Talk:Property is theft!

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[edit] Property vs. real estate property

What is not immediately clear when reading this article is that the term "property" is used here to mean real estate, or land, property, and not (I believe) any other kind of property (like stocks, a business, a car, or an apple or pencil for that matter). I suggest that this be made clear from the outset.

--Serge 01:31, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

This is how Marx used "property." Proudhon (at least in What is Property?) considered the legal concept of property as it existed in France as derived from Roman law. This is very specifically stated in chapter 2. —Jemmytc 17:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Justification for inclusion of libertarian socialism in links section

Proudhon believed in the control of the means of production by the workers themselves, and as a believer in the labour theory of value opposed profit-making enterprises. He believed that society should be organised as a federation of workers assemblies. True, he believed that goods should be exchanged in a market, but this market would have little in common with the capitalist idea of the free market (for example, goods were to be exchanged at "cost value", not whatever price would create the greatest profit). Workers self-management and the idea of a society organised as a federation of workers' organisations is of course key to most conceptions of libertarian socialism. No-one would suggest that Proudhon was a libertarian socialist exactly, but it seems perfectly reasonable to include a link to libertarian socialism. I haven't restored the link to communism, but a case certainly could be made. Proudhon had a significant influence on Marx's early writings. Cadr 00:38, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for clarification

Is the sentence, "The former is considered illegitimate property, the latter legitimate property.", which occurs somewhere around the middle of the longest paragraph, mistyped? --Denihilonihil 13:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

No, it's right. Property is theft if it's that which isn't the result of labor. Property is freedom when it the product of labor. If you protect unused land from others, you're stealing that land. If you protect your cornfield from others, it's freedom. For Proudhon, legitimate property can only come about through labor. RJII 19:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Absurd notion

There has to be some kind of documented response to this absurd premise:

He proposed that "the laborer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which he has produced."

So when someone provides the capital to buy the equipment to run a diamond mine and pay wages to the miners, when a miner finds a diamond, the miner retains "a natural right of property in the diamond which he has produced"? And when that miner takes his rough diamond to a cutter, whom he pays a wage to cut the diamond, the cutter owns the resulting cut diamonds he produces? And when the cutter pays a jeweler to mount one of the cut diamonds in a gold ring, the resulting diamond ring produced by the jeweler belongs to the jeweler? In a system that worked according to this principle, why would anyone be motivated to do anything except steal? --Serge 21:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

So the diamond miner is supposed to be more motivated when he doesn't get the diamond? Hmmmm. —Jemmytc 17:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Serge's comment does not indicate that. Your rebuttal doesn't address the issue he raises which is that if it is the case that "the laborer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which he has produced" then it is the case that multiple individuals could own the same property simultaneously. But more importantly he is suggesting that a rebuttal to the concept probably exists and should be provided for the article to be balanced. 216.36.186.2 (talk) 19:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Contradictory quotes

These two quotes are completely contradictory:

He proposed that "the laborer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which he has produced."
"Property [is] a triumph of Liberty. For it is born of Liberty ... Property is the only power that can act as a counterweight to the State, because it shows no reverence for princes, rebels against society and is, in short, anarchist."

Further explanation/clarification is needed. --Serge 22:10, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, Proudhon's philosophy of property was developed in a number of works and it is contradictory since he changed his views. -- Vision Thing -- 08:47, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] He did not coined the slogan

"Property is theft !" is a slogan which is coined much sooner than Proudhon's book. It is first used by Brissot. Direct quote from Marx : "But as Proudhon entangled the whole of these economic relations in the general legal concept of “property,” “la propriété,” he could not get beyond the answer which, in a similar work published before 1789, Brissot had already given in the same words: “La propriété’ c’est le vol.”

