and resources.

[danyboy27]

What we're trying to say is that although things change over time and although civilization has progressed in many ways (especially in terms of technology), we need to pay attention to the beginnings of human development and study how these societies worked. There are many ideas and methods that our ancestors had practiced that we seem to have forgotten about, like living off the hand, and having a high degree of respect for the environment that they lived in.

In short, keep the technology, but move towards common ownership of land and resources.
that called primitivism.
our ancestor respected the environnement beccause they where fews, and their life expectency was like 25 year old.

Natural ressources are mean to be used for the good of mankind.
Of course we must do it carefully, so we may preserve has much ressource has possible to pass it on generation to generation.

Technology is what shaped us, we need it, we really need it, the more the better.

[anticap]

Because some may say that it is "natural" to have private property, that it has always existed and so must always. So if we can establish that humans have not always had private property, there is not much of a case for saying they always will.

It is "natural" for humans to possess the objects that they labor to produce (it's even fundamental to the argument against capitalism!). But there is a definite distinction, which Mike described, between "property" as in possessions that we use, versus private ownership of natural resources and other means of production.

If you're going to argue that "private property has not always existed," then be sure to draw that distinction very clearly. Your argument ought to focus on the deliberate conflation by the Right between two very different understandings of "property."

I see that you're not an anarchist, but you may still find this (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/afaq/secB3.html#secb31) helpful (B.3.1 in particular).

[Uppercut]

that called primitivism.

Uh, no. Primitivism looks at technology as inherently dangerous. I never advocated this viewpoint.


our ancestor respected the environnement beccause they where fews, and their life expectency was like 25 year old.

I disagree. I believe they respected their environment much more seriously than we do today because of the curiosity of human existence and the thirst for answers. Don't get me wrong, here. We still are searching for answers and some may not be found for a long time. But historically speaking, I think it's fair to say that humans back then were even more curious than most of us are today.


Natural ressources are mean to be used for the good of mankind.
Of course we must do it carefully, so we may preserve has much ressource has possible to pass it on generation to generation.

Technology is what shaped us, we need it, we really need it, the more the better.

No argument there. I don't know where you're coming from when you think I stated that technology is a bad thing.

[Argument]

If land property is a natural right, how come it wasn't invented until much later? I don't believe in natural rights, all rights are created by man. Also, there's a difference between personal property and private property. Wikipedia says: "Personal property, roughly speaking, is private property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_property) that is moveable[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_property#cite_note-0), as opposed to real property (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_property) or real estate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate)." "Real", or private property is basically land, water, mountains and such, and trying to "own" that is basically theft or robbery.

[GPDP]

I think the more pertinent issue to challenge is not whether private property has always existed, but whether private property is a necessary condition for "civilized" society to develop. At least in the field of anthropology, it appears egalitarianism and communal property relations have an inverse relation to the development of the productive forces. That is, the more primitive a society is, the more likely it is to harbor communalism rather than propertarianism. Likewise, as a society grows and becomes more complex, class inequalities become more and more pronounced.

It is this notion that must be challenged more vociferously, in my opinion.

[cb9's_unity]

I think it is important to look at what these tools (spears, axes, etc..) 'produced'. The spear killed the deer and the knife turned it into meat. Once it was meat it was either stored or consumed, its unlikely that it was exchanged, meat was not turned into a commodity. Thus there were no means of production (private property) in the modern sense of the term.

We want to communally control the stove factory, however once a person posses the stove and uses it create their meal, we recognize that it is their personal possession. Hopefully that made sense.

[Dr Mindbender]

We generaly argue that private property has not always existed among humans - mostly pointing to towards hunter gatherer societies. To what extent can hunting tools such as spears, nets, even primitive stone hammers be considerd private property though? Isnt this private property of means of production? Although everyone has access to these tools...

Or what about land that hunter gatherer groups would prevent other groups from using (if this happened), is that not private property?

theres a big difference between private property and personal property.
From a marxist perspective, the sort of property that ought to be opposed is the ownership of the means of production as that is the type of property ownership that defines class. Theres a huge difference between owning a house and owning a factory or other means of production which extort the labour value of others.

[Robocommie]

Because some may say that it is "natural" to have private property, that it has always existed and so must always. So if we can establish that humans have not always had private property, there is not much of a case for saying they always will.

Except oftentimes there is little sense of private ownership in tribal cultures. Tribal cultures tend to be highly communal. When meals are cooked, they're not cooked for one family, but for every family, altogether in one common "kitchen" area with a fire pit and an area for food preparation, and then usually in tribal cultures the community eats together. Likewise, if the tribe has any farmland, even if it's just a small garden, that is often considered communal property which everyone can eat from but which everyone is also responsible for.

This tendency accounted for the extraordinary confusion often expressed by Native Americans when the United States signed deals to "purchase" their land. Native American tribes often traded goods, but not land - land couldn't be picked up and carried off like a blanket or a tool or a rifle could be. The very concept seemed absurd to many American tribes, and it wasn't until later that they learned just what the contracts had meant.

[Robocommie]

theres a big difference between private property and personal property.
From a marxist perspective, the sort of property that ought to be opposed is the ownership of the means of production as that is the type of property ownership that defines class. Theres a huge difference between owning a house and owning a factory or other means of production which extort the labour value of others.

Indeed, the difference of objects whose value lies in personal use.

[iskrabronstein]

This is an interesting discussion, because I think there are two distinct interpretations one must develop about the development of private property in early societies. First, from a historical materialist perspective, one starts with the assumption that the character of the means of production will shape the characteristics of the ruling class that controls them. Yet in early tribal societies, because they were dependent upon a natural economy of resource extraction directly from the environment rather than a surplus economy of agriculture, class structures remained nascent and undeveloped. Yet I think that this gap can be addressed by the observation that in most early tribal societies, specifically hunter-gatherer tribes, leadership was provided by a chief who customarily was the most effective hunter - the most efficient exploiter of the means of production directed the process of resource gathering and provided leadership for the clan. In such a society it would not be at all surprising to see personal property, but the conditions of control over resource production made class domination of the means of production impossible.

It is also interesting to note that the development of agriculture throughout the Near East, China, and India are a textbook example of the theory of uneven and combined development - stock-raising, mixed subsistence agriculture and hunting, and intensive agriculture all developed at around the same time in various places, naturally according to the resource availability of local conditions; but the development of new techniques of resource extraction from the environment and their dissemination through primitive commerce and barter enabled the compression of various stages of development by societies that had not developed along those lines themselves. A prominent example, I think, would be the introduction of draft animals into Egypt from the Near East during a period when Egypt was undergoing a drying period in climate. This allowed increased agricultural productivity, and was the economic foundation behind the pharaonic state.

The kings repaid the seed of their power by making bulls the main idol of the king's divinity cult, and building lavish temples in which the animals were pampered and ritually slaughtered.