Oh, FFS. Ultimately, your entire argument boils down to “I’ve got mine” however you choose to define that for yourself.
2 Likes
Derailing a topic about a very cut and dried theft with nebulous abstract verbiage on the concept of theft? This is textbook Concern Trolling.
6 Likes
I make about $20/hour at work. My bike cost roughly $10,000.
If someone steals my bike, they haven’t just stolen an object. They stole the five hundred hours of life that I could have spent doing something better than working.
7 Likes
What actually stops the bike is a piece of string tied to the back. Is this an advert for string? Is Big String manipulating us? We may never know…
1 Like
That’s the American Dream right?
1 Like
I want to see Popobawa4u reply to this post, because it’s basically one of the best summaries in the thread.
3 Likes
You and I have very similar foundations on which we’ve built very different structures. I admire you for trying to opt out of all this, and I’m so glad not to be in your shoes. Best of luck!
I thought about that too. True that FEE might have a definite agenda, the article I referenced does cite its sources so it’s not just an opinion piece masquerading as research.
Like bike bike, or motorcycle?
1 Like
The bike is one of these:
The pushie is one of these:
Which, IIRC, cost $600 about a decade ago.
1 Like
OK, that sounds reasonable. I couldn’t grasp a $10k bicycle, even though I am sure they make them.
Le Tour is on the TV as I type. To those guys, a $10,000 bicycle is a cheap piece of tat. 
2 Likes
Yeah, but they are sponsored etc.
Good Idea. Will do.
2 Likes
Neither this article, nor the larger article in reason mentions the Dawes Act or allotment
This more detailed article
Kenneth H. Bobroff Retelling Allotment: Indian Property Rights and the Myth of Common Ownership 54 VANDERBILT LAW REVIEW :1559-1623
implies that this is quite the oversight.
Oh, OK. What @anon27007144 refers to as temporary ownership is closer to what I would call “use”. If there are community bicycles, you and I are presumably not going to be riding the same bike at the same time.
What I try to avoid about property is that it encourages a sense of entitlement by making resources into a personal problem. Many acknowledge that predatory practices they consider theft involve feelings of entitlement. But the same notion of consent as used here is also a form of entitlement. Strictly speaking, I think that people consent to an action, but that extending consent to cover the use of inanimate objects is wishful thinking.
The conversation about use that @anon27007144 refers to seems to be largely obviated by ownership as a form of more or less static resource allocation. Commerce and currency exchange seem to serve largely as ways to avoid actual negotiations with people. You approved of the working conditions because you took the paycheck! Since I paid for item X I have no social obligation to discuss how or when I use it! That simple symbolic deferment forces people into a game rather than encouraging them to communicate.
I do not deny that there are still challenges involved with community property, but people might also be glossing over the difficulties of acquiring and keeping personal property - practices which they have largely ritualized. Selling nearly identical things to each person, family, or household generates vastly more economic activity, which is the main reason why it is insisted upon by those who impose upon the structures of society. But it is also abysmally inefficient! It results in magnitudes more waste of resources, both material and personal labor/time.
That’s pretty much what I am critical of. The attachment to symbolic compensation seems to undermine the actual worth of your work! If what you did was worth doing, then accomplishing it was worth the effort. Also, implicit here is the assumption that without having the bike as personal property, you couldn’t use it. The commoditization of your labor is precisely what allows it to be stolen in the first place. When you do the work because it is socially useful, then you are also empowered in that it makes the power relationships more symmetrical, because being there for the task instead of the paycheck makes you more able to negotiate with your coworkers (or “employers”, if you must).
It’s not just Native Americans. I can think of two European countries off the top of my head (England and Sweden) who have at least a limited concept of common land still in place, mostly in regards to undeveloped land. Technically the land might be on someone’s deed, but if it’s under a certain category they’re not allowed to stop people travelling through it.
I remember a friend of mine had a camping pamphlet from Sweden which explained you could camp in a field without the owner’s permission, but not on a house’s “plot” (ie: immediate yard). There were extra rules about not making a mess, of course.
1 Like
Thank you
Personally, I was a lot more into communalism before I lived with someone whose life rationale was, “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine if I want it, and if you don’t like it you’re the one being selfish.” I had to beg and argue to get shoes and coats back from him, the only ones I had appropriate for the weather. He had his own, but borrowed mine once to go out and someone told him he looked cool, so I had to improvise and go without until he worried some of our friends might notice.
As mentioned upthread, fuck that noise. So long as there are people in this world with antisocial behaviour disorder or whatever they’re calling being a psychopath this week, it’s safer to at least have a few possessions.
5 Likes
Well, impressive then. I can’t say that I agree 100% with you though. When you’re on day 3 of not having eaten, the scarcity of resources is a pretty concrete concern, not so much the worry about the food you don’t have (and for those who’ve never experienced this it’s really weird as you actually get super hungry, then stop being hungry, and just get really tired).
There are certain base resources (water, shelter, food) that you need to “possess” in a certain sense to keep mind attached to body, but I’ll agree not to the greedy egoistic degree that is common in our society.
I’m guessing you’re relatively young and without kids as well? Don’t answer that if you feel it prying or invasive. I’m just going to add that being responsible for someone else’s well being makes seeking comfort and “security” a much higher priority than if you were responsible for just yourself.
While I don’t fundamentally agree with some of your philosophy (mainly the “why get paid for work”? which I’d turn around and ask why has communism always failed on a large scale. Hint: people suck, and animal natures win out in the end. Greed exists, and is a main motivator for humans sadly.), I can at least admire your striving for an ideal (though I may believe it to be unrealistic for anything other than individuals and very small communities).
1 Like
Oh, they do. My friend is a downhill mountain biking enthusiast. Shit’s expensive
