[SolarCross]

From the various debates I've seen and participated in I see that the concept of property frequently emerges as point of disagreement amongst anarchists and libertarians. So I thought I'd start this thread to thrash out some ideas on this particularly contentious issue to see if we anti-statists can come to some common understanding regarding property.

For myself I think it is really desirable that a good deal of material, ideas and projects are considered common property. For example freedom of movement can only exist if the roads or at least the main thorough-fares are common property. If all roads were the private property of individuals then no one could go anywhere without trespassing or being tolled into poverty.

[Daktoria]

On one hand, you oppose private property.

On the other, you suggest appropriate movement can only take place along roads.

Seems like you're making excuses to lock yourself in a box. Literally, you don't want to blaze your own trail by going off-roading.

I guess this is why I don't understand urban anarchists. They don't understand what the "state of nature" really means.

They also seem to believe that people are innately benevolent such that property isn't needed. In reality, people are psychologically diverse.

For example, in the country, population density is very light. The peer pressure people experience in order to respect one another doesn't exist. The strongest authorities in any domain can be tyrants, and simply push everyone else around.

[SecretSquirrel]

When proponents of the NAP finally understand that the conception and creation of new human beings is a violation of the NAP, then they will solve their disagreements on property. Without reproduction and population growth, there are no shortages, and all can abide by the proviso to leave "still enough and as good left" after appropriating part of the commons for themselves.

Furthermore, those that rigorously abide by the NAP, and thus do not reproduce, are not to be punished for the sins of those that DO reproduce and cause shortages for their descendants. If everybody elses lands (or society's at a whole) are too fragmented to sustain their issue, that is THEIR faults. My land is not to be taken to sate the appetites of the masses. I owe it only to any children I may have, should I have them.

[SolarCross]

this thread is about common versus private property not about Daktoria's pretentious gibbering or SS's desire for the human race to abort itself. Doesn't anyone have anything sane to say?

[Daktoria]

OP doesn't understand that people don't need to travel along roads.

OK.

[SecretSquirrel]

Thanks for the unprovoked personal attacks, buddy. You really know your way around a public discussion forum.

For the record, my view on natalism is very relevant to the issue of commons and private ownership.

If you're just gonna be a dick about it though, i wont bother speaking to you.

[Eran]

taxizen,
There are at least three mechanisms whereby property can be owned in common.

The first and most obvious is property that has been donated to the common domain by its previous private owner.
The second is property that was "homesteaded" by an entire community. Arguably, it is not quite universally owned, but rather owned by a specific community.
The third is a little more complicated, and perhaps a bit novel.

I view property rights as the other side of the coin of the NAP, according to which it is wrong to physically interfere with another person's peaceful projects. If a road is already used by millions of people as part of their peaceful projects, nobody may appropriate the road in a way that interfere with all those people as they engage in the peaceful project of using the road to get from point A to point B.

Strictly speaking, a large number of people have easement rights in the use of the road. None of them may be unreasonably prohibited from using the road, but none of them (or even their majority) may exclude others from its use either. For all intents and purposes, however, this is equivalent to having the road commonly-owned.

People may donate money to improve or maintain the road, but may not make it into a toll road. They may widen it such that some lanes are well kept, and for which toll is charged, provided that a free route is always available.

This understanding, I believe, resolves the "encirclement problem" as articulated by Frank van Dun here.


As for "ideas", those are always common property (more precisely, are not property at all) if, like me and many other libertarians, you reject the very notion of Intellectual Property.

[SolarCross]

thank you eran that is the kind of intelligent offering for which I was hoping.

On your first two points about how a property may come into the public domain I have no disagreement. On your third I have some questions.

Firstly to be sure we mean the same thing by 'easement' is your understanding the same as this definition from wikipedia.

An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it. It is "best typified in the right of way which one landowner, A, may enjoy over the land of another, B."[1]

Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond. An easement is considered as a property right in itself at common law and is still treated as a type of property in most jurisdictions.

