'Property is theft' stolen concept fallacy

[@jordanlofton6288]

Hi, if you haven't read Proudhon's "What is Property?" I recommend it. It's hard to understand the phrases "Property is theft!" without reading it. All Proudhon is doing for most of the book is taking the arguments of various economists who had tried to establish a theory of property and taking their premises to their final conclusions, showing that they lead to contradictions. So he takes the arguments of one economist, runs with it, and ends up with the statement "Property is impossible."

[@purplej12]

Absolutely. He set up a strawman's argument. Property is theft is supposed to be paradoxical. You don't defeat the argument by pointing that out. The idea is that the "rightful owner" was decided by theft, murder, coercion, etc. The concept of a rightful owner has to be created by someone.

[@bitbutter]

@oldwisetale Hi, I don't think IP is justifiable. Ideas are not scarce resources, so they're not candidates to become property. Enforcing IP means breaching real property rights (in scarce physical things).

[@MrBobbillo]

Proudhon's words are used to show us that individual property is illegitmate because it has been stolen from a community. The reason you see it as a fallacy and get lost in a meaningless circle, is because you instantly base your idea of property on a Libertarian concept, and not on an anarachist one.

[@MrBobbillo]

@bitbutter all I'm saying is that your concept of property that you use in your argument in the video presupposes the concept of property as individual property. This is the argument of the commons vs. property. I should have said that the land was 'common' to the natives before it was turned into property through theft. Hence property and theft are not one thing then the other but a simultaneous occurrence. Your logic (in the video) sounds temporal, when the statement isn't.

[@ufodeath]

Before I get started, I want to stress that the origin of the phrase "Property is Theft" was specifically referring to the means of production (land, factories, lakes, rivers, forest, machines), especially means of production that are in limited access (such as a factory or water source). Property which is referring to the means of production is also made distinct from personal possessions that you have a use for on a personal basis and which nobody else inherently has to access. Ownership in this case would be based on use, and it would be illegitimate and oppressive for someone to arbitrarily claim ownership of a means of production that they have no use for, are not willing to use, or that others have to use. This is my general critique of the concept of property (with regards to the means of production), please read it. Thesis: Property is Slavery. Private control of the means of production is illegitimate, arbitrary and inherently oppressive. To claim ownership the means of production, whether natural or man-made, such as the land, a lake, a forest, a factory a machine is both arbitrary and leads to oppression. There is nothing that ethically legitimizes the ownership of things beyond what you can use for yourself for your own personal needs and wants. there is also nothing that ethically legitimizes the notion that you can own, for example a house even if you abandon it, or any means of production that you cannot use or have no need for. To arbitrarily claim ownership of productive assets that people need to use in order to produce goods is to set up an oppressive regime where you can appropriate the fruits of their labor because you have arbitrary control over it. The homesteading concept is invalid for the same reasons, because there is nothing that ethically legitimizes "home-steading"/claiming ownership of more than you can use for your needs and wants, being able to retain ownership of something even after you abandon it, or for that matter claiming ownership of things that people need to use (especially when it is in very limited access) so that you can use this 'ownership' as a basis to extract from other peoples labor - whether it is a factory, large plot of land, forest, lake, etc. Historically speaking in the system of ancient slavery, not only was there a property regime on the means of production, but The masters owned the slaves themselves. So in this system, instead of subtly exploiting the fruits of peoples labor, it was more obvious - the majority of the proceeds of the slave went to the slave master AND the slave was required to obey at every turn, complete total domination, both economically, socially and individually. In feudalism, instead of owning people directly, the system became a more subtle form of slavery because the masters (the feudal lords) owned all of the land that the farmers needed to use to produce food, and the feudal lord could therefore use his property regime to force the serfs to give the proceeds of their labor to him, Which was still economic/material slavery in every meaning of the phrase, it just isn't the traditional slavery where the slave has to obey every command, However there was still huge domination over the serfs socially, politically, and intellectually (the catholic church). Now in capitalism, the same property regime of feudalism is retained - a minority of people control the land, machines, factories, and other means of production. They can use their arbitrary control to oppress and exploit those that need to use the means of production, hence again material slavery based on the notion that someone can arbitrarily claim ownership of a vast number of things that they have no personal use for and that others need to use! It is holding the very infrastructure that people need to use to produce goods for themselves at *ransom*. *Hence, property (ownership of the means of production, or of things you don't use) is theft, and inherently results in material slavery* and domination by those that control it. The reason why it is less subtle in capitalism is because the 'masters' (the ruling class) now allow the 'slaves' (the subordinated class) a lot of social and intellectual liberty, though economic and political liberty are restricted both through the arbitrary and oppressive property regime and through the fact that the political system was designed by the ruling class (the masters) in the first place in order to create yet another facade of "democracy", even though they were and still are the ones who literally buy the politicians to this day. Hence a political dictatorship of the ruling class (the masters). The ruling class that controls the means of production has still instituted material and political slavery on those that need to access the means of production. Slavery with a happy face so to speak *:D*. They will use all the means that the can to keep most people ignorant and just content enough to not question the institutions with which they live in, even if the very premise by which the economic and political institutions are based upon are oppressive. To all of you reading this, *Ask yourself this question*: What at its *very basic* level, could ever legitimize the notion that one can claim ownership of way more than what they can use or are willing to use, especially when others need to use it? Or even the notion that someone should retain permanent ownership of things that they no longer use? To state my previous point, When the productive assets of a region concentrate to a minority controlling them, they can use this control (AKA concentrated economic power), to subordinate those that have to use them and still exploit them. please ask yourself this question, and think.

