Why does investing in a resource justify ownership?
April 18, 2018 7:26 AM   Subscribe

Around the world, people believe that investing in a resource (e.g., pursuing or trapping an animal, planting a field, making a tool or object) means that you own. This is also the logic of Locke's Labor Theory of Property (a person comes to own a resource by investing labor in it). Do people have a sense of why people everywhere share this intuition?
posted by mrmanvir to Society & Culture (6 answers total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry for the late delete; it's not clear what answer people could give that makes this anything but chatfilter, basically asking people to spin just-so stories about this not-obvious premise. -- LobsterMitten

 
My labor has a cost - both opportunity cost and calorific. If i can't derive some benefit from that, why would I do it?
posted by JPD at 8:02 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


I believe the answer lies in when the rule is broken. Without ownership, does theft make any sense? Why is theft bad? I think if you answer why theft is bad, you will see why ownership is desired.
posted by rebent at 8:22 AM on April 18, 2018


I don't recall Locke's theory off the top of my head, but this strikes me as backward. Specifically, you don't invest in a resource unless you've secured ownership. Otherwise why bother? as JPD suggests.

Now, "securing ownership," that's a discussion that never ends.
posted by whuppy at 8:24 AM on April 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


That does seem to be a correct description of Locke's theory, and it seems consistent with an intuition that it rewards and induces productive labor.

But it's clearly inconsistent with modern law (at least in the U.S.), and I can't see it as workable or reasonable in a world where land is scarce. E.g., if a developer is in the process of raising capital to build a 700-unit apartment building on a vacant downtown lot, and I plant some wheat on the lot, or put in a putting green, does that mean 700 families now can't live there? Or if I live next door and plant a rose bush and enjoy the view, should that preclude a more productive use?

And is there any evidence that people around the world hold that belief?
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:33 AM on April 18, 2018


For example, one way to secure ownership is via adverse possession, which tracks with your question pretty precisely. I.e. you eventually get to own something via your effort and the original owner's neglect. But that's just one small corner of the vast concept of property.
posted by whuppy at 8:34 AM on April 18, 2018


Response by poster: Re: around the world, you see this principle mentioned in ethnographies of hunter-gatherers and other small-scale societies around the world, including Inuits, Semai of Malay Peninsula, Mataco of Gran Chaco, Maori of NZ, Naskapi of sub-arctic Canada. This is from the ethnography of the Andaman Islanders:

A pig belongs to the man whose arrow first strikes it, though if the arrow merely glanced off and did not remain in the wound it would not give any claim to ownership. A turtle or a dugong or big fish belongs to the man who throws the harpoon with which it is taken. A honeycomb belongs to the man who climbs the tree and cuts it down. The fish that a man shoots belong to him, and to a woman belong the roots she digs up, the seeds that she collects, the fish or prawns that she takes in her net or the molluscs that she brings from the reefs.

@whuppy, this seems a standard for awarding ownership in the first place. There are resources unclaimed out in the world and communities observe (and enforce) some degree of exclusive use for individuals who invest in procuring the resource or developing it. Your second point shows that they even transfer resources based on this logic.

@JPD, animals seem not to enforce this principle, and plenty of individuals still pursue in capturing resources (they just then spend a lot of energy on defending them).
posted by mrmanvir at 8:51 AM on April 18, 2018


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