The rights of an easement holder vary substantially among jurisdictions. Historically, the common law courts would enforce only four types of easement:

Right-of-way (easements of way)
Easements of support (pertaining to excavations)
Easements of "light and air"
Rights pertaining to artificial waterways

Modern courts recognize more varieties of easements, but these original categories still form the foundation of easement law.

That being the case do you imagine that sans the state, public roads should become private property albeit property with easement rights. Why not have them as commons?

On the subject of intellectual property it seems quirky that libertarians claim that ideas cannot be property when so much else of the philosophy is so concerned with the concept of property. Myself I don't altogether disagree; I think it is most practical and beneficial to generally regard ideas as common property. However I think there is some case that could be made that at least some ideas such as inventions have been in some sense 'homesteaded' and perhaps could be considered private property at least for a time. I wonder if you can elaborate on and justify why you, and libertarians in general, don't think ideas can be property.

[Eran]

First, on the question of easement.

I view easement arrangements as a particular application of the NAP. In my formulation, the NAP prohibits the use of force against another person's peaceful projects.

When a peaceful projects require the non-exclusive use of some natural resource (almost invariably land), another person may acquire ownership of that resource (through homesteading, i.e. its incorporation into his own peaceful project) subject only that through that ownership, no force may be used against the original, non-exclusive project.

This is how an easement is created - by allowing a person who has already been using the land (e.g. as a path) to continue to do so.

Rothbard, if memory serves, gave another example of easement. Say I start a factory adjacent an empty field, and the factory emits loud noises. A person may homestead the empty field, but must tolerate the noises by factory emits.

Had the order of use been reversed, i.e. had I built the factory after the field was already occupied, my noise emission may well have been considered aggressive, as it materially harmed the ability of my neighbour to peacefully enjoy his property.

But since I was first, I acquired an easement to emit noise onto the nearby field.


There is much value to allowing private ownership of roads. A private owner is best situated and motivated to maintain and improve the road and set up rules on its use, typically with the aim of maximising his profits by tempting others to use his road. In other words, the benefit from making the road as attractive to use as possible coincides with a compact decision-making process.

It is far from clear how the maintenance of a communally-owned road would work. In a small community, it is possible that voluntary collection of funds (bolstered by nothing more than social pressure) will suffice to maintain a small wooden bridge or a short paved road. It is much more difficult to see such mechanisms enabling a modern interchange or many miles of inter-city highways.

I would expect a parallel system of minimum-quality free roads, maintained through donations, and high-quality private toll roads.

On the subject of intellectual property it seems quirky that libertarians claim that ideas cannot be property when so much else of the philosophy is so concerned with the concept of property.

This is where the distinction between arbitrary, government-awarded property, and objective, natural, justly-acquired property is perhaps most clearly visible.

Your intellectual property effectively takes away from my property rights over my physical property. If you wrote a story and I am not permitted to copy it, the range of activities I am permitted to conduct with my own hand, pen and paper is thereby somewhat diminished.

The NAP is designed to minimally restrict the freedom of people to pursue their peaceful projects, subject only to prohibition against the use of force against other people's projects. For Intellectual Property to be legitimate, one has to adopt the position that my project (say in writing a book) is physically harmed when you make a copy of my book without my permission.

The most important libertarian writer against Intellectual Property is Kinsella. [url=mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf]Here is a major essay on the topic[/url]. From a pragmatic perspective, Boldrin and Levine's [url=http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm
Against Intellectual Monopoly[/url] is brilliant.

In brief, Kinsella's position is that ideas, by their very nature, aren't scarce, and, consequently, cannot be homesteaded. Only physical resources are scarce in the sense that one person's use of them effectively detracts from the ability of others to do the same.

[SolarCross]

On the subject of private versus public roads: Adam Smith disagrees with you..

The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.
-- Adam Smith - Book V of the Wealth of Nations

I have a number of objections to the privatising of public roads.

1. Acquisition - under the stewardship of the state, public roads are invariably considered in some sense the property of the public, in other words common property. That public property does not cease to be owned by the public should the state 'go out of business' and anarchy reign. Since it is not an 'unowned' resource it cannot be justly acquired by 'homesteaders'. Thus the privatisation of roads would amount to theft.

