Does evidence that individual ownership of land didn't exist in our natural state i.e hunter gatherer bands severely damage to Locke's claim that we have a natural right to appropriate it (subject to the Lockean proviso of course)? Consider:
A natural right must be something that all humans want
or need as part of being human and something that all humans must respect in others to respect
their humanity. But yet this “right” to individual appropriation of land was apparently not
practiced by anyone for the first 200,000 years of our existence as humans. It is not practiced by
our closest primate relatives,215 and it was probably not practiced by our hominid ancestors
during the 2 million years separating humans from other primates. Those few humans who are
still left alone to practice a hunter-gatherer life style might never have practiced this institution in
their history. This supposed natural right contravenes a far more ancient principle: the belief that
wild places could not be appropriated by any individual.216
Lee and Daly write, one “characteristic common to almost all band societies (and
hundreds of village-based societies as well) is a land tenure system based on a common property
regime …. These regimes were, until recently, far more common world-wide than regimes based
on private property.”217
Hunter-gatherers could have created the institution of private property if they wanted to.
All hunter-gatherers are free to leave the band and to start their own band with whoever wants to
join. If 6 to 10 adult hunter-gatherers recognize the hunter’s natural right to exclusive ownership
over the kill, no one would have interfered with them. Yet, all known hunter-gatherers (in all
climates and geographies) exercised their free will to treat property collectively.218
http://www.usbig.net/papers/206-Widerquist-Stone%20Age--Oct-09.pdf
The author's conclusion is quite relevant to some of more extreme claims of laissez faire advocates here:
The factual account of the origin of private property and government simply do not
support the individual appropriation hypothesis. The earliest farmers held land collectively. The
earliest individual property owners were chiefs who were both governments and owners. Early
39
private holders obtained their position by service to the state. And taxation, rather than
developing is an infringement on private property, developed along with the move from
collective to private property rights. The only connection private title holders have to original
appropriation seems to be through the state. This general pattern is not repeated step-for-step in
all cases, but the patterned that would be seen if they the individual appropriation hypothesis
were true (“homesteaders” appropriate unused land) is clearly absent.
Early chiefs and states probably usurped power from autonomous villages, but
dispossessing modern governments in favor of current title holders, would not rectify that
injustice. Private title holders simply do not have a factual claim to hold rights to property free of
government taxation, regulation, and redistribution.
(Emphasis supplied)
Originally posted by Sam The ShamI never claimed that private possession is wrong and unnatural.
Hunter-gatherers didn't have a concept of private possession of "stuff" because they didn't have any "stuff" worth keeping.
If private possession is wrong and unatural, can I have some of your stuff no1?
Originally posted by Sam The ShamIf you look carefully, you'll see the word "land" in the title of the thread.
Then WTF is the point of your whole line of thought here? What are you trying to say?
Of course, I'm not saying that allowing private ownership of land is "wrong", either. I am suggesting that you have no Natural Right to own land.
This seems relevant to the topic:
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
Sec 35 It is true, in land that is common in England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce, no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left common by compact- i.e., by the law of the land, which is not to be violated. And though it be common, in respect of some men, it is not so to all mankind; but is the joint property of this country, or this parish. Besides, the remainder, after such enclosure, would not be as good to the rest of the commoners, as the whole was when they could all make use of the whole; whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the world, it was quite otherwise. The law man was under, was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That was his property which could not be taken from him where-ever he had fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having dominion, we see are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.
John Locke
Originally posted by AThousandYoungLocke: whereas in the beginning and first peopling of the great common of the world, it was quite otherwise. The law man was under, was rather for appropriating. God commanded, and his wants forced him to labour. That was his property which could not be taken from him where-ever he had fixed it. And hence subduing or cultivating the earth, and having dominion, we see are joined together. The one gave title to the other. So that God, by commanding to subdue, gave authority so far to appropriate: and the condition of human life, which requires labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.
This seems relevant to the topic:
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm
Sec 35 It is true, in land that is common in England or any other country, where there are plenty of people under government who have money and commerce, no one can enclose or appropriate any part without the consent of all his fellow-commoners; because this is left ...[text shortened]... labour and materials to work on, necessarily introduces private possessions.
John Locke
Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence to support the idea that Man appropriated land by cultivating in his natural state. Even when Man moved into the first villages: "Although thousands
of village societies are known to anthropologists, I know of no ethnographic, archeological, or
historic study showing evidence that any village created the institution of individual private
property."
So mere subduing or cultivating the Earth simply was not sufficient to own it in actual practice (though the evidence is that you were allowed to keep the produce subject to the traditional, near universal rules of egalitarian sharing). To me this severely damages the Lockean claim that one gets to own land merely by cultivating it.