[@colbys9812]

Yeah this entire video is a big straw man. "I've noticed on KZbin recently" is the big tell. The term "property is theft" comes from "What is Property" by Pierre Joseph Proudhon in 1840. In the book he not only defines property, but his declaration that all property is theft was written so as to promote intellectual thought and was supposed to be "fallacy." Although I will give him this, I'm sure many people use the phrase incorrectly on KZbin, which could merit this type of response.

[@ufodeath]

C Saunders yep. Every single time i've seen someone attempt to critique this phrase, They do so without any knowledge of the context in which "property of theft" is meant by. They literally just critique the phrase itself, without even understanding what type of property is being referenced, specifically large scale productive property. The fact that many people don't even research the origins of the phrase before they critique it, tells me a lot of negative things already. They are ignorant yet self righteous in their perception. Its what I call self-righteous ignorance.

[@colbys9812]

***** "'"Property is theft' implies people do not have the right to own what they produce, for example, a factory, a house, a car, a bank, a business, or a farm. If I build something, I don't want it taken from me. Its that simple." You don't even need to read the book 'Property Is Theft' itself, just the comments above and you will see that you and Proudhon are not talking about the same type of 'property.' You are trying to compare apples to oranges and it just doesn't work. Proudhon is not the one who says people do not have a right to own what they produce, that's wage labor (typically a capitalist economy). That's why we have wages and not worker collectives where the workers (those who produce the goods) have as much of a right to the final product and it's profits from the marketplace as the landowner himself. And let me be clear that I don't believe property is theft on it's face, but I do believe that all types of political philosophies need to be understood and not marginalized by people who don't understand them.

[@ufodeath]

***** Can the earth be a 'thing' that belongs to a single person without resulting in the poverty or material restriction of everyone else as a result? My point exactly, that was a rhetorical question. Property only makes sense in the scope of material possessions, not abstract boundaries of land, lakes, forest, factories or any other place that people have to work. For one class of people to own the very places that people work in, means that they can 'restrict' the amount of 'possessions' the working class gets for their hard work by giving them a wage that only represents a fraction of what the products of their labor would be sold in the market - that is exactly the process of how they profit off of other peoples labor after all. This is the very nature of one class claiming that the means of production can be considered a "possession". In reality, they apply "property rights" to every single modern production facility so that they can devise a market system that they have the control over, and use the markets as their way of profitting. Point and case, when people in any capitalist operated workplace collectively work on something, their wages represent a fraction of what the product of their labor was sold for. Here is another problem with using the capitalist definition of "property", the fact that it is COMPLETELY BLOODY ARBITRARY that a particular class of people can arbitrarily claim vast swaths of land, natural resources, etc 'beyond' what they need for their personal uses, and thus force everyone who comes along to have to work for them. This is how capitalism began during it's primitive accumulation stage (well before it was anything resembling modern capitalism). Eventually, the british nobles just decided to evict even more peasants off of land to allow a primitive capitalist class to build factories, and other modern production facilities just so the capitalist can apply the same bloody arbitrary property rights that nobles had placed on land a millenium past during the feudal ages. The reason i did not address your post directly is because you seem to have taken a great deal of my arguments out of context, and twisted them away from their original meaning. You implied meaning to my arguments that they dont necessarily, or even at all imply. so its pointless for me to go along for that ride. "If I build a new business using my own effort and money, does that mean that the second that I hire somebody to work for me, that person has an equal share of my new business even if explicitly says in the contract that the labor arrangement is in no way a transaction of property?" This argument only works if we assume that the capitalist standard of property rights is true. I am challenging these property rights at the very base level, based on what they represent, Their arbitrary origins, and what the end result is in terms of class relations. The fact that any single individual has enough capital to build up a large or medium business already indicates that this person has, in one way or another, taken a part in a long capitalist tradition of profiting off of the fruits of working class labor, either by being born into it, or being favored by the class of people who were already born into it. prior - both of these are the primary methods of producing new capitalist in effect. It's gone on so long that its been 'normalized' in everyones eyes, including most typical working peoples. But the fact is, is it a very similar logic to the ancient tradition of feudalism: If i own some type means of production, particulary WAY more than i would ever need for my personal uses, and call it "my right", then I can profit off the people who have to work and produce off of those means of production, even with no or minimal work on my own merits. TL;DR Property Rights end where your personal needs end and where the natural resources of the earh and the means of production begins. Property Rights should not be structured to serve the capital interest of single individuals who happen to control everything, straight off the backs of others. They should instead be based off of personal possessions, and the primary economy should be structured based off the collective interest of different groups of people people to manage their own work, their own factories, and their own local communities as equals in a way that serves their communities interest, their groups interest and their own interest as well, all without having to profit off of other peoples labor. Careful though, noticed how i said 'primary economy', Since i do not by any means restrict this system to an anarchist system, especially since i consider myself a libertarian-marxist.