2. Maintenance efficiency - privately owned roads will cost more to maintain because the fee charged for maintenance will not simply be for the cost of maintenance but also the cost of sating the personal greed of the owner and the cost of collecting the fee in the form of tolls. There would be an additional inefficiency in that tolls slow down travellers and force them to plan in advance not just their route but also how much cash they will need for each and every road they take. The result would be oppressive, discouraging people from travelling at all.

3. Custom complication - if roads were privately owned then as you say the rules of the road would be at the discretion of the owner. Each and every stretch of road could well end up with its own 'highway code' adding to the misery and confusion of the hapless travelller. Imagine an eccentric american coming to the UK and buying up a stretch of the M4 and deciding that on his road people should drive on the same side of the road as they do in the US! If roads could be privately owned that could well happen.

4. There is a much better way. - Starting from the understanding that public roads are common property it follows everyone has the right to improve this resource but no one has the right to damage this resource. So those most interested in maintaining a given road (because they use it) are free to organise an association for taking care of its maintenance and raise money (or other resources) from others that have an interest in maintaining the road and then subcontract the relevant professionals to do the job. Minimal waste, minimal overhead, no contradiction of NAP or common law, maximum freedom and utility for the user, everyone's a winner.

[Jay Ranger]

In a state of anarcho-capitalism, anyone who is homeless and cannot afford a place to stay would theoretically have no place in the entire world to stay legally, am I right? That's of course assuming that people aren't charitable enough to offer the homeless person a place to stay.

[Joe Liberty]

Jumping in on just one aspect of the current discussion, that of intellectual property. This one has had me fence-sitting for quite some time, ever since the relatively recent (as far as I can tell) libertarian backlash against the entire concept.

Your intellectual property effectively takes away from my property rights over my physical property. If you wrote a story and I am not permitted to copy it, the range of activities I am permitted to conduct with my own hand, pen and paper is thereby somewhat diminished.

The way I see it: you can copy it all day long. You just can't pass it off as your own. Perhaps I'm old-school in thinking that one of my most important (if not the most important) possessions is my mind, and thus any ideas that spring from it belong to me. An original idea is just as much a product of my time, labor, and creativity as any physical object I might produce, so why should I not have property rights over it?

But as someone who's not chosen a side in this debate, I appreciate your linking to some reference material.

[SolarCross]

In a state of anarcho-capitalism, anyone who is homeless and cannot afford a place to stay would theoretically have no place in the entire world to stay legally, am I right? That's of course assuming that people aren't charitable enough to offer the homeless person a place to stay.

I expect the homeless would be safe enough from gun-toting trespass hunters in Antarctica, the bottom of the sea or on the moon.

An absence of public space would oppress us all, not just the homeless. Imagine living in a world where nobody belonged anywhere except within the boundaries of whatever property they had. Psychologically (as well as actually) we would all become prisoners in our own home and trespassers everywhere else. It would be a dystopia on steroids.

[Eran]

On the subject of private versus public roads: Adam Smith disagrees with you..

Adam Smith and I disagree on many subjects. For one thing, he wasn't an anarchist...

1. Acquisition - under the stewardship of the state, public roads are invariably considered in some sense the property of the public, in other words common property. That public property does not cease to be owned by the public should the state 'go out of business' and anarchy reign. Since it is not an 'unowned' resource it cannot be justly acquired by 'homesteaders'. Thus the privatisation of roads would amount to theft.

I agree that public roads cannot be homesteaded. They can be privatised through a voluntary action of the state, but I think that is unlikely too.

What I believe ought to happen is that a compromise will combine some skeleton road system as open to the public, fulfilling the need for freedom of movement (easement, in our previous language) and funded through a combination of contributions, advertising, concessions, etc., while some roads will be privatised by being sold off, with the proceeds (like those of selling other state-owned assets) being used to either pay off public debt or pay back tax payers.

2. Maintenance efficiency - privately owned roads will cost more to maintain because the fee charged for maintenance will not simply be for the cost of maintenance but also the cost of sating the personal greed of the owner and the cost of collecting the fee in the form of tolls. There would be an additional inefficiency in that tolls slow down travellers and force them to plan in advance not just their route but also how much cash they will need for each and every road they take. The result would be oppressive, discouraging people from travelling at all.

