The background of the question is a kind of genealogy of ownership. Is it innate? Is it a resident of certain types of culture? If it's cultural, what kind of culture reinforces the idea. In what kind of culture does ownership become a ghost? — frank

In my experience with children, you have to teach them to share and the definately know what "Mine!" means.

The type of culture where ownership becomes a ghost is not one that exists or ever has. Even a fully Marxist society wouldn't actually suggest that I can pull food out of your mouth or take your shirt off your back. And what do you make of ownership of your own body? Do I have the right to do as I will of others without seeking their agreement, and if we should permit that allowance, why not allow it as to other physical items?

In my experience with children, you have to teach them to share and the definately know what "Mine!" means. — Hanover

Then what's the origin of sharing? Is that also innate, or is it an adaptation to circumstances?

I think this is possible with groups small enough to everyone, on average, is aware of everyone else, in some either direct or minimally indirect way. Say groups up to 5000 or so.

You could, pursuant to another thread here this morning, elicit 'good faith' and collectively deal with 'bad faith' essentially as it arises. THe distribution of 'goods' wouldn't matter much until everyone was bored.

However, this is the story of humanity writ small. We're beyond it. We did this, a few thousand times, got bored and pooled further - now we're a 'global' society unable to even consider this type of carry-on. Rightly, imo. But there's no good justification - just an opinion.

making a great point there. What would 'ownership' relate to, in such a world? Would bodily autonomy matter? What about rearing children? Are we morally able to retain items for that purpose? Hm.

And what do you make of ownership of your own body? — Hanover

There is a notion that simply wouldn't occur to anyone who isn't immersed in ownership culture. Nor would the idea of taking food from a community member's mouth - unless he's choking or you have reason to believe it's unsafe.

Children are naturally possessive of their favourite personal things - a few toys and articles of clothing, but they're just as eager to share if they think of a suitable activity. Even quite young babies will offer you their slightly chewed cookie or some colourful thing they find on the floor.
They don't claim the house or yard or home furnishings as their property, because those things are familial domain, but when they get a little older, they like to stake a territory around their bed. (Now, in prosperous countries where they see the parents having special territories; in other times and places, they might well all be in the same bed, and that would be normal.) If two or more children share a room, after the first few disputes, they usually negotiate the borders, unless one is bully.
You can encourage sharing and generous behaviour by showing appreciation for their gifts from the very beginning, by returning things they're attached to, and by offering them something of yours, in trade, to borrow or to keep. I don't mean gifts meant for them, I mean your own stuff that you see them wishing for.

No one owns anything. Everything that's produced is pooled and shared. — frank

Isn’t the idea of communal ownership a counter to individual ownership? It’s not a counter to ownership.

If everything is pooled and shared, ownership is claimed by the poolers so they can share those things with everyone.

In other words, the debate between communism and capitalism isn’t a debate about ownership, it’s a debate about who are the owners. People still claim ownership over the resources and fruits of labors, they just either claim it as an individual or by committee.

I don’t see how personal property can possibly be avoided. If I pick ten apples and bring them to the pool of ten people, and we communally share them, each of us get one apple each. Now that the pooling and equal sharing is done, each person has one apple. Must not that one apple now belong to each person as their personal property? Who else but the individual is now accountable for whatever happens to that apple? It’s theirs now. No one else’s.

Over time, pooling everything and distributing everything equally, you will get people who conserve and people who don’t. So you would have to pool everything everyday all anew to keep the community equal. Or never give anyone anything that they can take out of the rest of the community’s sight, where they could conserve it, amass it, etc.

n other words, the debate between communism and capitalism isn’t a debate about ownership, it’s a debate about who are the owners. — Fire Ologist

I knew that if this thread went long enough, someone would comment on that. :grin: I wasn't proposing a debate between communism and capitalism. History already settled that debate.

I think this is possible with groups small enough to everyone, on average, is aware of everyone else, in some either direct or minimally indirect way. Say groups up to 5000 or so.

You could, pursuant to another thread here this morning, elicit 'good faith' and collectively deal with 'bad faith' essentially as it arises. THe distribution of 'goods' wouldn't matter much until everyone was bored. — AmadeusD

But what about some science fiction future where there is no shortage of goods. Would boredom intrude there as well?

Got it.

So if everything is pooled and shared, how is that an example of no one owns anything? What happens to things after they are pooled and shared? Aren’t they then still owned, now personally, after the sharing?

