Was private property ever developed independent of European influence?
Was private property ever developed independent of European influence?
Nathan Wright
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Oliver Jackson
What is China
Ethan Brown
Yes
Property and possession are associative values; they only mean any thing to the people that put trust into those constructs.
There are two modes in which one can own property.
Personal property:
By association alone, one simply assumes property ownership as a form of value relative to their own identity. For example, I like green, and my sister likes pink; we simply assume ownership of anything given to us that is either green or pink, according to our preference. The conflict exists if we both like blue, and we're presented with 1 item that's blue, and the item then goes to the one who can prove more ownership of that value.
State-protected property:
In feudal theory, the state is the greatest source of war because it has nothing to do with the people who live on the land but the state that owns the land rights (which only exist on paper). If two states assume the same land, they cause a solution-less conflict, because the people (regardless of whether they identify as one state or another) are forced to be a part of one state whether or not they associate with that state. The state of poland, for example, has no right to the Germans who live in Poland, thus it should have been part of German soil. However, Germany had no right to subject all Germans to the same state or government either, as the Germans in Germany might consider themselves ethnically different than the Germans in Austria.
Dylan Johnson
To clarify, I'm asking about private property in the sense of society demanding that contracts and deeds are used to exchange individually owned resources and prove owership. Not hereditary or obligation based societies.
Bentley Baker
Native Americans (or at least a certain tribe of them) did have a system of private property, it was by family though.
Pretty much every family had a certain river or plot of land that they had exclusive rights to hunt and fish in, the purpose of this obviously being that they understood that if everybody owned all the land to freely hunt then you would see everyone trying to get as much game as possible before everyone else, which could lead to extinction. The Indians had a better understand of the economic scarcity of game than the white man would later.
Nolan Powell
Land ownership, private property rights, etc were all known in Ancient China .
Most of the civilized world is probably same. As long as there is a concept defining the difference between myself and others, there would most likely be a concept of ownership.
Landon Bailey
Farmers in Mesopotamia could hold their own land or rent if from others or work it as slaves, same goes for Persia and India. Families held land and built houses on it.
Parker Clark
Are you retarded OP?
Daniel Jenkins
How could monarchy, feudalism, etc have arisen in a society without at least a rudimentary understanding of the modern concepts of private property? I think at least the MENA, SA, South America, EA, and SEA developed ideas like this fairly independently.
Sebastian Roberts
Yes, you fucking retard.
Camden Clark
Can you elaborate on the property rights in developed in China. I'm not sure if that was just a hereditary system since I know how important the family has been in China.
This is a hereditary system of resources being given by birthright. I'm looking for a system independently developed of resources being acquired through exchange/proving ownership.
What do you mean by a rudimentary understanding? Because I'm not looking for a society based around heredity or obligation.
This seems like the answer I was looking for, but I'm not so sure this wasn't independent or European influence or even the root cause of the European system. Also this seems a bit rudimentary. Did this influence the Europeans to develop a similar system or was there no connection?
Blake Howard
It's not like Private Property is a super complex concept
>this is area is mine if you mess with it I'm going to bash your head in with a rock
Hunter Sullivan
> I'm not sure if that was just a hereditary system
>I'm looking for a system independently developed of resources being acquired through exchange/proving ownership
>I'm not looking for a society based around heredity or obligation
What are you saying? Every society was a communist utopia until the white man arrived? History is littered with examples of Chinese emperors conferring land to favored courtiers and Judaeans talking about land and cattle as property.
What is your meme?
Eli Ortiz
>What are you saying? Every society was a communist utopia until the white man arrived?
Actually I'm looking for history to back up an argument against what communists believe. As you probably know communists believe that societies always follow the same steps and that the future changes in all societies are inevitable. One of their arguments is that from a feudalist (resources determined by heredity) system came a capitalist (resources not determined by heredity) system. From what I know about history this capitalist system seemed to start in Europe and through colonization they turned many places into this capitalist system. Communists would argue that they would have developed that system eventually even if the Europeans never arrived.
>History is littered with examples of Chinese emperors conferring land to favored courtiers and Judaeans talking about land and cattle as property.
Since they were the emperor they decided how resources were distributed. That's not what I'm looking for, I'm looking for an independently developed system of individual ownership, not the emperor being able to determine how resources are distributed. Can you elaborate on the second example you gave just so I can determine if it's what I'm looking for.
idk if I'm not being clear or if I'm using the wrong terms or something but you guys all seem to say that this sort of system was in fact independently developed with no connection to Europe, however the examples you guys have posted don't seem to fit the criteria I'm looking for.