I disagree completely. For one thing, such eventuality will not even serve the purposes of the greedy road-owners. It will be in their interest to take whatever steps necessary to make their roads as friendly to the public as possible. Modern technology alleviates the need to stop people and collect tolls. And competition will keep tolls reasonable. Monthly or annual subscriptions coupled with automatic license-plate readers will make payment of tolls as seamless as paying for electricity is today. And keep in mind that gasoline will be much cheaper without taxation.

3. Custom complication - if roads were privately owned then as you say the rules of the road would be at the discretion of the owner. Each and every stretch of road could well end up with its own 'highway code' adding to the misery and confusion of the hapless travelller. Imagine an eccentric american coming to the UK and buying up a stretch of the M4 and deciding that on his road people should drive on the same side of the road as they do in the US! If roads could be privately owned that could well happen.

That doesn't make any sense. Consider bank credit cards. There are no regulations as to their size and shape. Yet they all have exactly the same size and shape. Or the placement of controls in a car. Of placement of keys on computer keyboards. Or a million other ways that private producers, despite being theoretically free to do as they wish, conform to voluntary standards which customers prefer.

4. There is a much better way. - Starting from the understanding that public roads are common property it follows everyone has the right to improve this resource but no one has the right to damage this resource. So those most interested in maintaining a given road (because they use it) are free to organise an association for taking care of its maintenance and raise money (or other resources) from others that have an interest in maintaining the road and then subcontract the relevant professionals to do the job. Minimal waste, minimal overhead, no contradiction of NAP or common law, maximum freedom and utility for the user, everyone's a winner.

Who will pay for those improvements? Who will invest in new roads, when the huge cost cannot be recovered through tolls?

In a state of anarcho-capitalism, anyone who is homeless and cannot afford a place to stay would theoretically have no place in the entire world to stay legally, am I right? That's of course assuming that people aren't charitable enough to offer the homeless person a place to stay.

Theoretically, those who cannot afford to pay will be driven to the edge of the developed land areas. It is not the case that the entire world will be privatised - most of the land-area of the world is not worth improving. The US, for example, contains huge areas of unimproved (and therefore unowned) land. In practice, either charities or entrepreneurs would provide the destitute with accommodations (just as they do today, as well as providing them with food). Some might take the form of work-houses in which people are expected (but also given an opportunity) to earn their living.

The way I see it: you can copy it all day long. You just can't pass it off as your own.

Passing it off as your own is very rarely the issue around copyrights. One normally makes money by passing the work as that of a famous writer. If you do pass it as your own, you may be sued for fraud, a different matter altogether.

An original idea is just as much a product of my time, labor, and creativity as any physical object I might produce, so why should I not have property rights over it?

First, as long as it is in your mind (or on your private paper or computer), you have full property rights over it. The question arises whether, having chosen to share your idea with others, you can then block third parties with whom you have no contractual relations from acting based on the idea.

Second, it is not the case that property rights derive from creation. Humans don't create matter - they only transform it. Your property rights in the transformed object are identical to your rights in the materials from which it was transformed. If you own the latter, you own the former. If you don't own the raw material, you do not gain ownership of the final good just because you put work into it.

Homesteading allows you to acquire property rights in previously-unowned resources as you incorporate them into your projects. But you can only do so to the extent that the nature of the project reasonably requires exclusive access. This is never the case with ideas.

Imagine living in a world where nobody belonged anywhere except within the boundaries of whatever property they had. Psychologically (as well as actually) we would all become prisoners in our own home and trespassers everywhere else. It would be a dystopia on steroids.

I don't see it that way at all. The public spaces of our world tend to be fairly barren. You cannot get food or sleep in them. You can only pass through them. As soon as you try to satisfy your most basic needs - food, shelter, clothing - you have to interact with private property owners - a supermarket, a hotel, a clothing store.

Yet our world is far from dystopian for it, because supermarkets, hotels and clothing stores, to mention but a few, are welcoming and generally open to the public. Shopping malls tend to accept virtually all comers, and the vast majority of people don't give a second thought to the fact that they are private, rather than public spaces.