Aren’t they then still owned, now personally, after the sharing? — Fire Ologist

1. Imagine a possible world W where there is no concept of ownership.
2. Let's say that in this world there's no way to say "my wife," but there is a word-whisker you can add to indicate that a certain woman is special to you (apparently there is a Native American language that is like this.)
3. So outside this possible world, you might claim that the word-whisker indicates ownership, but inside the world, they wouldn't know what you're talking about.

Is world W possible?

1. Imagine a possible world W where there is no concept of ownership. — frank

This means, we live in a world drenched and submerged in the concept and practice of ownership. From here, soaking wet, we have to imagine a possible world where there is no practice, not even a concept, of ownership.

I can’t do it. Tried. Too wet.

John Locke defined personal property as one’s own body first as a counter to the concept that our bodies are subjects of the king. He said all have a right to property, that property being their personal selves/bodies and the fruits of their own labors. This was a counter to slavery - no one can own another person.

I agree I not only have a right, but an unavoidable relationship to my own body. And to say this sentence I said my “own” body.

To skip to the end, in order to imagine a world where there is no concept of ownership, I’d have to imagine a world where there is no concept my own, or no concept of me.

Can’t bring myself to see myself as not myself. Similarly, saying all things are pooled and shared doesn’t eliminate ownership, property, and personal property.

OK :up:

Problem solved.

Problem solved. — Fire Ologist

Yea, I was just pondering the origin of the concept of ownership. I suppose it's somewhere in mammal evolution. Not sure where.

Physical individuation.
In humans becomes identity formation.
Which becomes a “mine” by the time anyone can speak.

Maybe.

I think we have to resist and overcome the concept of ownership when we get old enough to provide for others and give away ourselves and the things we labor over. Charity, giving to others what is owned by me, is a more realistic goal to temper the inequities of ownership, not communal pooling and sharing (which is bound to simply move inequity and ownership around as opposed to eliminate it).

There is a notion that simply wouldn't occur to anyone who isn't immersed in ownership culture. Nor would the idea of taking food from a community member's mouth - unless he's choking or you have reason to believe it's unsafe. — Vera Mont

What is immoral about taking food from your mouth if I'm hungry unless you have some right to ownership of that food just because it's in your mouth? This just sounds like you're arriving at rules for when ownership is obviously valid and then arguing that no one would ever violate that rule because it's just so obvious.

I say the same thing applies to my house and all the belongings in it. You don't have any more right to take the food out of my mouth as you do to enter my home and sort through my belongings. And of course there are exceptions to these rules, as we live in a complex society, but those rules revolve around property rights and how they are to be administered. They don't suggest a dissolution of property rights.

But all this smacks of a naive Marxism, a sort no one really takes seriously, where we declare that ownership of property is the cause of all evil and that if we'd just dispense with it, people would live in a utopian harmony.

The society we live in holds that one's right to one's own body is so sacred that if another invades it, he will lose his liberty and be removed from society. It also holds that if you invade my dwelling, you may be met rightfully with deadly force. These are not archaic rules held by a primitive people. These are rules that simply respect your right to freely possess and live within the material world with your material possessions.

Children are naturally possessive of their favourite personal things - a few toys and articles of clothing, but they're just as eager to share if they think of a suitable activity. Even quite young babies will offer you their slightly chewed cookie or some colourful thing they find on the floor. — Vera Mont

You can encourage sharing and generous behaviour by showing appreciation for their gifts from the very beginning, by returning things they're attached to, and by offering them something of yours, in trade, to borrow or to keep. I don't mean gifts meant for them, I mean your own stuff that you see them wishing for. — Vera Mont

You can teach anything to a child. You can teach her to share, to love, to hate, and to injure. They are quite the sponges. I don't know of many children though who resist being given everything they desire, as if a child in the candy store complains things are given to him. By the same token, it's the rare child that would never want to share and never want to create a sense of kinship between herself and others.

You did use the term "familial" in your post, and here I used "kinship," both recognizing that sharing has something to do with those closest to you, particularly within your own family unit. You see sharing at its greatest within families, particularly mothers caring for their young. The idea that expanding the family dynamic to those outside the family into the community at large seems neither possible or even preferable.

Competition among societal members has its benefits, but that's not a suggestion that Darwinism should fully dominate society. It's just to say there is a place for worrying about yourself on the one hand and worrying about the commons on the other. It's not an all or nothing proposition.

