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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?
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 least for the duration of my 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 without 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?
Nice thinking, thanks!
In situations of scarcity, deprivation becomes relevant. In situations of abundance, it's moot. In scarcity, the question isn't, "Must someone be deprived?" Scarcity dictates that someone will be deprived of what a less scarce/more abundant situation would enable. The far more important question is two-fold: 1) How do we share the deprivation; or 2) Are some going to force disparity in deprivation on the rest?
In starvation circumstances, it can get down to "Someone's gonna die or we're all gonna die: what's it gonna be?" The question then is how you're going to answer the question: mutually or by dominance/force?
Yeah, I had my reasons for not wanting to answer my own question for a time. Sharing is sticking us all in the nose. We all know how. We all know we like it better when we're on the receiving end. Refusing to share demonstrates the opposite of fairness and parity. Psychologically, it indicates either egocentric bias or full-on incapacity to exercise theory of mind.
Sharing isn't the alternative I'd put forward though. When I think stuff like this through, I go for the furthest I can find the least bit credible, then ratchet back from there if necessary. In my experience not only is it not usually necessary, but I look back later and realize the biggest leap I managed to take look in retrospect like a trembling baby step.
So, I go for the extreme opposite: the opposite of deprivation is provision.
What would things look like if we predicated our dealings on preemptive principled provision?
You misunderstood me, thanks to my failure to complete my own sentence! My point is that there is a process involves in thinking through alternatives. Issues that arise in the paradigm that created the problem aren't necessarily applicable to alternatives, especially not if they significantly alter or trigger replacement of the entire paradigm. Example: stagnant pond, no outlet, water is turning bad. I suggest digging an outlet. People argue that it will let all the water out or it won't help anyway (because they can't fathom the pond clearing because the requisite stretch of time is longer than they can wrap their mind around) before we've even tried it. It's been known since the 80s that the worst thing you can do in a brainstorming session is criticize the ideas that arise instead of accepting and exploring them. (de Bono's Serious Creativity is great on this point.) Bringing up all the "can't"-s in reaction to an unfamiliar idea is simply the wrong point in the process for it. That's the context for, "I really don't care how thousands of years of use has convinced us that ownership is useful or what "problems" it "solves"..." If I didn't care about solutions/having alternatives, why would I have asked for collaboration to come up with them? The other angle is that so many people pretend that problems should not be raised unless we already have a ready solution. I'm sure you see the silliness of that.
Cool! Then notice that an ability is not a right, and let's keep them straight. I'm talking about a preemptive principled right to universally deprive. I can deprive every single person in the whole world of a $100 dollar bill by burning it to ash. Totally my right as an owner (ignoring the complication that money is not something we "own" strictly speaking) but impossible if I ain't got no matches. Right vs. ability.
Here's the thing about "rising tide raises all boats" thinking. I don't argue that things are not better for most people now than they were 100 years ago. My issue is that it's a retrogressive approach. I call it the One Less Blow fallacy. Getting hit only 5 times today instead of the usual 6 doesn't make it a good day, nor does it excuse the 5, and the fact that one less blow is an improvement might serve as consolation, but it's no kind of progress I have any interest in. It indicates a strong conservatism bias (the cognitive bias) and takes little to no thought about solving root problems. It's simple. Is this the world you want to live in? Is this the world you want your loved ones and great- and great-great offspring to live in? Is this or something resembling it as good as you want it to get? My answers to those are resounding NO FUCKING WAY! Settling for better-than-worse to avoid the possibility that you might break something by attempting good-as-we-want has never made sense to me.
Nothing noble-savageish here. Why are you so insistent that I make a contribution? Why do I withhold? (Thanks for the compliment by assuming I have something!) I have lots of reasons, but I've already written enough this go. I just wanted to show you the same appreciation you show me in taking me seriously and responding directly, specifically. But what if my whole point here was to ask about something that I know almost no one -- including me -- has a clue about, just to prove the point because I freakin hate BS and denial? Not allowed? But I already spilled my beans above.
Ok, taking all this in good faith then I think the only real shot at overcoming deprivation is by pushing forward. Continue expanding productivity through capital investment. Make more and more things too cheap to meter. Ownership isn't the source of deprivation really, only the shape it takes, it's scarcity that would need to be defeated. In practice, at least in the west, we've basically defeated scarcity on things like foodstuffs. Our poor suffer from obesity and not really hunger. Our poor mostly don't lack for running water, clothes on their backs, even shelter for most of them although I do have particular changes I'd like to see on this subject.
The chronic homeless wither not because society is unable to house them but because our sense of individual freedom won't allow us to commit those that can't function without aid. This example muddies the issue. The deprivation here might appear to be proximately caused by ownership of homes, trivially if homeless people could just go in and occupy anyone's home then they would be cured of their homelessness but this wouldn't really solve the underlying issue. I don't know how you could prevent self imposed deprivation, or at least how you could do so without forfeiting freedom.
Alright, then I revise what I said to "My conclusion is that the right 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 do want things to improve. I observe the history of society and see that as we build out new technology and capital infrastructure we increase abundance and things get better. I would like to separate the concept of "things being better" into things made better systemically and things made better by material progress. We don't need to change the system for things to be made better by material progress. It's genuinely incredible how much better things have been made by material progress. I don't have to worry about infections. I can spend a Wednesday evening relaxing in a comfortable chair listening to tunes on high quality wireless headphones eating good food in a large air conditioned house responding to people on the internet. I am the envy of kings of old. I'm more skeptical about things being made by, radical, systemic changes.
Still I would like things to improve. I'm never sure if I should call myself a liberal or a conservative. I'm freedom loving and optimistic. I think if we mostly leave people alone and minimally adjust the system things will simply get better over time. So I oppose rash and under thought out changes to the system. You could say I conserve the system. I'm not opposed to all change, in fact I fiercely support some changes and updates as the material conditions change. But I find radicalism off putting, ungrateful, pessimistic and short sighted. You're not only risking what good we have, you're risking the good that the current system will produce if we only allow it to. You may see ownership as a rotten board of a rotting house, but I see it as a vital component of a prosperous and growing society. So from my perspective it really is on you to explain why and how we should get rid of it or I'm going to default to declining. If that's conservative then I am a conservative. If it's madness then I am mad.
I'll note that this is the culture war thread, we're here to discuss the culture war. The default valiance anyone will approach any underspecified idea with is that there are culture war/political implications to what you propose. I know you directly said in the OP that you were looking to brainstorm and it can be exhausting to have to overly signal that you're not advancing any particular objective but your OP would have been much better received if you had put some effort into making it clear that you didn't have an axe to grind.
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Unequivocally yes. In 1990 37.8% of the planet lived in extreme poverty. Now less than 9% do. From 1920-1970 about 110 million people died from famine. From 1970-2020 only 10 million did. In 1900 average global life expectancy was 32 years. Today it’s 71. Historically, 50% of kids died before the age of 15. In 1950 that was down to 25%. In 2020 it was 4%.
We’ve built a pretty great world, and it keeps getting better every decade. I sincerely doubt we could do much better.
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