Exactly the same would hold in a free society. Owners of "public" spaces will be welcoming and friendly. After all, they invested a lot of money and energy in acquiring and improving those spaces, and can only reap benefits by making them as attractive as possible to people like you.

Having said all of that, there is nothing, of course, to stop communities from creating communally owned public spaces and allowing free entry to them. In a diverse society, we are likely to see many different models of human co-existence emerge and co-exist.

[SolarCross]

Eran - Public roads will remain public roads after the fall of the state. The state can't legitimately sell them as it is not theirs to sell. Anyone foolish enough to 'buy' roads from the state deserves to lose their money.

Your argument that tolls are required to pay for the upkeep of the roads is nonsense. If people can afford to pay tolls then they can easily afford to voluntarily contribute to the upkeep of roads and the building of new ones. Ultimately the money comes from the users whether or not a parasitic rent seeker sneaks himself into a position to siphon off the funds for himself. There is no worry for people being too cheap to contribute, people do want and need roads, the self interest in supporting road upkeep is unambigous. People give to charities like orphanages and projects to help starving people in Africa which to do not directly benefit them so they will certainly voluntarily contribute towards the upkeep of public roads for which the benefit to them is direct. Speaking for myself as a taxi driver by trade I would cheerfully give a very substantial amount of the money that I save from no longer needing to pay tax towards road upkeep; it is public resource I use heavily. On the other hand if the road system became festooned with toll booths I will cheerfully smash every one I see and to hell with the consequences. I would rather pay the government its road tax than pay tolls. I think most people would agree with that.

Public spaces apart from roads are anything but barren and if need be you can sleep there and you can eat too if you don't mind eating food out of bins. Maybe it is different in America but public spaces are nice in europe. The main thing is psychological; you own it, you belong there, you don't have to worry about buying something you don't want to justify your presence. If one is a guest in another's domain, no matter how welcoming the host is, one doesn't feel quite relaxed or at home. In a public space even if one has never been there before, one feels quite free and entitled to be there because it is as much your domain as anyone. That is an important thing people will miss if everything gets gobbled up by proprietary freaks. Not that that will ever happen, the majorities in europe at least will never allow it.

Moreover there is no such thing as public debt. The state may owe money, but it has no right to pay that money by stealing from the public.

[Eran]

Ultimately the money comes from the users whether or not a parasitic rent seeker sneaks himself into a position to siphon off the funds for himself.

The same holds with respect to any other enterprise. Why allow private ownership of farmlands? After all, the money to pay for labour, machinery and supplies ultimately comes from the people who buy food, whether or not a parasitic rent seeker sneaks himself into a position to siphon off the funds for himself.

Why allow private ownership (or even employee-based ownership) of factories? Ultimately, the money for employee wages, machines and supplies ultimately comes from the people who buy the product of the factory, whether or not a parasitic rent seeker (or even a group of parasitic rent-seekers - the employees) sneak themselves into a position to siphon off the funds for themselves.

Indeed your attitude is only consistent with a gift economy where by people voluntarily contribute to whichever goals they deem will end up being advantageous, with only good-intentioned volunteers to coordinate such join activities.

As a matter of principle, there is nothing wrong with such gift economy. As a matter of practice, it cannot work beyond the level of a small community.


Having said that, I do understand your concern about the consequences of privatisation. Russia is perhaps the clearest example of how the process can be abused. Again, as a matter of practice, I share your concern, and will want to ensure that the interests of the public are not harmed. One solution would be to hand the roads to private ownership by forming a corporation in which every citizen has an equal share to begin with. The people's power to impact road-related policies is thus preserved (one-person-one-vote). Subsequent to the transition, people may choose to sell their shares, but would presumably only do that if they value the proceeds of the share more than they value the level of control that holding a share gives them.

Do you see a difference between currently-public roads and new roads created through purely private enterprise? Do you see a difference between roads that effectively monopolise a link between two points, and situations in which there is redundancy which allows competition (either between private and public, or between two or more private providers)?

