To accumulate wealth as an individual, you need other people who can help you gather or take that wealth/resources, or do so on your behalf.
That’s the exact opposite of the entire point of commodity money.
Jewelry is not an essential good to society, it’s just a bauble. Someone having a personal jewelry collection doesn’t deprive anyone else of any essential need. It would be an issue if they forcibly took someone else’s jewelry, but if they traded for it, or made it themselves, it’s just personal property, and they could reasonably collect as much of it as they want,
Okay. Do you not see how controlling a large amount of wealth in the form of jewelry can give a person influence even in a society without formal units of account for monetary expressions of value?
But a few personal hammers that you use for your own projects are your personal property, even in a hammer shortage. If you allow personal property to be confiscated for societal need, it’s little different from Marxist-Leninism.
But then you admit that personal property is not defined by its lack of deprivation of society of needed commodities, which drives us right back to square one.
You are as deserving of a place to live as anyone else. You are not deserving of multiple places to potentially live if someone else is without a home. You can’t take someone else’s home that they personally use, and they can’t take a home that you personally use.
My point there is linked to my point below about the size and quality of the house, not the number of houses owned. I presumed, in the discussion, that we were discussing a single, actively-used house.
If we assume that everyone who currently lives in their existing home gets to keep it, then the style or size of a house would be determined by the people willing to build them. You could build your own house as you wish, as long as large as you can realistically construct on your own, or if you can convince a group of friends to help you build a bigger one (they may want collective ownership if they help, or they may do it as a favor to you).
But in that case we’re back at the issue of early ‘big men’ chiefdom style societies, where the accumulation of valuable goods is itself perpetuated by the ownership of those goods, rather than the usage of those goods or one’s labor. If John Jacobs is living in a little shack on the side of the river, and Malcolm Red is living in a palace a stone’s throw away, how is it moral for Malcolm to continue in that state of affairs?
Do you not see how controlling a large amount of wealth in the form of jewelry can give a person influence even in a society without formal units of account for monetary expressions of value?
It may be able to be used as a bargaining chip, but overall it would be much less valued under a society where gaining tokens of exchange isn’t tied to access to a decent life. Right now, jewelry is valued because it can then be converted to monetary units. Those units are valuable because so many are still clamoring for them to get access to those basics.
If monetary tokens could only be used for things beyond the basics, they may still have value, but you could no longer be able to exploit people nearly as hard with them.
But then you admit that personal property is not defined by its lack of deprivation of society of needed commodities, which drives us right back to square one.
No. Personal property is defined as something that an individual or family uses. Private property is any excess resource or tool that an individual or family cannot use themselves.
If John Jacobs is living in a little shack on the side of the river, and Malcolm Red is living in a palace a stone’s throw away, how is it moral for Malcolm to continue in that state of affairs?
A literal palace probably couldn’t be reasonably justified as personal property, but for simplicity’s sake, most people who already own their home would be able to keep it, even if it’s large. However, it’s likely that the palace or mansion owners would then need to maintain those themselves if they wished for it to be just their own personal property, and they would likely find it very difficult to get others to maintain it for them without sharing it in some way.
John Jacobs and the Palace owner (if they eventually found it unmaintainable on their own) would both be able to join a building collective to contribute to the construction of a more reasonable a home they could then own. They would also have access to the guaranteed basic housing available to anyone (assuming enough had been constructed by that point).
It may be able to be used as a bargaining chip, but overall it would be much less valued under a society where gaining tokens of exchange isn’t tied to access to a decent life.
It would be less valued, you say? In a society where transferring value for labor is no longer able to be performed by money, and so the only other options are social connections or barter?
That’s not even getting into questions like loaning jewelry out, social influence, etc etc etc.
Right now, jewelry is valued because it can then be converted to monetary units. Those units are valuable because so many are still clamoring for them to get access to those basics.
Again, most people in the modern world are not short of basics, but of things they want. It doesn’t sap their ambition one bit. Only reduces their desperation.
Giving people their needs keeps them from murder, not manslaughter.
No. Personal property is defined as something that an individual or family uses. Private property is any excess resource or tool that an individual or family cannot use themselves.
This is literally what you said:
I like to link the word “private” with “privation” or “deprivation”. Private property is easily identifiable by its effects on others, specifically, it’s deprivation.