[@ufodeath]

***** If you cannot address my points precisely by how i structured them, and you insist on skewing them up, there is no point in continuing this conversation. I refuse to waste my time talking to people who think they are smarter than they really are. if you respond to me, i will not read the message and block you immediately. I invited you to a personal chat several days ago. You know you had your chance to have a real conversation with me. you missed it. By the way, its a very low brow thing to do to attack someones spelling during any kind of argumentation.In my experience I've dealt with enough people like that to know how they think and act, they usually are not mature people at all. as a second reason, i wont waste my time on someone immature.

[@vladcrisan2182]

"property is theft" might reffer to an ideology that everyone should be equal. "Does a squirrel pay rent to the tree?" " We are all creatures of this world therefore we all deserve to be treated equally "

[@Somberdemure]

You aren't entitled to someone else labor.

[@wizkid2000]

its as coherent as saying "consent is rape"

[@JohnAnonymous]

I've recently been debating some classical anarchists (the ones that are against private property). They make a distinction between possessions (things you need for direct personally use, e.g. a toothbrush, a house) and private property (things you don't directly need, e.g. means of production or a 2nd house). The enforcement of PP then is seen as a form of theft. Although I understand the distinction from an social standpoint, this all seems quite arbitrary to me.

[@bitbutter]

@billburns2 "Also, the claim doesn't assume that property exists prior to the theft at all" I explained in the video why the existence of theft necessarily means that legitimately owned property exists too. Ignoring that explanation isn't the same as refuting it.

[@bitbutter]

@MrBobbillo "Proudhon's words are used to show us that individual property is illegitmate because it has been stolen from a community." This video isn't for people who like to say that "individual property is theft". This video is aimed at anyone who believes that "property is theft" makes sense without qualification. It doesn't.

[@jordanlofton6288]

Continued: He takes the arguments of another economist, runs with it and gets "Property is freedom", another "Property is despotism" and yet other arguments for property had so many problems they led to the statement "Property is theft", all statement that he found some agreement with, but only certain aspects. He was poking fun at the political economists of his day and doing some serious dialectics along the way. If nothing else, his work is an excellent exercise in argumentation.

[@bitbutter]

@billburns2 "The bottom line is that you have attempted to dismantle the assertion that A=B by starting with a declaration that B=A." False. I explained not that theft _is_ property, but that the concept of theft is genetically dependent on the concept of property. And that a concrete instance of theft necessitates a concrete instance of legitimate ownership. Please pay closer attention.

[@bitbutter]

@MrBobbillo "Communally used is not communal property for me. " If something communally used is not communal property then there is no possibility of it being stolen. This is because theft describes taking possession of another person's (or group's) property.

[@bitbutter]

@bryanperf I added the link to the info box.

[@bitbutter]

@zalida100 Thanks. I should make clear though that I disagree that there's a _performative_ inconsistency in saying 'property is theft'. A person does not have to assume, tacitly or otherwise, that they have the exclusive right to determine how their body is used in order to say that (of course they're still wrong though).

[@daveeggersly]

By adopting a different meaning to a word (e.g. aggression) than the generally accepted one, it does not follow that those using the standard definition "make no sense". It simply means that you are no longer able to have any meaningful discussion with those outside your movement. The reason for changing the definition, I presume, was to try to embed the legitimacy of property rights into language as they are so central to the libertarianism, yet there is no rational way to justify them .

[@bitbutter]

@MrBobbillo "your concept of property that you use in your argument in the video presupposes the concept of property as individual property." No it doesn't. "I should have said that the land was 'common' to the natives before it was turned into property through theft." Communally owned => communal property. You're still not appreciating the problem: Property is when an entity has a legitimate title to a thing. Theft is meaningless unless there's such a thing as legitimately owned property.

[@oldwisetale]

who defines "legitimate" ownership??????

[@mikemat3307]

If I understand Proudhon correctly, "private property" refers only to state granted privilege of property title.

[@bitbutter]

@anarksee Private property is an agreement/norm.

[@bergweg]

@bitbutter That's one case, but then there is land that was conquered in wars, conflicts, etc... Another thing is that ownership is not possible witout an enforcer (government or a similar organization).

[@bitbutter]

"the person exercising the right, and others. Specifically, who are the "others"?" The question answers itself i think.

[@bitbutter]

@daveeggersly "it does not follow that those using the standard definition "make no sense"" Did I claim that using the common definition of aggression makes no sense? The advantage of a propertarian definition of aggression is that it allows a coherent model that integrates force and property, and avoids the arbitrariness inherent in the standard definition. I wrote a post explaining this further that you can find if you google: The non-aggression principle Weaknesses and strength

[@bitbutter]

@anarksee "If I "agree" to "steal" "your" chair," An agreement needs more than one person. Private property is an agreement shared by many people: almost everyone believes that they have the exclusive right to dictate the terms of use of their body, provided that that use doesn't interfere with another persons property rights.