Public spaces apart from roads are anything but barren and if need be you can sleep there and you can eat too if you don't mind eating food out of bins.

Bins are always private. Sleeping in public spaces is often frowned-upon, and police routinely discourage or remove homeless people from parks and streets. Nor is sleeping in the streets typically viewed as a positive aspect of public spaces. Rather, it is a symptom of both lack of appropriate resources to house the homeless and lax enforcement of the proper use of such public spaces.

The main thing is psychological; you own it, you belong there, you don't have to worry about buying something you don't want to justify your presence.

The psychological aspect is a valid but not insurmountable point. Municipalities reserve the right to shoo away vagabonds and people exhibiting inappropriate behaviour. You don't have a "right" to be in the street if the police decides to close it off because of a visiting dignitary. The psychology is entirely misleading. Public spaces don't belong to the public in any meaningful way. Rather, they are entirely controlled by government officials, with only infrequent elections acting as a control mechanism.

I don't think people who are used to using shopping malls feel any differently about them than they do about "public" spaces.

Moreover there is no such thing as public debt. The state may owe money, but it has no right to pay that money by stealing from the public.

I agree. But people from whom the state stole (either directly, through taxes, or indirectly, by forcing them to invest in government bonds) are owed compensation.

[SolarCross]

The same holds with respect to any other enterprise. Why allow private ownership of farmlands? After all, the money to pay for labour, machinery and supplies ultimately comes from the people who buy food, whether or not a parasitic rent seeker sneaks himself into a position to siphon off the funds for himself.

Why allow private ownership (or even employee-based ownership) of factories? Ultimately, the money for employee wages, machines and supplies ultimately comes from the people who buy the product of the factory, whether or not a parasitic rent seeker (or even a group of parasitic rent-seekers - the employees) sneak themselves into a position to siphon off the funds for themselves.

Indeed your attitude is only consistent with a gift economy where by people voluntarily contribute to whichever goals they deem will end up being advantageous, with only good-intentioned volunteers to coordinate such join activities.

As a matter of principle, there is nothing wrong with such gift economy. As a matter of practice, it cannot work beyond the level of a small community.

You miss the point, I was refuting your claim that private (and presumably profit-seeking) ownership was required or would be cheaper for road maintenance. I hadn't quite gone as far as to say private roads shouldn't be allowed only that it is an inferior solution and in fact an even more inferior solution than tax funded roads.

Now it is debatable whether other services such as those you mentioned would be not be cheaper for the user if they were not subject to what is generally known as profiteering but which I'm inclined to think of as a kind of embezzlement. Maybe we could broaden this debate to encompass the concept of profit as well as the concept of property. You know profit and property are distinct concepts even if they are often related in some way.

You know I like the gift economy, well anyone with a non-dysfunctional family or who uses opensource software or 'commons' internet services such as wikipedia, likes the gift economy. I think it is fair to say the gift economy could be successfully applied to every facet of the human wealth distribution network and when that happens humanity will have returned to Eden. Maybe there are not enough enlightened human beings to do that yet but that doesn't mean there never will be.

Having said that, I do understand your concern about the consequences of privatisation. Russia is perhaps the clearest example of how the process can be abused. Again, as a matter of practice, I share your concern, and will want to ensure that the interests of the public are not harmed. One solution would be to hand the roads to private ownership by forming a corporation in which every citizen has an equal share to begin with. The people's power to impact road-related policies is thus preserved (one-person-one-vote). Subsequent to the transition, people may choose to sell their shares, but would presumably only do that if they value the proceeds of the share more than they value the level of control that holding a share gives them.

I appreaciate your suggestion and actually I had considered something similar myself; I thought road management might be done by a consumer coop or perhaps many locally focused consumer coops. Mind you I hadn't really considered whether such organisations actually had to own the roads in order to perform their services. On reflection I don't think they need to own the road and they don't necessarily need to gift their services. It is quite acceptable that the companies that maintain the road are compensated from funds raised by the consumers of the road 'service' while the road itself remains common property.

Do you see a difference between currently-public roads and new roads created through purely private enterprise? Do you see a difference between roads that effectively monopolise a link between two points, and situations in which there is redundancy which allows competition (either between private and public, or between two or more private providers)?

