Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!rhg2
From: rhg2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Rich  Graham)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Phil Ronzone's stereo
Message-ID: <21673@unix.cis.pitt.edu>
Date: 17 Jan 90 14:12:11 GMT
References: <2310@odin.SGI.COM> <12569@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2356@odin.SGI.COM> <1990Jan13.090428.25775@agate.berkeley.edu> <2818@odin.SGI.COM> <8ZggXmy00W0TM96LF=@andrew.cmu.edu> <2847@odin.SGI.COM>
Reply-To: rhg2@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Rich  Graham)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services
Lines: 52

In article <2847@odin.SGI.COM> pkr@maddog.sgi.com (Phil Ronzone) writes:
>I DON'T decide WHO has property rights. That may be the burning
>issue in your mind, but not mine.
>
>I ASSERT that my property is my property and that no one has
>the right to take it without my permission.

So this property right exists simply because YOU assert it?  And what if
I assert a similar right to the same property?  Exactly what are the
"rules" used to establish and transfer ownership?  Are they constant, or
situational?

(If I remember right,) in the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy", there was
a tribe of people with no concept of ownership of objects (not because
they were closet communists, but just because they'd never found need of
any).

Now let's say you show up, lost in the desert.  You're pretty hungry, so
you try to trade your watch for some food, knowing, of course, that
barter is the universal language.  You think you've struck a
deal, but in the tribesman's eyes you've shown him an interesting toy
and taken some food, which is just fine as everyone takes what they want
and works when there's need to work.  Now a few more tribesman show up, 
see you with a bunch of food and begin to help themselves.  Asserting 
your poperty rights over the food you've just "bought", you violently 
defend your property.

Did this happen because:

	A. Your property rights have been violated.  Their cockamamey system 
of non-ownership isn't binding to you since you haven't been informed
and agreed to it.  You're just observing the "natural" order of
ownership.

	B. Where you come from, people have contrived a system of
ownership over objects.  This works just fine there, but now you're here
imposing it on people who haven't accepted it.  The tribe observes the
existence of people and of objects, but hasn't imposed a contrived
system of rules on top of it.

	C. This is an example of a conflict of cultures with different
systems.  Each system may (or may not) be useful/desirable in the
situation of it's origin, but neither is any more "right" than the
other.  The problem is the conflict of differing systems, not the
"rightness" of one and the "wrongness" of the other.

	D. (Insert your own insightful explanation here.)

-- 
Richard H. Graham
University of Pittsburgh - CIS
rhg2@unix.cis.pitt.edu