What is immoral about taking food from your mouth if I'm hungry unless you have some right to ownership of that food just because it's in your mouth? — Hanover

It's not a question of morality. It's unhygienic, rude and icky. Why would you even think of such an act, unless you're a baby bird?

This just sounds like you're arriving at rules for when ownership is obviously valid and then arguing that no one would ever violate that rule because it's just so obvious. — Hanover

To an extent, it is. Stretching the notion of 'property' to include one's body and its contents is somewhat absurd on the face of it. There are better words than 'ownership' for physical integrity, personal space and autonomy.

I say the same thing applies to my house and all the belongings in it. — Hanover

I included clothes and shelter, as well as tools and personal items and transport in my original exceptions. I don't see anything to be gained by going over it again.

But all this smacks of a naive Marxism, a sort no one really takes seriously, where we declare that ownership of property is the cause of all evil and that if we'd just dispense with it, people would live in a utopian harmony. — Hanover

No, people would never be that good, and less complex, screwed-up societies find ways to deal with the vagaries of human behaviour and relations. However, property as class distinction, property as power, property as weapon and in particular the jealous hoarding of property do cause a great of the complication and madness of our present societies.

The idea that expanding the family dynamic to those outside the family into the community at large seems neither possible or even preferable. — Hanover

It works for a lot of people. If you can't or won't imagine it, you can't.

This means, we live in a world drenched and submerged in the concept and practice of ownership. From here, soaking wet, we have to imagine a possible world where there is no practice, not even a concept, of ownership. — Fire Ologist

Why did you quote me?

I am physically trying to imagine a society of people where there is no concept of ownership. The best I can do is imagine a society of naked people who live on an island where cheeseburgers and soy milk grow on trees, and there are warmly lit caves everywhere to sleep in peacefully, no concept of work or labor, no concept of privation or awareness of satisfaction, so no concept of need or want so that one might invent the concept of labor to obtain the need or want or the concept of possessing the object of need or want.

Otherwise, show me how you could make any commune where no one has a concept of ownership. Can anyone imagine it?

Just saying “Imagine no concept of ownership, where everyone shares everything” creates no clear picture to me, other than fantasy world, or chaos, and an immediate need for ownership to regulate resources.

Communal ownership takes individual decisions out of ownership, but it doesn’t take away ownership. It just creates a committee and voting process behind every allocation of resources. I can imagine that easy. It’s communism. We don’t have to imagine that. But it’s not a world where there is no concept of ownership or a world where everything is shared.

Why did you quote me? — Fire Ologist

Because what you wrote seemed appropriate - not to mention eloquent.

Otherwise, show me how you could make any commune where no one has a concept of ownership. Can anyone imagine it? — Fire Ologist

Probably not. But there is a whole range of conditions, attitudes and social arrangements between. I don't generally rush to the extremes, so I can imagine some states of affairs where property is not an issue, and yet people have physical and emotional integrity, autonomy, personal possessions and amicable relations.

Just saying “Imagine no concept of ownership, where everyone shares everything” creates no clear picture to me, — Fire Ologist

It's not a clear picture. It's not necessary to articulate a concept of ownership to feel possessive about some things and for other people to empathize with that feeling. It doesn't need to be an issue. those people can still share their land, labour, food and resources.
We have a semantic problem with the word 'ownership' and the various concepts of property and sharing. We're not imagining the same, or even perhaps a similar, world.

It’s communism. We don’t have to imagine that. — Fire Ologist

Yes, we do have to imagine it, because we don't know any real life examples, only grotesque travesties and caricatures.

Imagine some world of the future where people are picking up the pieces from some cataclysm and they develop a collective. No one owns anything. Everything that's produced is pooled and shared. — frank

Trying.

It’s communism. We don’t have to imagine that. — Fire Ologist

I can imagine some states of affairs where property is not an issue, and yet people have physical and emotional integrity, autonomy, personal possessions and amicable relations — Vera Mont

Good example. That’s a realistic conception of communism. No ownership, the theory or imagination, applicable in reality.

Yes, we do have to imagine it, because we don't know any real life examples, only grotesque travesties and caricatures. — Vera Mont

I agree, the real life examples of communism, certainly all of the ones on a large scale, have failed. But I believe there have been smaller groups who lived in a close knit and communal fashion who could imagine a realistic goal “where property is not an issue, and yet people have physical and emotional integrity, autonomy, personal possessions and amicable relations.” That’s as close as I can get to the OP notion of “no ownership.”

