I don't think so. I'm absolutely certain that one cannot make the argument that this is stolen land while happily remaining on it and owning it and building a life on it. Either behave as if it's stolen land (leave) or don't (stop making land acknowledgements). As usual, progressives maximize their performativity while minimizing their own responsibility and sacrifice.
I suspect that no one really believes that this is stolen land. This is just a useful framing to twist the minds of young students and erode confidence in and satisfaction with Western civilization.
All of these arguments presuppose that any person can *actually own* land and that land "ownership" can be transferred per stirpes. Land ownership is an artificial social construct, so propositions about who "actually" owns land cannot be evaluated as objectively true or false, only as consistent or inconsistent with social norms (some, but not all, of which are embodied in legal statutes). Unlike natural laws in the sciences, social norms and laws differ across cultures and time. People readily confuse social rules with natural law, leading them to mistakenly think that questions like "actual ownership" can be resolved by observation and rational argument, just like we can resolve the actual properties of different chemical elements.
Henry George had a better analysis based on equal rights to land and natural resources. This Roman theory of property by mere appropriation means future generations are locked out.
"Future generations are locked out" only applies if land is scarce. If it is scarce, it must be allocated. Every allocation method favors some and locks out others.
That is not unique to Georgism and says nothing about the superiority of Georgism.
If one believes in equal rights to share in an estate one rents it out to the highest bidders and distributes the rents equally among the beneficiaries just like a deceased estate.
I have several problems with Georgism the theory. I have one pet peeve with Georgists: they have no common definition, theory, explanation, or description of Georgism. Ask a dozen Georgists a question, get a hundred different incomprehensible and conflicting answers.
Again: what do your comments have to do with Georgism?
The problem of ensuring equal inter and intra-generational rights to land and resources was a matter of debate between Herbert Spencer and Henry George. The feudal system of paying rent for tenure to be applied to the common expenses was a case. It seems not unfair that those who "own" a country should pay for the costs of running it.
In the case of the watch, what if Jones' ancestor stole it from a thief, who stole it from a thief, who stole it from someone we can't identify because no one kept any records until Jones, and who was probably the ancestor of one of the later thieves, though the later thieves may not have known they were taking back what their ancestors had lost?
That is the case of the land in America, and approximately all other land in the world. It has been a long sequence of one violent displacement after another, since prehistoric times. We have no idea who originally owned it so the best we can do is say "All of that historical and prehistorical taking was bad, let's not do that any more".
That said, it does seem just to compensate Native Americans in some small ways for the centuries of oppression that succeeded the taking, the many broken treaties and promises by our allegedly civilized and moral forebears. Not large sums of money, but small, focused aids, maybe free university education and similar. Also, it seems right to grant Native Americans a greater level of respect than we do. Other countries have shown us how to do this.
No, it's a lie to confess to crimes I did not commit against people who themselves are as much criminal themselves for the same crimes they claim their ancestors were victims of.
On the same principles of who committed actions against whom. I committed no criminal actions against anyone and nobody is a victim of my conduct, ergo no compensate should be made to anyone to which I must pay, indirectly or directly.
This doesn't work with regard to US land because it assumes the 'European' model of personal property rights that are passed on to individuals' heirs only in a strict familial succession line. Indians, regardless of how many times one tribe stole/conquered land from another tribe, did not have a the land split into individual pieces over which individuals had personal title. The tribe collectively owned the land and being a member of the tribe implied a part-ownership for (non-exclusive) use. It's in any case probably safe to say that the ancestors of current native americans had their collective lands 'stolen' from them. It's equally safe to say there is no way to unravel current ownership back to current native americans in any fair or sensible way, that isn't simply going to create a bunch of new injustices rather than undo a bunch of past injustices.
That's not true. Nomadic tribes certainly understand property in the form of horses, dogs, teepees, and so on. Some marked arrows so they could tell who owned a hunt kill. Comanches at least, and probably all nomadic tribes, also understood that kills rotted pretty quickly, and any hunter who did not share his kill would have it taken from him and distributed; they understood it was his kill and his to distribute, but he had to distribute it, and if he did not, they would distribute it by force. That is not a denial of property.