It is the capitalist's presumption that ownership entitles authority and specifically the authority to distribute the wealth created using the owned thing. This may have meaning for a factory but for a road? What is the wealth created by a road? It is actually pretty intangible while at the same time being monumental even priceless. People and goods getting from one place another doesn't even begin to do justice the service a road provides. Is it proper or beneficial for anyone to reduce the utility of a road by skimming off a profit from its traffic on the pretext that the road needs maintenance? The road does need maintenance but its utility is maximised only if ownership resides with all. Adam Smith was right about that much. Monopolised links enable the gouging to be more extreme but redundant links are by no means safe.
There is a case for private roads only where the owner is the main or only user which pretty much limits private roads to driveways.

Bins are always private. Sleeping in public spaces is often frowned-upon, and police routinely discourage or remove homeless people from parks and streets. Nor is sleeping in the streets typically viewed as a positive aspect of public spaces. Rather, it is a symptom of both lack of appropriate resources to house the homeless and lax enforcement of the proper use of such public spaces.

The psychological aspect is a valid but not insurmountable point. Municipalities reserve the right to shoo away vagabonds and people exhibiting inappropriate behaviour. You don't have a "right" to be in the street if the police decides to close it off because of a visiting dignitary. The psychology is entirely misleading. Public spaces don't belong to the public in any meaningful way. Rather, they are entirely controlled by government officials, with only infrequent elections acting as a control mechanism.

I don't think people who are used to using shopping malls feel any differently about them than they do about "public" spaces.

Bins on public roads, parks and places in europe and the UK are invariably public (and usually numerous and well maintained), managed by local government. The police serve the government and the government serves the rich. It is the rich that conspire to create fake crimes like vagrancy and loitering. It remains though that the public space is owned as much by the most destitute as it is by anyone else and as such they are entitled to be there and sleep there also. Do they have that entitlement on private property?

I think in the US you are tougher on the destitute. It is generally true that while the rich may be pleased to see the homeless gassed like rabbits if only they could get away with it, working class people are more sympathetic; they know that 'there, but for the grace of god, go I', that they are only a few months of rent arrears away from ending up in the same situation. To the extent that the euro rich are more afraid of the working classes than the US rich, because the euro rich have in the past been on the recieving end of the guillotine wielded by the aggrieved working classes, thus they are deterred from really smashing down on the most vulnerable as they'd like too. It is safer to be poor in Europe.

As to the psychology try this thought experiment or better do it for real. Dress yourself as well-to-do as you like, Oxford tweeds, gucci handbag whatever then make yourself a really lush sandwich and take it to a town centre. You see a number of private eateries and coffee shops ringed around the public space with its own benches and bins (a typical scene anywhere in europe if not the US). First go into a private eatery and try and eat your sandwich. Not very pleasent was it? The dirty looks, the embarrassment, maybe you were even asked to leave. Now go and sit on a public bench (your bench literally your own property) and eat the rest of your sandwich as relaxed and as entitled as any King in his kingdom. That is the difference between public and private.

I agree. But people from whom the state stole (either directly, through taxes, or indirectly, by forcing them to invest in government bonds) are owed compensation.

Are people forced to buy government bonds?

[SecretSquirrel]

As usual, self-proclaimed moral people will refuse to even entertain the notion of critically examining the question of reproduction under the light of ethics.

The oldest and strongest taboo, indeed. The anthropic principle breeds it into us.

[SolarCross]

As usual, self-proclaimed moral people will refuse to even entertain the notion of critically examining the question of reproduction under the light of ethics.

The oldest and strongest taboo, indeed. The anthropic principle breeds it into us.

I am quite happy to discuss reproductive ethics just not on a thread aimed at resolving the issue of property between right and left leaning anarchists; it is too early to take this thread off-topic. If you want to start a thread on the subject of reproductive ethics, I promise to join in.

[SecretSquirrel]

The commons and property in general are only scarce because people reproduce!!

Property right to commons, expropriation rights, and reproductive ethics are very tightly bound.