[@bitbutter]

@MrBobbillo Nothing you said helps rescue 'property is theft' from incoherence. If you want to actually address the content of the video, you're welcome to do so.

[@bitbutter]

@cbau338 "There is no "all" in the phrase. Proudhon was talking about a certain type of property, " "Property is theft", unqualified, is an implied claim about all property. Just as "Squares have four sides" is a claim about all squares. "Cats are black" is not equivalent to "Black cats exist". If Proudhon meant only certain kinds of property he misspoke.

[@bitbutter]

@bergweg "so let's take a piece of land and the first owner. Who did this so called owner acquire the land from, and how? " He didn't aquire the land from anyone, according to the homesteading principle at least, by mixing his labour with the land he become its original owner.

It comes from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: (p. 112) _«As in the ideologies previously discussed, the word ‘anarchy’ is of comparatively recent origin. It entered into political currency fairly late in the nineteenth century. The first use of the term to denote a political position is to be found in _*_Pierre-Joseph Proudhon’s work What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and Government (1840). This work not only coined the notoriously equivocal remark ‘all property is theft’, but also contained a clear assertion of, and commitment to, anarchy._*_ As Proudhon stated: ‘As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy. Anarchy - the form of government to which we are every day approximating.’ Proudhon defined anarchy as the ‘absence of a master, of a sovereign’ (Proudhon 1970b, 88-9; see also Woodcock 1972b). This and other similar statements in the book gave rise to the appellation ‘father of anarchy’, in respect of Proudhon, though the man has remained a profoundly confusing figure.»_ … (p. 128) _«Later individualist writers, especially in the American tradition, recall some of Proudhon’s ideas. Certainly there is a clear opposition to distributive justice. In the case of writers such as Rothbard, the natural right to one’s body, property and liberty are of supreme importance. This entails a far more formal understanding of procedural justice. Rothbard is not concerned with the substantive equality of parties to contracts, only that individuals should not be prohibited from contracting. Property rights in one’s body, and capital, should not be interfered with and one should not be subject to harm or aggression. Justice is concerned with sustaining a voluntary ‘libertarian law code’, focused on formal individual rights (Wieck in Pennock and Chapman eds 1978, 217). Rothbard ignores all large accumulations of property and social handicaps which might affect the ability to contract. Neither Proudhon, Stirner nor Godwin would have accepted this latter argument, especially the sacred quality that Rothbard confers upon property rights. Each would have rejected the argument for very different reasons. _*_Proudhon, in particular, rejected the absolute right to property as encouraging its abuse. This is what lay behind his elusive statement ‘all property is theft.’_*_ »_ - Vincent, Andrew. *Modern Political Ideologies.* Third Edition. _Wiley-Blackwell (1993, 3rd edition 2010) 382 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1405154956._ (amazon.com/dp/1405154950) books.google.com/books?id=igrwb3rsOOUC&printsec=frontcover PDF copy: en.booksee.org/book/1465522 (sheffield.ac.uk/politics/staff/avincent) Example raised by Benjamin Tucker of a possible abuse encouraged by the absolute right to property: _«Spooner defended unlimited private land ownership and grounded his support of this theory on the homesteading axiom: "The right of property in material wealth is acquired, . . .in one of these two ways, viz.: first, by simply taking possession of natural wealth, or the productions of nature; and, secondly by the artificial production of other wealth. . . The natural wealth of the world belongs to those who first take possession of it. . . There is no limit, fixed by the law of nature, to the amount of property one may acquire simply by taking possession of natural wealth, not already possessed, except the limit fixed by (a person's) power or ability to take such possession, without doing violence to the person or property of others."[3] Spooner would have definitely agreed with Rothbard, that ". .once a piece of land passes justly into Mr. A's ownership, he cannot be said to truly own that land unless he can conveyor sell the title to Mr . B, and to prevent B from exercising his title simply because he doesn't choose to use it himself but rather rents it out vo1untarily to Mr. C, is an invasion of B's freedom of contract and of his right to his justly-acquired private property."[4]_ _Spooner had expressed his ideas on land ownership in his LAW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (1855) and in his pamphlet, REVOLUTION: A REPLY TO 'DUNRAVEN' (1880). Tucker took him to task in LIBERTY: "I call Spooner's work on 'Intellectual Property' positively foolish because it is fundamentally foolish, -because, that is to say, its discussion of the acquisition of property starts with a basic proposition that must be looked upon by all consistent Anarchists as obvious nonsense. _*_I quote this basic proposition. 'The natural wealth of the world belongs to those who first take possession of it. . . So much natural wealth, remaining unpossessed, as anyone can take possession of first, becomes absolutely his property.' "[5] Tucker charged Spooner with being a defender of unlimited land ownership since Spooner's proposition would allow that ". . .a man may go to a piece of vacant land and fence it off; that he may then go to a second piece and fence that off; then to a third, and fence that off; then to a fourth, a fifth, a hundredth, a thousandth, fencing them all off; that, unable to fence off himself as many as he wishes, he may hire other men to do fencing for him; and that then he may stand back and bar all other men from using these lands, or admit them as tenants at such rental as he may choose to exact."