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<!-- you can have any number of categories here --> [[Category:Mike Huben]] [[Category:John Locke]] [[Category:The Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition|100]] {{DES | des = The ahistorical labor theory of property fails in many ways. Including ignoring the evidence in front of our noses.}} <!-- insert wiki page text here --> {{Under Construction}} =The parts of the fable.= == Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, == This is a religious belief, founded in sacred texts. It has no more force than a king's declaration that he is appointed by god to rule a land. == yet every man has a property in his own person: == Yet another unjustifiable natural rights dogma that certainly didn't hold in Locke's era of widespread slavery, monarchy, and patriarchy. Property is a social construct, and no society of his time or ours treated people's bodies as their own property. == this no body has any right to but himself. == Excepting slaves, women, children, servants, employees, lower classes, prisoners, etc. But let's say that this was aspirational, what he would like, as opposed to reality. == The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. == With the same exceptions, and the same merely aspirational nature. == Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, == Here are some examples of mixing of labor. Which of these remove from the state of nature? * Traversing a forest. * Hunting in a forest. * Living in a tent in a forest. * Making a trail through a forest. * Burning undergrowth to make a forest better for game. * Timbering a forest. * Grazing a cleared forest. * Fencing a cleared forest that is grazed. * Planting crops in a cleared forest. * Constructing a house in the cleared forest. == and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, == And just what is "annexed" to it? A footprint? Or does he mean something supernatural? == that excludes the common right of other men: == Just how are their "common rights" excluded? By Locke's say-so? The problem with natural rights theory is the same as angels-on-a-pinhead: there is no evidence of the existence of these fairytale rights. All we see in the real world is claims and coercive enforcement of claims. == for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, == What justifies this claim? Nothing. Which of these establishes exclusive rights for one person? # Two people working together to mix labor simultaneously. # Two people working together to mix labor, one with a head start. # Two people working separately to mix labor simultaneously. # Two people working separately to mix labor, one with a head start. # The first person to mix labor. Most natural rights people would say number 5: but case 4 is identical. And why does a head start make a difference? Is there some moral right to "first come first served"? == at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. == This is the famous Lockean Proviso. In the real world, it is violated as soon as price arises: if there was "enough, and as good, left in common for others" then nobody would need to pay. =The Ahistorical Nature of the Lockean Fable = ==Essentially all modern ownership of land is based on conquest.== Go ahead: identify the original owners of land in any part of the US, and explain how their ownership was not by conquest. You can't even do it for the Native Americans, because they also fought wars of conquest amongst each other. There is no part of the world where ownership hasn't changed due to conquest except unowned international waters and perhaps Antarctica. ==What about homesteading?== About the only historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but that one, tiny, isolated culture was conquered and became the property of Norway. The brief homesteading period in the US was a government method of giving away land it owned, not spontaneous removal from a commons. It resulted in government-recognized ownership, not a natural right. =Alternative outcomes for the Lockean Fable = ==Georgism==
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