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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
Ownership is possession that is maintained via power, whether that is de jure or de facto, de jure just being de facto by formally distributed means. You can't create an alternative because you can't nullify possession.
Set aside legalities, if someone has possession of a piece of property and doesn't want anyone else to have it what are your options for taking it from them? Overpowering them. If you successfully overpower them and take possession yourself, how meaningful is it for the first person to say that they "own" that property while it's in your possession and they lack the power to deprive you of it? They could say that they're the rightful owner, but without a greater power to grant, recognise and enforce those rights they're not worth the paper they're not even written on.
I'm not a poli sci nerd but surely this has all been covered centuries ago. Hobbes, maybe?
The only plausible alternative I can think of is something like gay luxury space communism where there's such abundance that the value of material goods has come down to basically zero. Even then certain things can't be replicated, such as standing space at the top of the Eiffel Tower. At that point your faced with the problem of assigning that limited resource, and no matter what system or philosophy you come up with it will rest on you having the possession of that resource to enact your preferred method and defending it from others who would deprive you.
No, ownership is not possession, except in a marginally legal sense which is meaningless and useless unless ownership includes the more basic right to deprive. Loan, rental, lease, timeshare, etc., involve physical non-possession by an owner that continues to hold a right to deprive without regard to their physical possession of the property.
I don't know about "nullify possession". Both you and I know of an alternative that pays absolutely no regard to the question of possession, though. Would it be considered as nullifying possession?
// Set aside legalities, if someone has possession of a piece of property and doesn't want anyone else to have it what are your options for taking it from them? Overpowering them. //
But you're ignoring the preconditions for your scenario. If I have physical possession of a tract of land, what would possess you to try to take it from me at all? What is "possession" of property if not a legal concept? I can't physically occupy 100 acres, nor can I make incessant use of it in any way that totally deprives you of the opportunity of making any use of it, unless I set the whole plot afire -- and the fire will burn out. And if you want to "possess" it in the sense of make your own use of it, why can't you think of any way to do that other than overpowering me? Why do you uncritically assume that I'd resist? You've predicated your scenario in adversarial terms. Are those the only terms in which you can think about this?
// The only plausible alternative I can think of is something like gay luxury space communism where there's such abundance that the value of material goods has come down to basically zero. //
That's an interesting thought that actually gets to something fundamental which I'm not sure you had in mind. Scarcity of desirables is a huge factor. In the 80s, in an Econ 101 class, the definition of "economy" presented to us was "the science of managing scarcity". No scarcity, no economics? Maybe.
The problem is that almost no one (at least up to the mid-20th century) seriously questioned the doctrine of naturally-occurring, incessant scarcity. Big blind spot. No one ever established that scarcity is a given, a necessity, an inevitability, or any such thing. No one has ever gotten traction in any attempt to rectify the root causes of scarcity. Hardly anyone even thinks it's possible. Oxfam's decades' old report on "extreme poverty" claimed that it could be permanently eradicated globally with a one-time expenditure that amounted to 3 months' income of only the richest 100 people (at that time). Musk alone has equivalent capability today. Why haven't the uber-rich been able to do it? Well, because it's got nothing to do with capability and everything to do with the fact that they do not in any way, shape, or form WANT to do it.
We're not dealing with possibilities, capabilities, limitations, or anything else we can't change. We're dealing with perverse, entrenched will on the part of the elitist parasite class. The problem doesn't lie in the "economics". It lies in the psychopathy of a fraction of human beings.
No, and I showed as much by offering post-scarcity as another way of thinking. However scarcity along with defectors and adversaries are perennial elements that don't go away through wishing it were so. You recognise that people can be perverse, greedy, wilful and psychopathic (and worst of all it's often to their limited benefit to be that way). How are we going to stop them depriving others of resources or compel the dispossession of what they have deprived others of without resorting to force or the credible threat thereof?
Like yourself I'd prefer a more humane system, but appeals to humanity pale. Addressing this problem is a prerequisite for forming an alternative.
Where? I just looked. Unless you're referring to "gay luxury space communism" which I took as sardonic. I responded to it, though, even so, and I acknowledged it. Obviously, I wasn't referring to that but to your first two paragraphs, which seems clear you think are far more realistic.
Bucky disagreed, and that was a long time ago before we have the tech we have today. He disagreed that there was any non-human factor that has ever necessitated scarcity. Scarcity would be a thing of the past forever and ever if there were any desire to end it on the part of those with the means, or if there were any desire to end it on the part of those who could compel those with the means to stop being such murderous assholes.
I recognize that people can be perverse, greedy, willful, and psychopathic. All of those are remediable. How are we going to change that and stop them from depriving others? Your answer seems to be, well, just deprive first. My answer is: stop glorifying it and worshiping predators, for a start. Or even a smaller baby step: start being honest that we've glorified it and worshiped predators. Let's try that and see what happens.
Yeah --appeals to humanity only work with the human. That's why rights are a scam. The only people against whom rights could protect us are the very ones who couldn't give a shit about them. Arguing with the devil whose only interest in reason is how he can use it against you.
The most potent force I've found against liars, bullshitters, psychopaths, etc., is honesty: aggressive, no-holds-barred honesty. Won't change a psychopath, but it definitely changes their followers. And what are they without followers?
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