Voluntary property rights?

Someone explain to me the concept of property rights in a completely voluntary society.

To me, it only makes sense in a society where you only own what you carry. I don't think that would work for most people -- even most libertarians. Even Chuck Norris. Sooner or later, most people want a permanent dwelling space over which they have exclusive rights. But you can't do that in a completely voluntary society, can you? On a practical level, I mean. With our current technology. Beyond what you carry, which a person would have to assault you to get, you only own what the community your stuff is in says you own. Unless you bring force into the equation. But force is antithetical to a voluntary society -- isn't it?

So we could either: A) Become nomadic hunter/gatherers, as perhaps God intended, but which does not work out well for many people, or industrialism; or B) Accept this degree of force and non-voluntarism in our society? Neither of those options seem perfect.

Enlighten me. Solve me this riddle.

 

Nomadic hunter/gatherer's for the win. The planet would be balanced.

 

how would it be non-voluntary? am I violating anyone's rights by not letting them steal my stuff or what? I don't quite see the problem with property rights in an anarchist society except the practical ones; some people will steal if they can get away with it.

 

You own what you produce and voluntarily trade for.

No, you can produce (build) e.g., a house, so you can own it.

Most libertarians are actually feudalists. Some even wax rhapsodic on the virtues of feudalism, and how it was better than government.

True. As soon as you exclude others from what would otherwise be accessible (i.e., the land under your dwelling), you are violating their rights. If there's plenty of equally good land for all, it doesn't matter; but when land becomes scarce, those who hold it are not only violating others' rights but depriving them of opportunity they would otherwise be at liberty to use.

It's pretty clear that taking the fruits of someone else's labor is antithetical to a voluntary society whether or not they are actually carrying it, because it deprives them of something they would otherwise have. That is the fundamental quality of an involuntary transaction.

It's true that settled society involves violating people's rights to liberty wrt land. The solution is just compensation for such violations of rights.

 

The problem is, what makes your property yours? That you made it, built it, paid for it, traded for it, received it as a gift in some fashion? How do you prove any of this? How do you establish to other people that may not know you that, say, a house is actually yours? Show them a receipt?

 

I don't know actually. I guess it would simply had to be witnessed and approved by the community, otherwise I'll just have to hire guards and be armed. But then, the community can ultimately decide who owns what.

 

Yeah, voluntarism tends to overlook a lot of realities.

 

hence why I'm not an anarchist. It's just based on false assumptions of human nature in my view. I have a rather pessimistic view of humans, and that's really the basis for liberalism; that human nature cannot change.

 

Not really. How do predators in the wild deal with territorial disputes? How do governments?

 

force and threats ultimately and we don't really want that.

 

In ways that aren't voluntary.... For example, you don't voluntarily expect a thief to hand back your property. You either force him to return it yourself, or you get an authority to do it.

 

Violently, I think. Not on a voluntary basis, anyway.

 

how is it force and threats? guarding your small manageable territory is what all predators do but man. we have to expand beyond what is reasonable now that we have long range weapons.

 

Is it wrong that if someone tries to take something from you, your purse let's say, to guard that and use force? I believe in non-aggression principles, but if someone would try and hurt me...that's a different story.

 

don't they like kill each other if they cross over into anothers territory? aren't the territories' boundaries determined by strength and therefore the threat of violence? And governments use force and threats. do I really need to explain that? it's part of their definition even.

 

That would be the part where you keep what is yours, using your own strength as opposed to the strength of cops who can kill you for wielding a felt tip marker.

 

I think you put the cart before the horse in the bolded part. You say that, "you only own what the community your stuff is in says you own. Unless you bring force into the equation."

What do you mean "unless"? If force weren't already in the equation then how would "the community" have any power to determine what I own?

Furthermore, I don't see how a voluntary society precludes self defense. Force is not antithetical to a voluntary society; the initiation of force is.

 

Are you assuming that the voluntarist is a pacifist? That's not the way it is.

Try this: Start off by only enforcing what you know for sure to be right. Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't assault. Don't defraud. You can pay people to do this for you judges, cops... that's enough. You pay those guys on an as needed basis. It doesn't take much of a town to keep one cop and one judge employed. If they suck, fire them and hire another. They don't make law, but future judges may refer to some of their rulings for guidance. As for how you gain property, just start with homesteading. You are free to use whatever land and resources are available, that is not being used by someone else. Or you can buy land to use.

I don't really know where to go from here because I don't know what B is supposed to entail. You'll have to respond before I can say anything else.

 

This is only an issue if there is a dispute. In most cases there will probably be a party who has violated natural law in some way. The other party wins the dispute in those cases. In some cases it won't be clear who should win the dispute. In those cases the loser will just have to abide by the ruling of the judge, just as in any society. Only, without some entity with a monopoly on law, people will likely have more judges to choose from. Even with all the laws and precedent we have in the US there are still cases where judges have resorted to randomising a decision with a coin.

 

Like what? Specifically, what?

 

You guys need to explain this. You keep saying there is something about human nature that voluntarists don't understand. I, for one, consider myself to be a pretty adept student of human nature, and I don't see it. Many times I even find that I suppose people to be even more evil than most statists. So, what is it about human nature that you think we are overlooking, or ignoring?

 

No, I don't think that would be wrong. Well, I suppose it depends -- if you were to kill someone to keep them from taking your candy bar, even if it was a really great candy bar, I might think that was wrong, even if it were also totally legal for you to do so. But that's not really the point. Since it's your purse, or your candy bar, then a person has to assault you in order to take it, if you're carrying it.

But on the other hand, let's say you're not carrying your purse. Let's say you put it down somewhere, and someone else picks it up. By our modern way of thinking about things, that person has committed a crime against you because they've taken your property without your permission. But in a voluntary society, have they still committed a crime against you? They haven't assaulted you. They've just taken possession of something that you think of as yours.

And what if it's not a purse? What if it's something important, like, say, a hundred acres of land? You think of it as yours. You paid money for it, to someone else that thought of it as theirs. But how does that give you the right to tell someone else that they can't cross it, live on it, farm it, hunt on it? You would have to use force to keep that from happening in many cases. More to the point, you would have to initiate force.

 

Eh I know that, in the end, violence is met with violence, and it should be, but this just doesn't sound right. I'd like to think that voluntarists can handle territorial disputes a lot better than savage predators and animals do. We certainly can handle territorial claims better. Imagine handling claims the way they do. "I claim this continent in the name of Voluntarism!"

 

We don't. It would be nice to be rid of that kind of thing altogether. in the meantime, shouldn't we at least reserve them for those who initiate force.

 

The thief has already initiated force. You may, and should, use whatever means are necessary to make him make good his transgression. This is not incompatible with voluntarism.