But absolutely “no” ownership? Seems impossible to imagine.

You (Vera at least) admit “personal possessions” are part of the picture. Which is the right admission from my view. Maybe such property is “not an issue” (which is also fine), but all I was saying is the fact you included personal possessions in the picture sort of justifies my simple point that I can’t imagine a world where there is no ownership, no possessions. You imagined a realistic world where possession was not coveted, and shared freely, and received gratefully, etc. But possession is still an integral part of this world. No one can share what they don’t possess; no one can borrow someone’s shoes, for instance, in a world without any ownership. No one can demand an equal share of what belongs to the community except when demanding it from the community, who possesses and own it.

I guess it’s a small point.

Trying — Fire Ologist

That's cool. If you can't conceive of it, I imagine it's because you're investing the idea with essential features of thought or the nature of animals. If someone can conceive it, they must be limiting the concept to... what? I guess the ways we deal with selfishness and conflict, so if you imagine a world with a strong emphasis on the group identity over individuality, ownership might become an alien idea.

For example, in Russia after the fall of the USSR, there was a factory where the owners wanted to lay off part of the labor force. Laying people off is an exercise of property rights, and the workers weren't up to speed on how that works. They thought the factory was a feature of the community and so they refused to leave it. This is how a society that emphasizes sharing is.

I agree, the real life examples of communism, certainly all of the ones on a large scale, have failed. — Fire Ologist

It's never been tried. Sticking a caviar label on a sardine can doesn't make the contents caviar. Even the Russian revolution was partly fake in its inception and largely fake in its revised history.
The regime that followed it (just as in China) was very stratified indeed; elitist, dictatorial and mendacious. Some half-assed attempts at socialist institutions did relieve the working people of the worst abuses of the feudal system, but it was nothing like communism.

But I believe there have been smaller groups who lived in a close knit and communal fashion who could imagine a realistic goal “where property is not an issue, and yet people have physical and emotional integrity, autonomy, personal possessions and amicable relations.” — Fire Ologist

Sure. Monastic orders spring to mind. And many intentional communities based on the principle of pooling and sharing resources and labour. They're usually not ideological or political, so they work out a viable interface with the larger society in which they operate.

But absolutely “no” ownership? Seems impossible to imagine. — Fire Ologist

It's impossible for some people to get over the word as it is tossed about in an intensively monetarist society and substitute more specific terms for belonging. The examples of owning one's body and owning one's spouse are especially repugnant, as they refer to relationships that are not - or should not be - equated with property. Nor is the food on one's table and the shirt on one's back or a faithful canine companion property in the same sense as a 2000 hectare ranch and 20,000 beef cattle.

Modern commercial ownership is an altogether perverse arrangement and we are, indeed, steeped in this culture to such an extent as to cripple our very imagination to the possibility of a healthy social organization. In order to consider alternatives, we also need more nuanced language to describe them.

Obviously. Not sure what the inference is though so apologise for the stark reply lol

But absolutely “no” ownership? Seems impossible to imagine.
— Fire Ologist
It's impossible for some people — Vera Mont

Have you known anyone who could describe a coherent picture of a society of people where there is no ownership?

I haven’t seen it on this thread for instance.

What does a community look like where there is no ownership of anything?

Does everyone have a share of everything, or no one have a share in anything?

Who is in trouble when someone forgets to take the trash out? Anyone given ownership of failed trash duty?

Even if a society doesn't have ownership between members of the society, it would still declare ownership against other societies.

Even if a society doesn't have ownership between members of the society, it would still declare ownership against other societies. — LuckyR

This occurred to me as well. A society without the concept of ownership would have to be stranded and alone (like the original Berbers) or a global entity (or galactic as the case may be.)

Have you known anyone who could describe a coherent picture of a society of people where there is no ownership? — Fire Ologist

There was a Hungarian writer back in the 1930's. The book is called Kazohinia.
But that doesn't matter.

Does everyone have a share of everything, or no one have a share in anything? — Fire Ologist

Everyone has a share in the resources and the territory. Everyone contributes labour to the common welfare and takes care of the young, the old and the frail. Everyone respects one another's personal space - if you want to imagine 'owning' air, go ahead - and privacy, and nobody snatches food out of anyone's mouth. Nobody pulls the blanket off anyone else when they're sleeping, but if they have a spare blanket and another person is cold, they give him the extra.
It's not that hard a concept.