Zachary Perez
Maybe it's because you are trying to prove property is a social construct instead of a inherent law of mankind. Your body literally is the embodiment of your property. Even as a slave, you have property over your body, they just take the property over your work force. When you realize everything is based on property, then you won't have problems understanding the concept itself.
The XXth century just caused a world wide fucking mind fuck regarding property and rights thanks to utilitarian dick bags.
Nathan Miller
>Even as a slave, you have property over your body,
kek what's next? Ethiopians are starving because they're not working hard enough?
Caleb Barnes
I'm not so sure it's an inherent law of mankind but I don't think it matters in this case. Whether it is or isn't I'm looking for a society that started protecting those property rights independent of European influence. I don't think I'm trying to prove that private property is a social construct, I think I'm trying to look for evidence of society developing the system of protecting property rights independent of European influence. It seems like you're claiming all societies have had a protection of property rights but even your slave example shows that not all property rights were protected in that society.
Jaxson Kelly
How is the emperor doling out land different from government land grants? Even modern governments can take your property under imminent domain or other reasons. Your concept of ownership is pretty weak honestly. maybe you should define it before you post like an idiot
Ian Gray
idk where you live but in America imminent domain is a controversial issue because many people it doesn't support the property rights of individuals. Also, like I said in this post even if emperors giving out land is an example of society protecting some form of property there is not the extensive protection of individual property that exists along side land grants in modern nations.
>Your concept of ownership is pretty weak honestly. maybe you should define it before you post like an idiot
Attacking me after I just said I'm not sure if I'm using the wrong terms is childish. Also, you said that my concept or ownership is pretty weak but I'm not talking about ownership in general. I'm talking ownership in the sense of needing to prove ownership through contracts and deeds and the like, not ownership through heredity or obligation.
Isaac Cox
maybe it'd just be easier for me to ask if capitalism ever developed independent of European influence. not exactly the same issue but it would still be a question related to finding an argument against what communists believe as I said here
Noah Green
Oh I see.
Marxists often fixate on their own incredibly narrow definitions.
In their view capitalists, burghers, bourgeoisie, merchants and the like were subordinate to the feudal elite until the industrial revolution, when capitalists were largely in control of the state the system is considered capitalist. These classes as well as property rights existed in their own little bubbles in trade centers, at most trade centers like the Sultanate of Malacca had an elite that were effectively aristocratic but were oligarchical and protected the rights of merchants. Venice, Genoa and some Italian city states had very powerful bourgeois
>Since they were the emperor they decided how resources were distributed.
The emperor rarely had absolute power, maintaining power involved making calculated concessions, for example if you tax people into the ground you may provoke them into uniting against you, if you don't tax them they will start to accumulate power making it easier for them to challenge you. This balance of power was maintained down the hierarchy. A regional governor had to respect the rights of merchants to an extent, they are unlikely to outright rebel, but they can undermine him in other ways that damage the economy. You can't exactly put a sword to someone's throat and order them to become a more diligent and productive merchant so they can pay more taxes.
Though as a class the feudal aristocracy and state bureaucracy were overwhelmingly powerful, they did protect certain rights to facilitate trade and in these "bubbles" capitalism reigned. The examples given arose "naturally" because whether people use cocoa beans or gold as currency the mathematics is the same. 4+4=8 in Mesoamerica, China, everywhere. Concepts like repeat trades, reputation, brands, supply and demand and mediums of exchange arise when people negotiate little deals with each other over and over again.
Adam Gomez
Every society has the same character, the Good Wholesome capitalist who generally share the same traits.
1: pragmatism
2: intelligence
3: an embrace of the material world, they love things that most people find boring because they can't get into it like accountancy or learning multiple languages
4: moderation, kind of like the stoics
5: long term thinking, playing the long game, putting long term gain over short term gain
6: good priorities, not caring about petty hubris and pride for example, if kowtowing helps a deal go through and earns them more money, it is fine by them even though most would find it humiliating
7: astute worldliness
Howqua is a good example.
Andrew Hall
If I understand you correctly it seems like you're arguing that the Marxist definitions of things are designed to be narrow in such a way that allows for their interpretation of history to make sense. And that if you broaden the definitions you can see that the Marxist view doesn't really translate well, but can still find another reason to believe why societies have these independently developed similarities. Is that right?
It seems like this post is about what I said above as well. How there's another explanation to be made for why societies have these independently developed similarities.
If my understanding of those two posts is correct then it seems like it still accepts the same premise of Marxism, which is that there is a sort of inevitable path societies follows. Do you guys agree with that or am I stretching what you said?
Carson Morales
Israel