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Communal Ownership

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  • JonathanL
    replied
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    Chrawnus: previously we established the possibility of communal ownership. If, as you say, farms and roads of a village or city can be communally owned, then so can certain sums of money since money acts as a store of value. So we hereby establish that communal ownership of certain things is realistic and plausible.
    Right. I would agree that money can be communally owned, and in some senses it would even be reasonable, for example when the whole village/city has been involved in a project (of unspecificed type) that has resulted in monetary income. In that case I would argue that that money should be seen as communally owned. Money earned through individual effort seems to me to be under the stewardship of the individual who put the effort into earning the money however, and not the under the stewardship of the village or city in question.

    Leave a comment:


  • Paprika
    replied
    I'd like to make a request that this thread shouldn't be about how feasible certain schemes or implementations of communal property.

    Originally posted by Joel View Post
    Communal ownership, both in theory and in practice, yields bad results.
    I hope this is the last post of the thread on this subtopic: I'm not particularly interested at this point and place to explore whether it is good, but whether it exists and what is its nature.

    Leave a comment:


  • Paprika
    replied
    Originally posted by Pentecost View Post
    Will you please link it?
    It's buried in the minimum wages thread.

    Key quotes:
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    In other words, it's not even clear to me that you can claim that the original "owners" can be said to own the land in the modern sense of the word. In fact, the one thing The Pixie does seem to get right is that the rationale behind the reverting of rights to usage back to the original "owners" is that it is ultimately God who owns the land.
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    That's the view of modern society. But is that necessarily the case, that what is 'bought' is legitimately one's property, given that all things come from Him and by Him?
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    My understanding of what ownership ultimately is is that we have been granted stewardship of our possessions and are expected to the best of our abilities to use them to the glory of God (which would include helping those less fortunate than ourselves).
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    We are agreed that it is possible that the basic ownership relation of some things is communal. So let's consider a certain sum of money, that by a modern view of ownership belongs to an individual. However, if its basic ownership relation is communal, then it certainly does not belong to him alone, no matter what he thinks. If it is the case that such possibility exists, it opens up the possibility that redistribution can be moral.
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    If it's basic ownership relation is communal is the main issue here it seems to me. I agreed with you that some ownership can legitimately be seen as communal. Do you have any specific arguments to the effect that money should be seen in this way? I can see the logic in for example the farms and roads of a village or city being communally owned. However, it seems to me that any money earned by an individual by his own efforts are his to use as he sees fit (although he should be exhorted to use this money in a wise manner) and that the community is not morally justified in forcibly taking his money from him.
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    If such can be communally owned, then why not certain sums of money? Money, is after all, just a convenient medium of exchange and store of value, which can include values of farms and roads.
    Last edited by Paprika; 03-24-2015, 12:53 PM.

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  • Joel
    replied
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    This thread is for exploring the idea of communal ownership. It is open to all except Cow Poke

    Chrawnus: previously we established the possibility of communal ownership. If, as you say, farms and roads of a village or city can be communally owned, then so can certain sums of money since money acts as a store of value. So we hereby establish that communal ownership of certain things is realistic and plausible.
    Communal ownership, both in theory and in practice, yields bad results.

    And that has been known for a long, long time. Aristotle (in his Politics) argued this. For example he argued that
    1) "what is common to many is taken least care of". leading to the Tragedy of the Commons.
    2) It increases conflict among people, as they clash over every little detail of how the common property shall and shall not be used and by whom.
    3) It reduces or eliminates the possibility of certain virtues, such as charity, hospitality, modesty, and liberality.

    (And vice-versa, private property reduces conflict, increases industry and productivity and living standards.)


    Also, you may need to specify how the communal property will be controlled. We could be talking about anything from anarchy to tyranny. But the funny thing about communal ownership is that there isn't much room for anything between those two. For something to be communally controlled seems to imply either anarchic control or a central/unified control, yielding a tyranny by some people over other people, such as by majority vote.

    Leave a comment:


  • Pentecost
    replied
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    This thread is for exploring the idea of communal ownership. It is open to all except Cow Poke

    Chrawnus: previously we established the possibility of communal ownership. If, as you say, farms and roads of a village or city can be communally owned, then so can certain sums of money since money acts as a store of value. So we hereby establish that communal ownership of certain things is realistic and plausible.
    I feel I've missed some of the context of this conversation, I assume it was in another Civics thread? Will you please link it? I think that I want to participate in this conversation.

    Leave a comment:


  • RumTumTugger
    replied
    it was also tried early in the history of the United States while they were still the colonies it did not work.

    Leave a comment:


  • Paprika
    replied
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    Didn't we try this in the sixties?
    As this point of time the topic is the concept rather than specific implementations. I'm not claiming that all property is communal, but I think it very likely that some is.

    Leave a comment:


  • seer
    replied
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    This thread is for exploring the idea of communal ownership. It is open to all except Cow Poke

    Chrawnus: previously we established the possibility of communal ownership. If, as you say, I c farms and roads of a village or city can be communally owned, then so can certain sums of money since money acts as a store of value. So we hereby establish that communal ownership of certain things is realistic and plausible.

    Didn't we try this in the sixties?

    Leave a comment:


  • Paprika
    started a topic Communal Ownership

    Communal Ownership

    This thread is for exploring the idea of communal ownership. It is open to all except Cow Poke

    Chrawnus: previously we established the possibility of communal ownership. If, as you say, farms and roads of a village or city can be communally owned, then so can certain sums of money since money acts as a store of value. So we hereby establish that communal ownership of certain things is realistic and plausible.
    Last edited by Paprika; 03-24-2015, 12:00 PM.

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