Who is in trouble when someone forgets to take the trash out? Anyone given ownership of failed trash duty? — Fire Ologist

What's that got to do with ownership of the trash? Anyway, there wouldn't be a lot of waste in a property-free society.

As I said before, that 'absolutely' is a nitpick you can cling to if you're determined to avoid the idea of a communist society.

that 'absolutely' is a nitpick you can cling to if you're determined to avoid the idea of a communist society. — Vera Mont

I don’t see it as a bit-pick. It’s a massive game changer. If there is any ownership (which I can’t see avoiding) then there is no need or possibility of imagining a world where there is no concept of ownership (which the OP asks). Further if we admit some ownership, we have to address all that would follow, such as ownership disputes, selfishness, accounting for those who share more than others, etc, etc. It becomes the same world we have today just maybe with disputes over socks and whose trash is piling up over there, instead of percentage of owner profits and whose war has to be cleaned up. (And I’m sure there are people who would go to war over socks.). But any ownership (which I see as unavoidable) refutes the possibility of true communism as an economic and political structure.

But I’ll check out Kazohinia.

And I do think that if people were more charitable, sacrificed their personal wants more for the good of others, were more compassionate and less selfish, greedy and proud, the society would look more communal and communist. I don’t resist communism. The utopian vision is a good one. I just don’t see it happening as a political or economic structure - instead it would have to be a daily, voluntary effort involving daily sacrifice for the good of others - otherwise if a communistic lifestyle had to be imposed from above, it would only be oppression and additional suffering and less equality and less access to all of the things that are supposed to be shared. Ownership will never go away. We all need to be more responsible for others using the the things we own.

I don’t see it as a bit-pick. It’s a massive game changer. If there is any ownership (which I can’t see avoiding) then there is no need or possibility of imagining a world where there is no concept of ownership (which the OP asks). — Fire Ologist

OK. They should have avoided the word 'concept' and been more specific.

Further if we admit some ownership, we have to address all that would follow, such as ownership disputes, selfishness, accounting for those who share more than others, etc, etc. — Fire Ologist

People managed to work all of that out among themselves for at least 50,000 years.

It becomes the same world we have today just maybe with disputes over socks and whose trash is piling up over there, instead of percentage of owner profits and whose war has to be cleaned up. — Fire Ologist

That kind of social dysfunction is not due having our own homes and clothes; that's due to very bad social organization.

But any ownership (which I see as unavoidable) refutes the possibility of true communism as an economic and political structure. — Fire Ologist

"True communism" is one of those loaded phrases. People can and do live in communal arrangements of sharing with and caring for one another. If that's false communism, fine.

And I do think that if people were more charitable, sacrificed their personal wants more for the good of others, were more compassionate and less selfish, greedy and proud, the society would look more communal and communist. — Fire Ologist

There's some tail-chasing! How, in a monetized, competitive, profit-driven society, where, if you don't hustle, you end up living in the street and having police clear out your encampment on a regular basis, because the sight of have-nots upsets the haves, are children supposed to learn unselfishness?

The utopian vision is a good one. I just don’t see it happening as a political or economic structure - instead it would have to be a daily, voluntary effort involving daily sacrifice for the good of others - otherwise if a communistic lifestyle had to be imposed from above, it would only be oppression and additional suffering and less equality and less access to all of the things that are supposed to be shared. — Fire Ologist

No imposed political or economic is sustainable. The capitalist lifestyle has survived as long as it has because the people in it - including those who get the least share - were convinced that it's the correct way to live. There is no need for daily sacrifice if the resources are not owned and controlled by a privileged few while the undervalued many do all the work.

Ownership will never go away. — Fire Ologist

Maybe not, but sure will change after the present civilization collapses.

How, in a monetized, competitive, profit-driven society, where, if you don't hustle, you end up living in the street and having police clear out your encampment on a regular basis, because the sight of have-nots upsets the haves, are children supposed to learn unselfishness? — Vera Mont

The same way they would in a communal society.

You don’t think anyone can learn of unselfishness in any society?

You don’t think anyone can learn of unselfishness in any society? — Fire Ologist

Any one, given the right temperament, an optimal home environment and excellent guidance can be unselfish relative to his peers, but he can't influence the society.