Difference between revisions of "The worthless Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition"

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[[Category:Mike Huben]]
 
[[Category:Mike Huben]]
[[Category:John Locke]]
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[[Category:Justice, Gender, And The Family]]
 
[[Category:The Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition|100]]
 
[[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.}}
 
{{DES | des = The ahistorical labor theory of property fails in many ways.  Including ignoring the evidence in front of our noses.}}
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{{Under Construction}}
 
{{Under Construction}}
 
=The parts of the fable.=
 
=The parts of the fable.=
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I'm going to fisk John Locke.  Not because it is a great way to argue, but because there are so many assumptions and fallacies packed into just a few sentences.
 
== Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, ==
 
== 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.
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This is a religious belief, a particular interpretation of some 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 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.
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Yet another unjustifiable natural rights assertion 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: there were always major differences.  Locke does not explain or defend this view in any way: he merely expects us to nod our heads in agreement.
 
== this no body has any right to but himself.  ==
 
== 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.
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Excepting slaves, women, children, servants, employees, lower classes, prisoners, etc.  But perhaps 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.  ==
 
== 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.
 
With the same exceptions, and the same merely aspirational nature.
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* Making a trail through a forest.
 
* Making a trail through a forest.
 
* Burning undergrowth to make a forest better for game.
 
* Burning undergrowth to make a forest better for game.
* Timbering a forest.
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* Clearing a forest by burning it.
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* Clearing a forest by timbering it.
 
* Grazing a cleared forest.
 
* Grazing a cleared forest.
 
* Fencing a cleared forest that is grazed.
 
* Fencing a cleared forest that is grazed.
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# The first person to mix labor.
 
# 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"?
 
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"?
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But it gets much worse.  As Susan Moller Okin points out in [[Justice, Gender, And The Family]] (pp 79-80), people are created by women.  Thus, according to the mixing of labor principle, children would be the property of their mothers.  Without an explanation or justification of how people would come to own themselves, they would remain the property of their mothers.
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== at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others. ==
 
== 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.
 
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.
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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.
 
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?==
 
==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.
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About the only claimed historical example of homesteading in the Lockean sense was Medieval Iceland: but they stole that land by expelling Irish Catholics who probably had stolen it from aboriginal inhabitants.
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There is no land in the world that can show a convincing chain of ownership through original homesteading (before other owners.)  Existing claims of homesteading generally ignore pre-existing peoples who were swept aside.  The US?  Swept away the Native Americans, who in their turn had swept away earlier tribes back to the Clovis culture or even earlier.  Europe and Asia?  Don't make me laugh.  Australia?  Swept away the Aborigines, and who knows what their unrecorded history over the past 40,000 years was like.  Africa?  Numerous whole species of humans were swept away, let alone Homo sapiens tribes.
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The brief homesteading period in the US was a government method of giving away land it owned (stolen from the Amerinds), not spontaneous removal from a commons.  It resulted in government-recognized ownership, not a natural right.
  
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.
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For more on this, see: [[Homesteading]].
 
=Alternative outcomes for the Lockean Fable =
 
=Alternative outcomes for the Lockean Fable =
 
==Georgism==
 
==Georgism==

Revision as of 15:35, 29 September 2016