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yaaarrrgg · 07-18-2007

It seems like there's a lot of talk about private property and ownership in politics, but I don't think these terms have been well defined or looked at in any detail. Here's my opinions on the matter. My apologies if this is too long-winded

thoughts, critique, alternate views welcome:

'Ownership' is a two dimensional psychological abstraction, held in place by punishment and reward.

1. To understand one dimension, and how this concept develops, we can look at two-year-olds. One kid might find a toy, another will try to take it. The first screams, punches, and bites the other, who flees in retreat. Then the first child is reinforced in the idea that they own the toy. Or if the first kid loses, there is a transfer of ownership.

On a large scale, ownership of land is not much different. One group of people assert that they own a section of land. Another may challenge it, resulting in screaming, punching, and biting on a larger scale. Then both groups will retreat to a state of mutual annoyance, allowing some imaginary boundaries to be respected. Police, judicial systems, and military take the role of the punishment aspect in "civilized" societies (we have someone else do the biting).

This is why I think many in the U.S. see property rights and guns rights as going hand in hand (it's consistent). If someone tries to take some land from us, we kill them. Ultimately though, we might question if the land really belongs to anyone, and if we are merely killing people because we don't like what they do. All pretensions aside, there's really no justifications for this.

2. The second dimension of ownership is merit based. For example, if someone plants a seed, we might say they "deserve" the fruit from that tree. This is a community concept of reward. This is different than punishing those that attempt to claim ownership, since ownership is not challenged. Possibly a society rewards desired behavior that helps the group in the long run.

But generally, there's really only two components to modifying behavior and maintaining a set of psychological states: punish unwanted behavior, and reward desired behavior. The idea of ownership is largely held in place by the overall psychological makeup of the group.

Note: The idea of a group is necessarily built into the concept. If there's only one person stuck on an island, it doesn't make much sense to say he owns anything (the concept breaks down). THe added restriction is that the population size needs to be greater than one.

As far as political/economic bias of the concept, I think it's neutral. One dimension tends to go along the lines of capitalism, the other is more aligned with socialism. But historically, ownership has been used more in the capitalistic vein...

07-18-2007	#1 (permalink)
yaaarrrgg Eligible for a custom title Join Date: May 2007 Location: Indiana, USA Posts: 791	A theory of ownership It seems like there's a lot of talk about private property and ownership in politics, but I don't think these terms have been well defined or looked at in any detail. Here's my opinions on the matter. My apologies if this is too long-winded thoughts, critique, alternate views welcome: 'Ownership' is a two dimensional psychological abstraction, held in place by punishment and reward. 1. To understand one dimension, and how this concept develops, we can look at two-year-olds. One kid might find a toy, another will try to take it. The first screams, punches, and bites the other, who flees in retreat. Then the first child is reinforced in the idea that they own the toy. Or if the first kid loses, there is a transfer of ownership. On a large scale, ownership of land is not much different. One group of people assert that they own a section of land. Another may challenge it, resulting in screaming, punching, and biting on a larger scale. Then both groups will retreat to a state of mutual annoyance, allowing some imaginary boundaries to be respected. Police, judicial systems, and military take the role of the punishment aspect in "civilized" societies (we have someone else do the biting). This is why I think many in the U.S. see property rights and guns rights as going hand in hand (it's consistent). If someone tries to take some land from us, we kill them. Ultimately though, we might question if the land really belongs to anyone, and if we are merely killing people because we don't like what they do. All pretensions aside, there's really no justifications for this. 2. The second dimension of ownership is merit based. For example, if someone plants a seed, we might say they "deserve" the fruit from that tree. This is a community concept of reward. This is different than punishing those that attempt to claim ownership, since ownership is not challenged. Possibly a society rewards desired behavior that helps the group in the long run. But generally, there's really only two components to modifying behavior and maintaining a set of psychological states: punish unwanted behavior, and reward desired behavior. The idea of ownership is largely held in place by the overall psychological makeup of the group. Note: The idea of a group is necessarily built into the concept. If there's only one person stuck on an island, it doesn't make much sense to say he owns anything (the concept breaks down). THe added restriction is that the population size needs to be greater than one. As far as political/economic bias of the concept, I think it's neutral. One dimension tends to go along the lines of capitalism, the other is more aligned with socialism. But historically, ownership has been used more in the capitalistic vein...