The origin of Private Property

[Tho]

Hello. I am looking for some sources and references for the origin of private property...in particular historical and anthropological.

thankyou

[The Idler]

Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State - Marxists ... (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)

[Oswy]

Hello. I am looking for some sources and references for the origin of private property...in particular historical and anthropological.

thankyou

Presumably once humans shifted from hunter-gathering and towards fixed-geography farming there was the potential for people, especially those who had obtained social power through social differentiation, to make claims to 'own' this or that piece of land. In many places the idea of owning land would probably have suffered little resistance initially as those negatively affected could often move on to find similar conditions nearby and themselves claim 'ownership' of somewhere else. Once that ball was rolling it would be difficult to stop, especially as land ownership would quickly be bound up with social, political and, ultimately, military power. We're in a situation now where many think of land ownership entirely normatively, 'naturalistically' even, indeed liberals and conservatives routinely try to defend property as a 'natural right'.

[Q]

Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State - Marxists ... (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/index.htm)

That is a classic work and should be on your reading list if you're inquiring on this subject.

However, I'll add some extra sources:

- Frederick Engels and his Origins of the family, private property and the state: still useful today? (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/videos/frederick-engels-and-his-origins-of-the-family-private-property-and-the-state-still-useful-today) (video)
- Primitive communism, barbarism and the origins of class society (http://cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/900/primitive-communism-barbarism-and-the-origins-of-class-society)

- When all the crap began - Part 1 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/854/when-all-the-crap-began-supplement-part-1)
- When all the crap began - Part 2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/854/when-all-the-crap-began-supplement-part-2)

[Blake's Baby]

Presumably once humans shifted from hunter-gathering and towards fixed-geography farming there was the potential for people, especially those who had obtained social power through social differentiation, to make claims to 'own' this or that piece of land. In many places the idea of owning land would probably have suffered little resistance initially as those negatively affected could often move on to find similar conditions nearby and themselves claim 'ownership' of somewhere else. Once that ball was rolling it would be difficult to stop, especially as land ownership would quickly be bound up with social, political and, ultimately, military power. We're in a situation now where many think of land ownership entirely normatively, 'naturalistically' even, indeed liberals and conservatives routinely try to defend property as a 'natural right'.

This I think is asking the right questions, but I'd disagree with some of the (obviously tentative) conclusions.

I think sedentism - settling down in permanent communities - is really important, but in mesolithic Europe (c. 8000-4000BC mostly, though there were arguably scattered mesolithic communities much later) sedentism generally preceeds the shift to agriculture. In other words, not all hunter-gatherers are nomadic, in some environments it's possible to live in one place and still harvest abundant natural products.

I think that the 'resistance' must almost always have been fairly strong - I don't see 'giving up and moving' as being an option, I think it must always have been either a 'beat them or join them' choice. I'm not sure how easy it is to displace hunter-gatherer 'lifeways' without also displacing the animals and plants they're based on - if your Yellow Necklace People usually spend the spring in Deer Herd Valley before moving on to the High Plains for summer, and the Red Necklace People suddenly say Deer Herd Valley (and the deer in it) belongs to them alone, how are you going to eat for the next two months?

[Oswy]

This I think is asking the right questions, but I'd disagree with some of the (obviously tentative) conclusions.

I think sedentism - settling down in permanent communities - is really important, but in mesolithic Europe (c. 8000-4000BC mostly, though there were arguably scattered mesolithic communities much later) sedentism generally preceeds the shift to agriculture. In other words, not all hunter-gatherers are nomadic, in some environments it's possible to live in one place and still harvest abundant natural products.

I think that the 'resistance' must almost always have been fairly strong - I don't see 'giving up and moving' as being an option, I think it must always have been either a 'beat them or join them' choice. I'm not sure how easy it is to displace hunter-gatherer 'lifeways' without also displacing the animals and plants they're based on - if your Yellow Necklace People usually spend the spring in Deer Herd Valley before moving on to the High Plains for summer, and the Red Necklace People suddenly say Deer Herd Valley (and the deer in it) belongs to them alone, how are you going to eat for the next two months?

Given what you've said here I guess there might have been a lot of variation in when and how effectively the concept of land as private property gained ground according to the specifics of how people were living and organised in any given location. Certainly once something approximating a state emerges there is a ready institution to normativise and enforce land as private property - although I don't know that the emergence of early states would automatically mean the legitimation of private property (I think I've read about some ancient civilisations have socialist or semi-socialist arrangements as far as use of and benefits from the land is concerned).

[Blake's Baby]

Yeah, I think it's very tricky to project 'private' (as in individual) property further back than say the city-state period of Ancient Greece or maybe the Egyptian Empire (for example).

Land I think - even into early modern times - was generally bound up with 'folk rights' ('the commons' etc) where different social groups (communities, families, church organisations etc) had certain rights to different products or uses of land, and it was often difficult to alienate it without cousins, nephews, other villagers, villagers or lords from different villages, or the local monastery - what we might think of today as other 'stakeholders' - objecting.