Then private property is no longer easily identifiable by its effects on others, now private property is ‘excess’ personal property, and the question of ‘excess’ is returned to use; and use, as we have established, can be highly irregular but still regarded as valid. Which means we return to square one - under what circumstances can one differentiate between personal and movable private property beyond “simply a matter of those who are liked by the community are treated well, and those who are not extroverted are punished arbitrarily?”
A literal palace probably couldn’t be reasonably justified as personal property, but for simplicity’s sake, most people who already own their home would be able to keep it, even if it’s large. However, it’s likely that the palace or mansion owners would then need to maintain those themselves if they wished for it to be just their own personal property, and they would likely find it very difficult to get others to maintain it for them without sharing it in some way.
Yes, that’s how clientistic systems begin in early state societies and feudal societies. It’s not pretty.
John Jacobs and the Palace owner (if they eventually found it unmaintainable on their own) would both be able to join a building collective to contribute to the construction of a more reasonable a home they could then own. They would also have access to the guaranteed basic housing available to anyone (assuming enough had been constructed by that point).
That’s not at all an answer to the question that I was asked. I reiterate:
"If John Jacobs is living in a little shack on the side of the river, and Malcolm Red is living in a palace a stone’s throw away, how is it moral for Malcolm to continue in that state of affairs?"
That’s the exact opposite of the entire point of commodity money.
Okay. Do you not see how controlling a large amount of wealth in the form of jewelry can give a person influence even in a society without formal units of account for monetary expressions of value?
But then you admit that personal property is not defined by its lack of deprivation of society of needed commodities, which drives us right back to square one.
My point there is linked to my point below about the size and quality of the house, not the number of houses owned. I presumed, in the discussion, that we were discussing a single, actively-used house.
But in that case we’re back at the issue of early ‘big men’ chiefdom style societies, where the accumulation of valuable goods is itself perpetuated by the ownership of those goods, rather than the usage of those goods or one’s labor. If John Jacobs is living in a little shack on the side of the river, and Malcolm Red is living in a palace a stone’s throw away, how is it moral for Malcolm to continue in that state of affairs?
It may be able to be used as a bargaining chip, but overall it would be much less valued under a society where gaining tokens of exchange isn’t tied to access to a decent life. Right now, jewelry is valued because it can then be converted to monetary units. Those units are valuable because so many are still clamoring for them to get access to those basics.
If monetary tokens could only be used for things beyond the basics, they may still have value, but you could no longer be able to exploit people nearly as hard with them.
No. Personal property is defined as something that an individual or family uses. Private property is any excess resource or tool that an individual or family cannot use themselves.
A literal palace probably couldn’t be reasonably justified as personal property, but for simplicity’s sake, most people who already own their home would be able to keep it, even if it’s large. However, it’s likely that the palace or mansion owners would then need to maintain those themselves if they wished for it to be just their own personal property, and they would likely find it very difficult to get others to maintain it for them without sharing it in some way.
John Jacobs and the Palace owner (if they eventually found it unmaintainable on their own) would both be able to join a building collective to contribute to the construction of a more reasonable a home they could then own. They would also have access to the guaranteed basic housing available to anyone (assuming enough had been constructed by that point).
It would be less valued, you say? In a society where transferring value for labor is no longer able to be performed by money, and so the only other options are social connections or barter?
That’s not even getting into questions like loaning jewelry out, social influence, etc etc etc.
Again, most people in the modern world are not short of basics, but of things they want. It doesn’t sap their ambition one bit. Only reduces their desperation.
Giving people their needs keeps them from murder, not manslaughter.
This is literally what you said:
Then private property is no longer easily identifiable by its effects on others, now private property is ‘excess’ personal property, and the question of ‘excess’ is returned to use; and use, as we have established, can be highly irregular but still regarded as valid. Which means we return to square one - under what circumstances can one differentiate between personal and movable private property beyond “simply a matter of those who are liked by the community are treated well, and those who are not extroverted are punished arbitrarily?”
Yes, that’s how clientistic systems begin in early state societies and feudal societies. It’s not pretty.
That’s not at all an answer to the question that I was asked. I reiterate:
"If John Jacobs is living in a little shack on the side of the river, and Malcolm Red is living in a palace a stone’s throw away, how is it moral for Malcolm to continue in that state of affairs?"