[6]_*_ In these circumstances, Tucker asked: "What becomes of the Anarchistic doctrine of occupancy and use as the basis and limit of land ownership'?”[7]_ _Tucker was a great critic of the land ownership system existing in the 19th Century. Absentee land ownership presented a serious problem in Ireland. Due to the agitation of the "No-Rent Movement" and the Irish Land League and the publicity of the ideas of Henry George, the subject of land ownership was very much a topic of public concern. Tucker believed that the occupancy and use theory of land holding solved the problem of justice in land ownership. The essence of the theory was that only actual users or possessors of the land (i.e., the Irish tenants) could be considered its owners. Occupancy and use as the basis for land ownership would free for use all land not actually being occupied by its owners. Thus landlords would cease to exist, as would all renting or leasing of real property, since the absentee landlord could claim no title or control over his unoccupied property. Spooner was quite critical of this doctrine: in fact he labeled it communism. The premise of any argument denying property rights in any form is communism. ". . .There is, therefore, no middle ground between absolute communism, on the one hand, which holds that a man has a right to lay his hands on any thing, which has no other man's hands upon it, no matter who may have been the producer; and the principle of individual property, on the other hand, which says that each man has an absolute dominion, as against all other men, over the products and acquisitions of his own labor, whether he retains them in his actual possession or not.”[8]_ _Tucker believed that "a man cannot be allowed, merely by putting labor, to the limit of his capacity and beyond the limit of his personal use, into material of which there is a limited supply and the use of which is essential to the existence of other men, to withhold that material from other men's uses; and any contract based upon or involving such withholding is as lacking in sanctity or legitimacy as a contract to deliver stolen goods."[9] Under Tucker's theory, if "a man exerts himself by erecting a building on land which afterward, by the principle of occupancy and use, rightfully becomes another's, he must, upon demand of the subsequent occupant, remove from this land, the results of his self-exertion, or, failing to do so, sacrifice his property rights therein. The man who persists in storing his property on another's premises is an invader and it is his crime that alienates control of this property. He is 'fined one house,' not for 'building a house and then letting another man live in it,' but for invading the premises of another."[10] Thus Tucker admitted that homesteading, in the form of original possession or self-exertion furnished no basis for a continuing claim to land ownership, after the homesteader left the land. To further illustrate his differences with Spooner, Tucker related a conversation that he had with Spooner concerning the rightfulness of the Irish rebellion against absentee landlords: "Mr. Spooner bases his opposition to Irish and English landlords on the sole ground that they or their ancestors took their lands by the sword from the original holders. This he plainly stated, -- so plainly that I took issue with Mr.. Spooner on this point when he asked me to read the manuscript (REVOLUTION) before its publication, I then asked him whether if Dunraven (the absentee landlord) or his ancestors had found unoccupied the very lands that he now holds, and had fenced them off, he would have any objection to raise against Dunraven's title and to leasing of these lands. He declared emphatically that he would not. Whereupon I protested that his pamphlet, powerful as it was within its scope, did not go to the bottom of the land question."[11]_ _Much of Tucker's concern with the land problem was based on his apprehension of the monopoly problem. He is well known for his four-pronged attack on monopolies: land, banking, tariff, and copyright and patent. Tucker feared that the right of contract would be carried to an illogical extreme: ". . . It would be possible (under a regime of unfettered freedom of contract in land) for an individual to acquire, and hold simultaneously, virtual titles to innumerable parcels of land, by the merest show of labor performed thereon; . . . (and) . . . we should be forced to consider . . . the virtual ownership of nearly the entire earth by a small fraction of its inhabitants …"[12] Analogous to his position on land ownership, Tucker also attacked the literary monopolization of ideas based on copyright Spooner was a consistent defender of property in all forms and claimed for inventors and authors a perpetual copyright in their work. It is plain that neither could agree until their theories of ownership were harmonized, and both either adopted or rejected the homesteading principle._ _The question over land ownership and the homesteading principle was not the only controversy carried on in the pages of LIBERTY. Equally interesting is the letter and editorial writing concerning the self-ownership axiom which took place under the guise of discussing the rights of parents and children. Originally the question began as whether parents should be legally responsible for abuse and neglect of their children. Tuckers initial conclusion was that we must not interfere to prevent neglect of the child, but only to repress positive invasion.»_ - Carl Watner. *Spooner vs. Liberty.* _The Libertarian Forum (March 1975) Vol 7, No. 3_ voluntaryist.com/journal/spoonervsliberty.html URL source G+ posts: plus.google.com/+ZephyrLópezCervilla/posts/Ma5vMdWAhUN plus.google.com/107469132316852716472/posts/2NdbhtJP7xA

[@Bit-while_going]

There needs to be more videos on concept stealing since there are getting to be a lot that just steal concepts instead while not talking about what they're doing. Like when they imagine we live in a simulation from a brain without a body. Obviously the body had to come first.

