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What if our fundamentals are exactly backwards?
New to The Motte, looking for constructive, critical discussion.
Here's an example of what I mean by a "fundamental":
Every economic system that has seemed credible to most people since the dawn of civilization has revolved around the legal establishment and safeguarding of property through the concept of ownership.
But what is ownership? I have my own ideas, but I asked ChatGPT and was surprised that it pretty much hit the nail on the head: the definitional characteristic of ownership is the legal right to deprive others.
This has been such a consistently universal view that very few people question it. Even fewer have thought through a cogent alternative. Most people go slack-jawed at the suggestion that an alternative is possible.
Here's something from years back, before I'd zeroed in on the perverse nature of ownership:
Anyone want to brainstorm a viable alternative to "ownership"?
/images/17459352527399495.webp
Can you put a little more effort into formulating your point here? This really just seems like a bunch of Russel conjugations. You take issue with the concept of ownership and then go on to describe consequences of this concept in unflattering terms. Ownership is a useful concept for many reasons, principally because it solves tragedy of the commons problems once society scales up enough that free riding becomes a problem. You really need to propose an alternative to ownership as a concept and not just leave it hanging out there if you want this to go anywhere. It's very difficult to actually build any organization without the concept of ownership without it being incredibly brittle. Not just in the case of physical goods but ownership in decision making.
Sure I can put more effort into it. I just wasn't interested in wasting my time writing a tome if all I was going to get (as usually happens) are snide responses like JarJarJedi's (above).
What points do you need clarification/elaboration on?
My point at this point, which I think is quite clear, is that ownership is essentially and definitionally the right to deprive others. That's it. I don't like that. In fact, I detest it with passion and rage. I hate it. So, I want an alternative.
In fact, the alternative is sticking us in the nose, which makes the fact that most people act clueless about it (whether they are or not) all the more ironic. One minute (not 10, JarJarJedi) is all it would take for a relatively intelligent person doing nothing more than looking for the logical compliment to deprivation to realize what a very familiar alternative is.
I really don't care how thousands of years of use has convinced us that ownership is useful or what "problems" it "solves" -- problems conceived of in the same paradigm where ownership was conceived, characterized by thousands of years of staunch neglect and refusal that it's all about deprivation. "Usefulness" is beside the point. War is universally considered useful, too. How is that relevant to the fact that it's obscene, horrific, and destructive?
Have you ever considered the fact that ownership is the right to deprive? You might spend a little time ruminating on that.
"You really need to proposal and alternative to ownership as a concept and not just leave it hanging out there..." Oh, really? No, not at all. How does the fact that there aren't enough lifeboats on the Titanic we're sailing, or the fact that I can't tell you where there's one with room for you, have any bearing on the fact that the ship is going under? No one owes you a solution. Are you just going to stand there until someone gives you directions or leads you by the hand? It's up to you if you want to use that as an excuse to refuse considering facts that are right all our faces.
I agree, it's difficult to build anything without using a central concept that we've been indoctrinated with from birth and never thought beyond. Just like it's difficult for cultists to take their minds outside their cult paradigms and think about things from different angles.
Regardless, none of the practical considerations you brought up have any bearing on the clear point: ownership is right to deprive. What do you think about that fact? What could possibly be an alternative to predicating entire societies on the principle of deprivation? No idea?
What's your address? I'm coming over to drink all your beer.
Sorry to be flippant but I don't think you actually 'don't like that'. I think you don't like some people having more than you think they should, maybe a certain category of good that you think should be the commons in all cases. You can make an argument for, eg, right-to-roam laws on privately owned wilderness land without trying to abolish the concept of trespassing entirely.
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This is why proposing an alternative is important. Because I really don't think you can have a system free of deprivation. For any finite item, say my nail gun, its use necessitates depriving someone else of its use at lest for the duration of its use. You can certainly create systems that minimize deprivation but its existence is a brute fact of the universe. And I'd go so far as to argue that our systems of free exchange and property rights actually does a pretty good job of minimizing deprivation in practice through enabling growth.
I'm afraid it is not sticking me in particular in the nose and would appreciate a more explicit spelling it out. If you want to say communism or whatever you can just come out and say it. We entertain much more fringe positions here from time to time even if there are those who jeer rightly or wrongly you'll usually find some interlocutors willing to approach in good faith so long as you're clear and not too unpleasant about it.
This is a really unsatisfying answer to people who have to actually live in any of these proposed worlds. It actually matters quite a bit if you don't have an alternative because we rely on ownership as a foundation to this very complex world full of wonders that we have built.
Yes, I have thought quite a bit about this kind of thing. My conclusion is that the ability to deprive is probably necessary for any social system that scales past around the Dunbar number and depending on how you operationalize "deprive" maybe far below that number.
I don't see us to be sinking in any meaningful way. Society is more prosperous than any time in history. So yes, I will need some kind of assurance that your plan to meddle with these fundamental axioms of society isn't going to be really really terrible before I sign on. It could be like slavery where we really are better off with it. Or it could be like the need to consume calories and expel waste that we really just need to make peace with.
Genuinely just coming up with childish noble savage myths about how native Americans live in 90s era cartoons. Why are you so resistant to actually describing what you're after?
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Then speak plainly (that's one of the rules around here) and say what this alternative is. I'm expecting your answer to be some variation on Marxism/Communism/hippie dippie "why can't we all just, like, share everything dude?!" nonsense but I'm not being sarcastic when I say I'd love to be wrong here.
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You can detest it all you want, you still didn't answer @aqouta's question, which is what is your alternative?
There is a reason we have property, and why it's central to all human civilization. Provide literally any alternative and we can discuss, but you are just saying you hate it and then asking antagonistic questions here.
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Yep, and all your dark hints about "this means UNKNOWN BUT SINISTER FORCES can come along and TAKE YOUR STUFF BY FORCE or stop you from trying to take other people's stuff by force, oh hang on, pretend I never said that last" won't change the basic fact that "this pile of stuff is mine and no you can't have it, or take it, or claim it by right of necessity" is what everyone feels from the time they're two years old onwards.
It's the story of the Little Red Hen or the Grasshopper and the Ant. If fifty peasants are all sharing the forest to gather firewood and then the local lord comes along and declares he owns it now and they can't gather firewood there anymore, that's bad. But so is it bad when the local commissar comes along and declares that the state is now in charge, that everyone has a share (which means in practice nobody has a share) and by the way, hand over all your firewood because the high officials living in town need to heat their homes.
If you're just going "it's not my job to educate you" about any possible insight you might have had around "how can we do this differently?", then I'm going to suggest you did not, in fact, have any useful insight and thus we can all ignore your shower thoughts.
I would also push, quite strongly, for 'it's not my job to educate you' to be a bannable offense.
"Speak Plainly".
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The good news is that people who double down on that line tend to run headfirst into three or four other rules already.
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