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Notes -
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"?
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The a definition that has stuck with me is: "property is peace." Land, houses, real goods, etc, all have the fundamental attribute that they are at least partially or wholly rivalorous. This is a law from nature or nature's God, not from man. Either my cattle can graze the land or your cattle can. Either I can eat the cattle or you can. Either my family can live in a certain house or your family can. A property right, ie ownership, therefore, is a public declaration that a certain person or organization has the right to determine how that property is used (subject to certain restrictions of course). They may of course choose to share it. It may even be assigned to an organization that has a charter and rules about how to share the property. It's ironic that you say capitalism doesn't understand "sharing" when one of the fundamental inventions that separated capitalism from fuedalism was the idea of a joint-stock corporation and the idea of splitting up "shares" in a company. A corporation is highly structured sharing. The alternative to assigning a public property right, is friction and squabbling and overuse at best, and war at the worst. The origin of all property rights are either squatters rights, adverse possession, or most commonly, a peace treaty after a war. To say that someone's property right is illegitimate is to say, I no longer accept the terms of the peace, I am trying to rile people up for extra-legal action and/or war.
This is not how land title works in traditional livestock-grazing societies. Multiple cow-owners' cattle can graze the same land as long as the total number of cattle does not exceed the capacity of the land. And the smallest efficient land holding for grazing cattle is much larger than the amount of land actually needed for one family's cattle. So you end up with various forms of communal ownership of rough grazing land. The most primitive is collective ownership and customary management by the whole tribe/village, but England and Wales developed two more formal systems - under levency and couchancy the right to graze livestock on the common land associated with a village in summer is tied to stabling the livestock in the village and feeding them locally grown hay in the winter, and under stinting the right to graze a certain number of livestock on the common land becomes a property right (initially tied to owning a specific plot of land in the village, later separately tradeable). In the US, most of the rough grazing in the west is government land.
tl;dr - There are sound practical reasons why rough grazing land is not privately owned. The resulting OG tragedy of the commons has been understood, and institutions have existed for solving it, since time immemorial.
Sounds like the community is an organization that owns the land, and has rules about how each person can use it. Nothing you said contradicts anything that I wrote. Customary rights to graze a certain amount at a certain time is still a form of property right, same as an easment is a form of property right. Not all property rights are "you have 100% total control to do whatever you want."
Is your argument against "ownership" in general? Or is your argument that ownership by a single person is bad, ownership by a family is bad, ownership by a joint-stock corporation is bad, but ownership by a cooperative is OK?
My argument is that grazing rights are typically not exclusive, whereas the previous poster had given grazing rights as an example where exclusivity was practically necessary. I wasn't making a policy argument for or against "ownership" - I was declining to do so on the basis that real-world arrangements are often more complex (and in the case of land, almost always more complex) than the Jurisprudence for Dummies idea of "ownership".
It's still exclusive to the group that actual owns it. Someone from a neighboring tribe can't bring all their cattle and graze it without permission (or there would be war).
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It sounds like grazing rights are exclusive, just the ownership is held commonly by the townsfolk and the excluded members are non-townsfolk. A passing cowboy would be deprived.
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