[@HexTest]

@skunkwerksrc - That's probably the best analogy of what the "property is theft" slogan actually implies.

[@bitbutter]

Again that doesn't follow. A theory of property rights is the context that allows us to identify aggression. That in turn allows us to identify extortion. To say that property is extortion is question begging. Meanwhile a theory of property based on the homesteading principle does give the conclusion that taxation is extortion.

[@bitbutter]

@skunkwerksrc Yeah I think Molyneux's wrong about that: there's no performative inconsistency in saying 'Property is theft', it's wrong for a diff reason (see my replies to zalida100 in this thread).

[@bitbutter]

No. There is nothing inevitable about taxation. What you just said is as absurd as: "Freedom of association in interpersonal relations is an entete between the individual and the group, rape under special circumstances is the inevitable result of that entete." It simply doesn't follow.

[@bitbutter]

@billburns2 "But it isn't. It's dependent on the concept of LEGITIMATE property." Property == legitimate property silly.

[@oldwisetale]

what are your thoughts on intellectual property? (if i may ask)

[@bitbutter]

@anarksee "You're perpetrating semantical legerdemain!" No i'm not. If you disagree can you spell out how? "I recommend you look study the history of the word "argument"" Why? (did you misread agreement for argument?).

[@slugfeast8944]

You cannot apply just any definition of "property" to this phrase. You are lacking proper context.

[@Money_Man55]

Exactly

[@bitbutter]

@billburns2 'you're concentrating on the "property" aspect, whereas a proponent of PiT is more concerned with the "legitimately owned" aspect.' It doesn't matter in the slightest which of the words a person is more interested in. The phrase is incoherent for the reasons explained in the video. Address them if you're able to.

[@zalida100]

@bitbutter Cool - a disagreement. If they are making the statement, surely that is exercising control of their body, which implies ownership/control? Otherwise they require the permission of whomever else may own their (the speaker's) body. Can you tell me where my assumption is not quite right? - Ta

[@bitbutter]

My bad. I take back point 1. Point 2 stands.

[@bitbutter]

@AnarchoCapitalistTV yes exactly.

[@zalida100]

@bitbutter Ah. I think I get what you mean. They don't necessarily have exclusive right to control of all of their body at all times? i.e. They may have ownership of the vocal chords, but that doesn't mean they have the right of the whole body? They may have even been coerced by the actual owner (master) to say "property is theft", but since the person in the body has ultimate choice of uttering the phrase or not, he still has final control, doesn't he?

[@MrBobbillo]

@bitbutter perhaps we are talking past purposes? I think that to think of the commons as 'property' is not valid. Any 'legitimacy' is a creation of power through law and military might mostly. Communally used is not communal property for me. People that believe in property rights normally accept that it is a violent process, but that it is ultimately for the good of mankind, the so-called "tragedy of the commons".

[@havenbastion]

The phrase came from French land ownership. It does not mean all property in that sense, although few understand the distinction.

[@bitbutter]

This video is addressed to the people alive today who I've heard use the phrase (they did not use it in the same context as Proudhon).

[@bitbutter]

@zalida100 "surely that is exercising control of their body, which implies ownership/control?" imo it doesn't follow that it implies ownership in the sense typically used in libertarian discourse. If the body was their property, then they'd have sovereign right to determine acceptable uses of that body. But they could exert control over 'their' body to utter a phrase even if this was not the case (even if someone else had the right to legitimately beat the body they inhabit, without consent).

[@bitbutter]

@anarksee B: "If you disagree can you spell out how?" A: "I don't play word games." So explaining yourself is 'word games', and you don't play 'word games'. I'm not sure why you're even commenting here.

[@zalida100]

Very well put. Thanks. I wouldn't say that theft is necessarily taking someone's property. I think theft is the act of denying the owner exclusive control over his property. e.g. Maybe someone deliberately blocks your car in your driveway or something like that. As you said, the "property is theft" is just a self detonating statement. In order to make the statement, the claimant has to have control (property rights) over his own body to make the statement.

[@bitbutter]

@SecularNumanist Of course it's true that to claim property means to exclude everyone else from an equal say in the use of the object. Whatever proudhon had in mind (could well be that there was a tongue-in-cheek aspect to it) the phrase is incoherent.

[@Wiggyam]

Proudhoun meant that private property, where few people owned the means of production and increased the price just because they could, not because it was more expencive to produce, like for excapmle diabetes medication, it could be a lot cheaper, but the producers inflated the price

[@bitbutter]

William Lillevik in my experience 'the means of production' is far too ambiguous to be an analytically useful category. What is the rule for determining whether a thing belongs to this set?