Stationary tribes, whether permanent or between nomadic wanderings, also knew and respected property rights in plantings.
So-called community property is an oxymoron, just another form of collectivism which relies on some strongman to decide who is a member of the tribe. There have been lawsuits over who gets a share of casino profits, for example. Full-blooded? Half-breed? Zero-blooded spouse? Someone who, as a full-blooded member, moved off the reservation and was denied membership on return a few years later?
I know there was a property concept for things, which is why I mentioned land. For nomadic societies the concept of land ownership is very different. As you mentioned, once settlement included farming, and eventually fixed houses, then land property would naturally follow. In any case as I said, it's not something that can be unravelled so no point discussing it.
The easiest way to resolve this issue is to abandon abstract moralism and argue from facts. The facts being the strong have ever done what they willed and the weak have ever suffered what they must. Anything else is simply special interest pleading (I.E a way for the weak to gain strength through subterfuge rather than brute force.)
The really crazy thing is that the people pushing the "stolen land" narrative, for the most part, don't even believe in inheritance. If indigenous Americans had owned all of North America as of 1800 and leftists had had their way, it all would have been taxed away within a few generations anyway.
And then there is the problem that Indians went to war against each other and took land from one another. So the problem becomes which tribe has the legitimate claim and how can you tell? Custer had Blackfeet scouts because. the Sioux were fighting the Blackfeet. They also took land from the Cheyenne and the Wyomings before making alliances with them. Indians were fighting other Indians long before the whiteman arrived.
The present-day ethnic Indian will claim that his tribe owned a certain region *collectively*, and that this collective property right is retained by the tribe, consisting now in all descendants of former members (plus naturalized—adopted—members).
(Can the tribe strip members of their membership? Is *partial* descent sufficient—1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/n? Might it be not the tribe but some sub-tribal group—extended family or whatever—that really exercised collective ownership; or might some super-tribal group—tribal federation—be the true collective owner? Might some sort of “statute of limitations” apply?)
“Indians” had no concept of property rights. Nobody “owned” anything. “Returning” is irrational. Return to whom? Me, a 1/16, card-carrying Cherokee? Please do!
False. They understood very well what property was in at least some aspects. The only skepticism I know of is whether they understood they were selling exclusive and permanent access, or just temporary non-exclusive access, and I suspect that depended more on translators and guile than any concept of property.
They knew who had planted fields and owned the crops.
They knew who had killed game.
They knew who owned homes, clothes, weapons, and other property.
Damn Indians just making people feel bad!!! I can see you’re really sick of it. Can’t pull the wool over your eyes. Those stupid, libtard Indians! Shame on those Indians!! They knew exactly what Western, liberal property rights were. They read Locke! The Loved Paine! They read Hobbs! They loved Aristotle!
You said: “Indians” had no concept of property rights. Nobody “owned” anything.
I said they did indeed recognize the basic concept of "property" and did indeed own things.
And your response is to throw in Locke et al? Buddy, I'll let you in on a little secret: the concept of "property" predates those western philosophers. It existed long long ago, and not just in humans.
"If you take a walk through the countryside, from Indonesia to Peru, and you walk by field after field -- in each field a different dog is going to bark at you. Even dogs know what private property is all about. The only one who does not know it is the government." -- Hernando de Soto
I know – we’re all just trying to curl up with a warm cup of tea while we each get back to the good old days where a good dog will guard the property that he “knows” belongs to him. People like me just complicate matters.
Another knowitall who has nothing to rebut and resorts to insults and hyperbole.
You said Indians had no concept of property. I provided examples showing they did and that property as a concept is so innate that even animals know the concept. You resorted to insults.
Try an actual rebuttal. Try saying something useful.
