this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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βProperty is theftβ curtesy of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
I thought property being theft was just unspoken common sense.
Definitely not common, I'm also not convinced it makes sense.
It's a philosophically coherent argument. We won't own people. We draw the line there. Many indigenous cultures don't and never really have believed land can be owned. You don't have to agree with them about that but you also can't dismiss the concept out of hand. And if people can't be owned, and maybe land can't be owned, it's not clear anything necessarily must be able to be owned. Are animals owned? Are plants owned? Are rocks owned? Largely, yes. But who allowed that? We did.
The idea of private property is an almost uniquely human idea, we have based most of our system of civilization on it, but it is not universal and is not based on any physical laws that we know of. We just like to own stuff, and we kill anyone who won't let us or tries to tell us we don't. And the fundamental corollary of that is that if we exclusively own something and get to decide who can and cannot have or use that thing, then that ability is deprived from everyone and everything else who is no longer able to exercise all of those rights over that thing. Sometimes that is a good thing. The tragedy of the commons demonstrates how things owned in common or public use can become quickly destroyed. By having exclusive ownership, perhaps I will do a better job of taking care of said thing and can protect it from careless use or overuse by others. Ownership can be a powerful idea, giving people equity in things that they would otherwise not be as invested in.
Strictly speaking though, property is theft. Theft from the public domain. It's taking something out of the public domain where it naturally started, and claiming exclusive use and ownership of it on behalf of one person or group or organization, often dating back through a long series of transactions, some incredibly violent, deep into ancient history, but at the very beginning of that chain of ownership you'll inevitably find someone using some justification like "I/we found this first" which in any given case may not actually be true, but the claim is made regardless and then used as a justification for making something private and exclusive for no reason other than that they could, and no one else was around or willing and able to stop them. Nothing and nobody gave the Earth to humankind -- we took it, and divided it up amongst ourselves and continue to do so to this day. And that's good for us, being ambitious and greedy has been good for our species in many ways, although it has also caused great strife and horror. But let's be intellectually honest about what property rights really are and why we have them. I still think they're mostly good, but I can also understand the point of view of people who think they're not, or that they should be limited.
Private Property seems like a natural extension of Animal Territory ( animals fight over boundaries and expressed need for an area to roam )
Just because some property can be owned does not mean all property must be owned.
Land rights are sometimes split up e.g. a wolf pack might mark and defend their territory - but this is only with respect to other wolves; they are not claiming ownership of the bird nesting areas. But a bird would not appreciate another bird taking their nest.
In all honesty the argument is silly because the concept of "ownership" has a lot of human fluff on top. Animals use a certain area. From a large territory to a single small nest.
Consider the seagull with her nest on the North side of a beautiful artificial garbage island. Her wife and her have their eggs and babies there. They do not also go to the South side of the garbage island and build (or take over) a bunch of other nests that nobody can use without paying rent. The modern human concept of property encompasses this situation. In this example we could also have the gulls refusing to fix defects in the nest while prohibiting the tenants from doing so. Does this sound like typical bird behaviour?
Consider the dog that barks at/attacks anyone who approaches its yard, even though the dog uses it for nothing more than crapping in.
What you are describing sounds more like all leasing is theft - holding property not just for personal use, nor just to deprive others of it (as in the dog), but to extract additional gain.
Certain breeds of dogs have been intentionally made to be that way by humans. The comment I responded to was regard to an unqualified statement about animals in general and as a whole. That there is some inherent sense of "ownership" present to all animals. The argument being best backed up by a domesticated animal shows how silly it is.
Ok, magpies.
No, I don't think all animals necessarily have a significant sense of ownership. But plenty do.
Crows will fend off an eagle coming into their murder area
But which crow is the owner
You would have to ask them, they all look the same to me
I think this is on the right track. I'd like to make a clarification that will probably be agreed with. (Caveat: Haven't read Proudhon; am describing the colloquial use.) Which is that "thing" here doesn't apply to personal items or work tools of everyday life.
When I was a kid I recall being told that under communism you didn't own your own socks. That is not it.
"Property" certainly refers to land, infrastructure, large equipment, intellectual property, factories, buildings, large vehicles like cargo ships. You could also include housing, personal vehicles, livestock and other substantial but personal Capital as anywhere between public and personal.
On the other hand, while "property is theft" does not disallow personal items, that only goes so far as what one can reasonably use. Hoarding up valuable items is not appreciated. And it would certainly not be allowed to claim
False. Invite you to further investigate both the historical basis of that idea and any contemporary example you can find.
Capital which is publicly owned can be and often is well managed. There are all sorts of structures to get this done. Depending on the context, the people involved can have their pick. If you heard a public good you appreciate
a school, road, software, utility like power or water, library, museum, park, transit system, hospital
was getting "privatized", how do you expect the experience to be? Generally it fucking sucks. Whereas when the opposite happens it's generally awesome.
I disagree.
I'm perfectly fine with that.
Don't worry, you can keep your razors and brushes. :)