[@zalida100]

@bitbutter "..Not sure what you mean by ultimate control..." I think I mean that someone can beat the crap out of him until he utters the phrase "property is theft", but the guy doing the beating, doesn't have 100% control of the other guy's body. e.g. the victim/slave has the final choice of what he ends up saying. e.g. The slave may choose to die, rather than say the words. (I know I'm kinda nit-picking here). "..on the last day of every month.." Yes, I think you're right here - I see that :)

[@noxure]

Stating the obvious here. "property is theft" is a rhetorical phrase about ones convictions, not about whether that statement is actually true. From a collectivist point of view it is true, but from a liberal point of view it's false. Another example: "the only rule is there are no rules". That obviously makes no sense if put out of context, but it means that not everyone follows the same rules, so you have to be prepared for that.

[@bitbutter]

@EquitoErgoSum I've seen this claim used several times in the last few days without qualifiers. If the people making this claim don't mean what those words traditionally mean, then the burden is on them to explain the definitions they're using. This video assumes non-idiosyncratic definitions of the terms used.

[@zalida100]

@zalida100 "..(he may believe that others have the right to use his body however they like,..." I just noticed this. Aren't we arguing about subjective & objective reality here? Certainly if the "slave" guy believes someone else has the right to use his body, then I agree with your argument. I was thinking more along the lines of, the guy with the stick cannot control everything the slave does, without the final cooperation of the slave. Hence he doesn't have complete ownership.

[@DKshad0w]

I see the statement "Property is theft" as an attempt at a reductio ad absurdum. However if the concept of property is absurd, so is the concept of theft. If one truly believes that property is theft, if someone breaks into and drives away in your car, don't call it theft.

[@bergweg]

so let's take a piece of land and the first owner. Who did this so called owner acquire the land from, and how?

[@EquitoErgoSum]

cont. "theft" is an analogy here. There was a time when no one owned anything. Now we do. Some say there is legitimacy in the transition from one state to the other, some say there isn't - so they use words like "theft" or "force" to imply that illegitimacy. Pointing to the limits of that analogy does nothing to address the thrust of its argument.

[@cbau338]

There is no "all" in the phrase. Proudhon was talking about a certain type of property, one that needed a state to exist.

[@xiam5941]

how would you reply to someone who says that the world and all its resources are owned by all of humanity and that laying claim to them can be a negative externality in the sense that you perhaps are depriving them from accessing a water source (which by their standards should be equally owned)?

[@bitbutter]

its not clear why it makes sense to assume that a person who lives thousands of miles from a resource, and will never visit it (for instance) is part owner of that resource.

[@bitbutter]

@zalida100 Yeah that's what I'm getting at. "but since the person in the body has ultimate choice of uttering the phrase or not, he still has final control, doesn't he?" Not sure what you mean by ultimate control. imo the relevant question is whether his utterance proves that he assumes the sovereign right to decide how that body is used. I don't see how it does (he may believe that others have the right to use his body however they like, without permission, on the last day of every month ;)).

[@bryanperf]

What's the source of the Nathaniel Branden quote?

[@EquitoErgoSum]

@bitbutter That would preclude any possibility of ever arguing by analogy at all. All human language need analogy to function. Finding problems with analogy is easy and pointless. You could try actually trying to understand what people mean and going from there. As long as you take the stance that all words used must be perfect and complete in their usage you make meaningful communication impossible beyond A=A statements.

[@bitbutter]

No. That's a non-sequitur.

[@henrywilderthings]

So how do you gain the legitimate stake of property? You dodge the big part there ;)

[@markdingo4512]

@bitbutter taxation is an agreement of the majority of the population. So if you believe taxation is aggression how is private property not? If 99 people of 100 believe they have property and 1 doesn't and that 1 uses the area or object when the others are not. Isn't it agreesion that they stop the 1 person because they had an "agreement"

[@bitbutter]

"taxation is an agreement of the majority of the population." Unfortunately you can't even know that. Since the population is under duress to accept this 'agreement', meaningful consent cannot be given. "So if you believe taxation is aggression how is private property not?" Taxation is aggression because it involves threats of violence against those who are not violating property rights. Without a concept of private property it would not be possible to identify instances of aggression, the concept depends on the concept of private property. So to claim that private property is aggression would be committing the stolen concept fallacy. If that's not convincing to you, perhaps you could answer the following: Person A has two healthy kidneys. Person B badly needs a kidney transplant. Is person A aggressing against person B by refusing to donate a kidney? (if not, why not?)

[@markdingo4512]

bitbutter Thanks, I am a right libertarian who has been sympathetic to anarcho-syndicalism. I was pondering that question lately "Does private property break the non aggression principle?" You answer was good, and other arguments I recently found are that someone put time into land or object so using that currently unused owned land or owned object without consent is in essence an act of force because the owner put time into developing the land or object, it would be similar to locking someone up or slavery; the person who previously owned that land or object voluntary passed it down to another then satisfies the morality of inheritance and generational wealth; a persons body is is private property; children shall not be killed because technically they are their body is there property, but they have to listen and obey to the owners of the property on which they live until they are self sustaining adults with their own property to live.

