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- Newsgroups: sci.environment
- Path: sparky!uunet!psinntp!wrldlnk!usenet
- From: "Michael Smith" <p00004@psilink.com>
- Subject: Sheep *not* in organizations
- In-Reply-To: <1992Dec28.165101.161@vexcel.com>
- Message-ID: <2934652461.0.p00004@psilink.com>
- Sender: usenet@worldlink.com
- Nntp-Posting-Host: 127.0.0.1
- Organization: Performance Systems Int'l
- Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 21:33:10 GMT
- X-Mailer: PSILink-DOS (3.3)
- Lines: 24
-
- >DATE: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 16:51:01 GMT
- >FROM: Dean Alaska <dean@vexcel.com>
- > Both
- >Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin believed that private property was the
- >creation of the state [....]
-
- And of course they were right. What never ceases to amaze me is the
- number of posters in this group -- intelligent people, presumably, and
- well-educated by North American standards -- who continue to hold an
- uncritical, ahistorical, transcendental notion of "property" and use it
- as a shibboleth in policy discussions.
-
- Not only is "property" the creation of politics, but the notion has, of
- course, evolved through history. At one time, you could have property
- rights in another person. These cherished rights were, of course,
- brutally abrogated by an unfeeling Gummint some years ago in the US; a
- blatant example of "taking" without compensation.
-
- Unless history really is over, and the suburban Sunbelt is the highest
- destiny of humankind, we can expect the concept of property rights to
- be further limited as new social goods are defined and appreciated.
- Sounds like progress to me.
-
- --Michael Smith
-