| This question <414|251> overall <606|609> Snowman: <606|48>. |
| Question 184: Is there anything wrong with private property? |
| [607] Snowman: Re: The Pitfalls of Unradical Critique Hans wrote in [318] |
| Snowman's thinking in his answer [296] is very logical. And since Snowman starts with an insufficiently radical critique of private property, his inexorable logic gives a nice schoolbook example of the absurdities you end up with if you try to criticize something without penetrating down to its basic contradictions. |
| Can you see why the following sentence is not a very radical critique of private property? |
| The ownrship of private property is a two edged sword such that the owner is afforded the luxury of complete control of his/her property and the right to exclude the use of that property to anyone he or she wishs, but by the same token this owner can also be excluded from all the property belonging to others. |
| Snowman is not deploring that private property draws fences across society, he is only deploring that one may end up on the wrong side of the fence. I.e., from the right side, fences are ok. |
| While it is late to defend what I have previously written I feel it is required now for the argument that i gave was what I and intended I do not think that I was thorough enough. What I lacked, which immediately drew the attention of all those that read my answer was that I hate fences of any sort that block the access of others for no other reason than exclusion. This is something that I have in grained in myself to the extent that when writting the argument I made the cardinal mistake of assumption. To me it is not that being on the “wrong side of the fence that is the trouble” but rather that the potential for there to be completely exclusive fences around that which contains potential for public good on the whole that is the trouble. The problem that I see with this is the good of the community/society usually leads to the good of the individual, and because ownership of certain goods inhibits this I feel that the good of the individual and the whole is comprimised no matter the side of the fence one finds themself. |
| Snowman sees very clearly the dangers of private property: it allows to exclude people from resources which they need, and what is his answer? Welfare. |
| It is for this reason that the ownership of very basic necessities should be left to the community as a whole. Such things as the basic amount of food that is required for living as well as the shelter and clothing should at least be available through some sort of communal offerings, |
| Again not a very radical solution, since this solution assumes that poverty persists in society. Snowman uses the rest of his answer to debate where to draw the poverty line. Marx's solution is more radical: he is saying that we only have to give people food if they cannot produce it themselves, and the root cause of poverty is the fact that the means of production are privately owned, therefore people are not allowed to produce the things for themselves which they need. |
| The other confusion which I have allowed is the lack of clarity for that which should or should not be owned. I would say that the goods invloved with the perpetuation of the individual in reproduction or what ever means one finds to perpetuate their existence should be owned in such a way so as not to be exclusive in any manner, such that no one finds them selves lacking what is needed. What I do think can be owned by a person with out comprimise is that which is consumed as an end product by the individual in such a way so as to remove it from the market as a commodity, or as an instrument of production for the individual producing commodities. |
|
|
|||||