Assume a tribe lives as hunter-gatherers and ranges over thousands of acres. They don’t settle in one place for long, mark boundaries, or make lasting improvements to any particular parcel—at least not in the way modern property law recognizes.
Now imagine a pioneer arrives, stakes out a small portion, builds a house, clears fields, and intends to stay permanently.
Two questions follow:
Should the tribe be considered the “owner” of the entire territory it traverses?
If not, did the pioneer “steal” the land—or did he claim land that was previously unowned in the relevant sense?
The problem in "Israel/Palestine" doesn't really have to do with stealing. Jews and Jewish organizations bought land from its legal owners over the course of several decades, and Jews came to form a majority in the portion of Mandate Palestine that the 1947 UN Partition plan designated to be a Jewish state, and Arabs formed a majority the portion designated to be an Arab state. Seems like basic right of distinct peoples to self-determination should have followed UN vote in 1947, maybe with some minor real estate disputes.
Of course the problem was, as Einat Wilf describes in great detail in her book "The War of Return" (highly recommended) that while the top priority of the Jews/nascent Israelis was to have sovereignty over their own population, it was *not* a priority for the Arabs that the Arab population of Mandate Palestine should have a sovereign state (many, including the Mufti of Jerusalem, thought the entire region should be part of Syria; even Rashid Khalidi admits that the concept of a Palestinian Arab identity was not widely developed at that time).
For the past 100-plus years, the top priority of the majority of Arabs and their dominant leaders, within the Ottoman Empire, Mandate Palestine, and the multiple surrounding Arab countries, was that the Jews not be allowed to have sovereignty in an amount of that land. And unfortunately when those rare Arab leaders have come along who were willing to peacefully coexist alongside a sovereign Jewish state, they were intimidated into submission or even assassinated by the hardliners (the original King Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat, the Nashashibi family within Palestine, etc). The most dangerous thing an Arab leader can do is to say they will make peace with Israel--even MBS in Saudi Arabia remains afraid although he would like to.
This is the (actually very simple) reason that what should have been a minor real estate dispute instead became an intractable generations-long bloodbath. The Arab/Palestinian side insists that Israel cease to exist, and Israel refuses to cease existing.
Now THAT, for sure, is stolen land. They're still working out who is the thief and who the thieved.
P.S. I see that the potential benefit to Israel (and the severe blow to, um, "anti-Iraelists") of a successful overthrow of the Islamic Republic in Iran is now gaining acceptance as the reason for the news blackout of the uprising by Western media over the last 3 weeks. Could well be true. What's the professor have to say on this...?
The silence of both journalists and so-called social justice warriors regarding the Iranian people’s attempt to oust a brutally repressive regime indeed speaks volumes about their character and motivation.
I don't think so. I'm absolutely certain that one cannot make the argument that this is stolen land while happily remaining on it and owning it and building a life on it. Either behave as if it's stolen land (leave) or don't (stop making land acknowledgements). As usual, progressives maximize their performativity while minimizing their own responsibility and sacrifice.
I suspect that no one really believes that this is stolen land. This is just a useful framing to twist the minds of young students and erode confidence in and satisfaction with Western civilization.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/the-ignoble-savage
Your linked article is good. Have you read "War Before Civilization"?
Directionally, I generally agree, but it’s a little more complicated here in the 4th iteration of human civilization on a finite-scale planet
All of these arguments presuppose that any person can *actually own* land and that land "ownership" can be transferred per stirpes. Land ownership is an artificial social construct, so propositions about who "actually" owns land cannot be evaluated as objectively true or false, only as consistent or inconsistent with social norms (some, but not all, of which are embodied in legal statutes). Unlike natural laws in the sciences, social norms and laws differ across cultures and time. People readily confuse social rules with natural law, leading them to mistakenly think that questions like "actual ownership" can be resolved by observation and rational argument, just like we can resolve the actual properties of different chemical elements.