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_01_24.htm

According to Robert Graham, "The claim that Proudhon took this phrase from the Girondin, J.P. Brissot de Warville, repeated by Marx after his break with Proudhon, has been decisively refuted by Robert L. Hoffman in his study, Revolutionary Justice: The Social and Political Theory of P.J. Proudhon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), pp. 46-48." Anyway, I added mention of Brissot. —Jemmytc 17:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism Section

This section has been removed, but I'll leave the discussion. Myself, I would think that in order to be notable any criticism would have to come from, or represent, political thought of the same stature (within the history of political philosophy) as Proudhon's; e.g., Marx, Bentham, Burke, Jefferson. I know, at least, that Marx criticized Proudhon extensively; but I do not know the content of this criticism very well. —Jemmytc 18:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the following:

This is based on a misunderstanding of Proudhon's argument. Proudhon differentiated between "ownership" and "property". According to his terminology, a person has "ownership" of something if they use it on a daily basis. For example, a student owns his pencil. A thing is the "property" of a person if they own it on paper, and derive profit from someone else using it. If the student had borrowed the pencil from his school for a fee, it would be the "property" of his school.

There is no misunderstanding involved. It is a fallacy as it sits. He may have been doing a play on words for rhetorical effect but the words still have meaning. If the student stole the pencil from the school he would be using it, but that could not convey rightful ownership. Steve 21:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate the attempt at a compromise, but it doesn't matter that someone (and I'm not sure it was Proudhon) used the word "property" or "ownership" as a valid right and the other as "theft" - the word theft isn't a valid word unless the words "property" and "ownership" are valid. That is the nature of a stolen concept. Steve 03:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There are several reasons why that paragraph is wrong:

  • The criticism section is for criticism of the articles main points - It should not be turned into a series of arguments against arguments
  • I kept the body of your argument's statement - a good faith compromise.
  • Saying the criticism is a 'misunderstanding' is your interpretation which if entered would be origonal research.
  • Material must have a source - a source was supplied for the criticism and without a source for any 'counter-criticism,' it would be personal POV.

Steve 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the non-NPOV from the wording so that it's now a claim of contradiction and added the obvious logical rules showing why stolen concept simply doesn't logically work here. A non-neutral point of view, even with an outside source, is not appropriate. If you want to make it non-neutral by removing the references to the claim rather than as a fact (which they aren't since they are full of logical problems, which are demonstrated in the claim), then I'll simply delete it in the future. If you want to claim that a response of clarification to the non-neutral critique is not valid for not being sourced, then you fail under not being neutral. I'd rather just delete the inanity, but I'd rather give you a chance to respond to the actual reasoning for keeping your illogical contribution in the talk page or even in the actual article. Freedom of objectivist religion, I say. -- SAW

Your personal POV is rather obvious. I've reverted your nonsensical attempt to censor a valid, sourced criticism. Steve 14:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Nothing was removed -- only added text that neutralized the criticism. Since the criticism is illogical, it only makes logical sense to refer to it neutrally, not as if it were a true fact. No other articles say 2+2=5 is an accepted fact. I can only expect you to understand when you take some courses or read some books on logic. -- SAW. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.193.114.134 (talk) 16:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC).
Steve, feel free to quote somebody arguing against the distinction between possessional ownership and property using facts, but an a priori argument regarding synthetic distinctions with mutually exclusive definitions falls flat on its face. There are much more famous criticisms, like Rousseau's inevitability argument. I _thought_ Objectivists were supposed to like basic logic. In Proudhon's time, many felt that property itself wasn't linked to ownership, since paper-properties were previously limited only to royalty and the lords, much as patents continue to this day. You have to understand the language in the context that Proudhon lived and wrote in, not in the age of capitalism, where property by title is the norm. Rousseau, if you don't remember, argued that the concept of property was theft from the commons, but he also embraced the idea that theft of the commons was for the progressive benefit of humanity, whether it (property as a solution to "the tragedy of the commons" as Hardin puts it) made sense or not. -- SAW —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.193.114.134 (talk) 00:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC).
Feel free to find a source to cite - but WP doesn't allow original research. Steve 04:56, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Objectivist critique"

The Branden complaint seems to center around a too-literal reading of the slogan, whereas the rest of Proudhon's argument seems to make the meaning clear. Surely there are other critiques that are more relevant to the substance of the argument. An anarchist one would be most relevant; I suggest that one be included. —vivacissamamente 12:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm removing this. It's entirely inappropriate to have an "Objectivist" POV on this page. —Jemmytc 01:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)