Re: Property Rights

david_musick@juno.com
Mon, 10 May 1999 17:43:30 -0600

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote,

"Excludable property--resources that can only be used by one person at a
time--are a simple fact of objective reality, and no amount of hand-waving and pretty prose can change that. "Hoarding" can exacerbate shortages, and even create them, but to think that eliminating hoarding will eliminate all shortages is childish fantasy. Property rights may or may not be the best way to allocate scarce resource; it is definitely the best one so far tried. There may be an even better solution, but I doubt that denying the problem will lead to finding it."

Most property that humans use is created by humans, and we can always create more. There is a finite amount of accessible natural resources on Earth, but there is plenty to provide all humans with a very comfortable living situation, with current technology. Because humans generally view most other humans as enemies, they refuse to cooperate with each other to provide a comfortable situation for all involved. This perpetual war among most humans is the source of most human problems.

"Property rights" is a good solution when people have little respect for
each other and would routinely deprive each other of the basic necessities for living. But the concept of property rights does little to heal the underlying hostility among humans. If people were not so hostile towards each other, there would be no need for "property rights".

our hostility towards each other is our most basic problem

David_Musick@juno.com



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