I think Noah Smith had a better take on this in The Free Press:
https://www.thefp.com/p/no-you-are-not-on-indigenous-land?utm_source=publication-search
Henry George had a better analysis based on equal rights to land and natural resources. This Roman theory of property by mere appropriation means future generations are locked out.
"Future generations are locked out" only applies if land is scarce. If it is scarce, it must be allocated. Every allocation method favors some and locks out others.
That is not unique to Georgism and says nothing about the superiority of Georgism.
If one believes in equal rights to share in an estate one rents it out to the highest bidders and distributes the rents equally among the beneficiaries just like a deceased estate.
What does that have to do with Georgism?
Equal intergenerational rights are violated if land is allocated once off as freehold- future generations are not present at the first allocation.
Again! What does this have to do with Georgism?
I have several problems with Georgism the theory. I have one pet peeve with Georgists: they have no common definition, theory, explanation, or description of Georgism. Ask a dozen Georgists a question, get a hundred different incomprehensible and conflicting answers.
Again: what do your comments have to do with Georgism?
The problem of ensuring equal inter and intra-generational rights to land and resources was a matter of debate between Herbert Spencer and Henry George. The feudal system of paying rent for tenure to be applied to the common expenses was a case. It seems not unfair that those who "own" a country should pay for the costs of running it.
In the case of the watch, what if Jones' ancestor stole it from a thief, who stole it from a thief, who stole it from someone we can't identify because no one kept any records until Jones, and who was probably the ancestor of one of the later thieves, though the later thieves may not have known they were taking back what their ancestors had lost?
That is the case of the land in America, and approximately all other land in the world. It has been a long sequence of one violent displacement after another, since prehistoric times. We have no idea who originally owned it so the best we can do is say "All of that historical and prehistorical taking was bad, let's not do that any more".
That said, it does seem just to compensate Native Americans in some small ways for the centuries of oppression that succeeded the taking, the many broken treaties and promises by our allegedly civilized and moral forebears. Not large sums of money, but small, focused aids, maybe free university education and similar. Also, it seems right to grant Native Americans a greater level of respect than we do. Other countries have shown us how to do this.
I was with you up until the reparations. That is rewarding non-victims by robbing non-criminals. It is collective reward paid by collective theft.
It's inconvenient to acknowledge the ways you've benefited from the immoral policies of the pay.
No, it's a lie to confess to crimes I did not commit against people who themselves are as much criminal themselves for the same crimes they claim their ancestors were victims of.
Whoosh!
Boosh!
If I murder you, does your son murder mine?
That's feud mentality, not justice.
On the same principles of who committed actions against whom. I committed no criminal actions against anyone and nobody is a victim of my conduct, ergo no compensate should be made to anyone to which I must pay, indirectly or directly.
This doesn't work with regard to US land because it assumes the 'European' model of personal property rights that are passed on to individuals' heirs only in a strict familial succession line. Indians, regardless of how many times one tribe stole/conquered land from another tribe, did not have a the land split into individual pieces over which individuals had personal title. The tribe collectively owned the land and being a member of the tribe implied a part-ownership for (non-exclusive) use. It's in any case probably safe to say that the ancestors of current native americans had their collective lands 'stolen' from them. It's equally safe to say there is no way to unravel current ownership back to current native americans in any fair or sensible way, that isn't simply going to create a bunch of new injustices rather than undo a bunch of past injustices.
That's not true. Nomadic tribes certainly understand property in the form of horses, dogs, teepees, and so on. Some marked arrows so they could tell who owned a hunt kill. Comanches at least, and probably all nomadic tribes, also understood that kills rotted pretty quickly, and any hunter who did not share his kill would have it taken from him and distributed; they understood it was his kill and his to distribute, but he had to distribute it, and if he did not, they would distribute it by force. That is not a denial of property.
Stationary tribes, whether permanent or between nomadic wanderings, also knew and respected property rights in plantings.
So-called community property is an oxymoron, just another form of collectivism which relies on some strongman to decide who is a member of the tribe. There have been lawsuits over who gets a share of casino profits, for example. Full-blooded? Half-breed? Zero-blooded spouse? Someone who, as a full-blooded member, moved off the reservation and was denied membership on return a few years later?