[@MrBobbillo]

@bitbutter your qualification doesn't make sense, doesn't mean that "property is theft" doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense if you believe in Libertarian property rights (which you mention), but for me life and liberty don't have any neccessay connection to property =)

[@quantumGs_Blackbird]

Ahh.. the agreement falacy of property definition.. aka, the "social contract". The concept of property exists, even if only one person was left alive to claim anything as his own, it would still exist. What "everyone else" or "the group" thinks is irrelevant.

[@bitbutter]

"What I said is what I said, not what I didn't say :-)" Of course. And what you said is wrong. I used an analogy to illustrate how it doesn't follow. "Property is an agreement between the group and the individual. So is taxation. If one is theft, the other is theft." Nope. 1. Even if the starting premises were true, this would still be a non sequitur. 2. The starting premises are not true, taxation is not an agreement, it's extortion.

[@icepube2107]

your first point was correct but the right to property can only apply if there is force to establish what is your property.

[@SamMarcum]

Do you own all of yourself, or one 7 billionth of everyone else, but none of yourself? If you believe you own yourself, then you must take ownership of your life. Property represents your past labor. If you don't think you own yourself, I'm not sure I can follow your logic. Great video.

[@stephenhogg6154]

How about, ‘all sex is gender’, or, ‘gender has nothing to do with sex’? It seems to be another example of the same thing.

[@darkcynite]

Enclosure of the commons could be wrong. Creation of exclusive right of access could wrongfully deny others access. Wrong could be an instinctual or learned moral precept or a social code. All have some concept of fair share. I accept the definition of theft. I don't accept a natural right of property. It is either some combination of or exclusively force and or social contract. Choosing to use that definition of aggression seems to boarder on newspeak in order to deny others expression of meaning. Egalitarian concepts of communal property and aggression are no more or less valid conceptually than libertarian exclusive right of property. In practice the libertarian conception is closer to what is implemented though there are plenty of exceptions. I am me I don't own me. We recognize the benefits of allowing each other personal bodily autonomy to a point where it infringes on the others.

[@So0h]

He was talking about different kinds of property. Ownership and private property are different things

[@juanche978]

Propety of the means of production is theft.

[@bitbutter]

An axe is means of production. You believe that a person who makes an axe from unowned natural resources, and excercises exclusive control over it is stealing? If not, why?

[@juanche978]

@@bitbutter Robb is not paying your workers for what they do, anyways, everyone has a different point of view, you are free to think whatever you want as I am.

[@bitbutter]

I don't think that answers the question. It relates to your assertion that "Propety of the means of production is theft." An axe is means of production. You believe that a person who makes an axe from unowned natural resources, and exercises exclusive control over it is stealing? If not, why?

[@juanche978]

@@bitbutter You don't understand what I mean. I'm not talking about natural resources, I'm talking about entrepeneurs and workers. In my opinion all people in the companies should be "entrepeneurs" and workers at the same time and each own would get according to what they have worked (cooperatives).

[@bitbutter]

@@juanche978 You said "Propety of the means of production is theft". An axe is a means of production in the sense that it can be used to produce all kinds of things. Do you have some other sense of the term in mind? If so please define. If you'd prefer we can pretend that opening comment hadn't been made. But while you stand by it, i'd like to get clarity on this point.

[@ryleexiii1252]

Proudhon was a good boi

[@MrBobbillo]

The fallacy here clearly lies with the speaker. Think about indian lands before the british took them. That land was property of the natives in that it was being used by that community. This definition of property is protected by British Law even as "squatter's rights". Then the british came and declared that land for themselves as a saleable property. What part of that is not theft?

[@oldwisetale]

awesome man! you have gained my respect keep up the videos they are very interesting

[@EquitoErgoSum]

This strikes me as a linguistic argument rather than a genuine attempt to engage with the substantive content of the issue. It's clever, but so what?

[@superduperjew]

I'm sorry but this is incorrect. You must read Proudhon to understand the context.

[@bitbutter]

Sorry, I won't be watching it.

[@bitbutter]

@xknowledgeisfreex ha!

[@olivermackenzie3250]

Incoherent. Engage with the concept, don't just repeat back something that follows from a dictionary definition of property.

[@bitbutter]

You can offer your take on what you believe the relevant concept is that i'm not engaging with (though, i *am* engaging with the term as used by many who use it online, whatever Proudhon meant)

[@bitbutter]

"What is property, in and of itself?" Roughly: The right to exclude others from a thing. "Property and taxation are agreements between the individual and the group" No. As I already mentioned taxation is not an agreement. It is extortion.

[@nosajc0okies364]

how do have a legitimate title to property,a piece of paper with a seal, saying you own something is arbitrary. Right of use maybe, but definitively theres no way to own something, thats why slaves that were kidnapped ended up running away. Ownership cant supersede the natural world, it doesnt exist. Just because you say so, doesnt make it so. When did people get this idea that there voice and language was fact, undeniable truth of how over a trillion particles must be, live, as if we can describe how everything is, with one language, whens theres already a vast variety saying no, theyre right like religion. We can be relative, but not exact. some dumb shit yall are on.