Collectivism does not work.
I know there was a property concept for things, which is why I mentioned land. For nomadic societies the concept of land ownership is very different. As you mentioned, once settlement included farming, and eventually fixed houses, then land property would naturally follow. In any case as I said, it's not something that can be unravelled so no point discussing it.
The easiest way to resolve this issue is to abandon abstract moralism and argue from facts. The facts being the strong have ever done what they willed and the weak have ever suffered what they must. Anything else is simply special interest pleading (I.E a way for the weak to gain strength through subterfuge rather than brute force.)
The really crazy thing is that the people pushing the "stolen land" narrative, for the most part, don't even believe in inheritance. If indigenous Americans had owned all of North America as of 1800 and leftists had had their way, it all would have been taxed away within a few generations anyway.
Liberty lovers don't write nearly enough about the socialist hellholes that are Indian reservations. I'm not sure why that is.
Probably to avoid being canceled for their racism.
And then there is the problem that Indians went to war against each other and took land from one another. So the problem becomes which tribe has the legitimate claim and how can you tell? Custer had Blackfeet scouts because. the Sioux were fighting the Blackfeet. They also took land from the Cheyenne and the Wyomings before making alliances with them. Indians were fighting other Indians long before the whiteman arrived.
The present-day ethnic Indian will claim that his tribe owned a certain region *collectively*, and that this collective property right is retained by the tribe, consisting now in all descendants of former members (plus naturalized—adopted—members).
(Can the tribe strip members of their membership? Is *partial* descent sufficient—1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/n? Might it be not the tribe but some sub-tribal group—extended family or whatever—that really exercised collective ownership; or might some super-tribal group—tribal federation—be the true collective owner? Might some sort of “statute of limitations” apply?)
“Indians” had no concept of property rights. Nobody “owned” anything. “Returning” is irrational. Return to whom? Me, a 1/16, card-carrying Cherokee? Please do!
False. They understood very well what property was in at least some aspects. The only skepticism I know of is whether they understood they were selling exclusive and permanent access, or just temporary non-exclusive access, and I suspect that depended more on translators and guile than any concept of property.
They knew who had planted fields and owned the crops.
They knew who had killed game.
They knew who owned homes, clothes, weapons, and other property.
They fought wars over land.
Damn Indians just making people feel bad!!! I can see you’re really sick of it. Can’t pull the wool over your eyes. Those stupid, libtard Indians! Shame on those Indians!! They knew exactly what Western, liberal property rights were. They read Locke! The Loved Paine! They read Hobbs! They loved Aristotle!
Good grief.
You said: “Indians” had no concept of property rights. Nobody “owned” anything.
I said they did indeed recognize the basic concept of "property" and did indeed own things.
And your response is to throw in Locke et al? Buddy, I'll let you in on a little secret: the concept of "property" predates those western philosophers. It existed long long ago, and not just in humans.
"If you take a walk through the countryside, from Indonesia to Peru, and you walk by field after field -- in each field a different dog is going to bark at you. Even dogs know what private property is all about. The only one who does not know it is the government." -- Hernando de Soto
I know – we’re all just trying to curl up with a warm cup of tea while we each get back to the good old days where a good dog will guard the property that he “knows” belongs to him. People like me just complicate matters.
Another knowitall who has nothing to rebut and resorts to insults and hyperbole.
You said Indians had no concept of property. I provided examples showing they did and that property as a concept is so innate that even animals know the concept. You resorted to insults.
Try an actual rebuttal. Try saying something useful.
Assume a tribe lives as hunter-gatherers and ranges over thousands of acres. They don’t settle in one place for long, mark boundaries, or make lasting improvements to any particular parcel—at least not in the way modern property law recognizes.
Now imagine a pioneer arrives, stakes out a small portion, builds a house, clears fields, and intends to stay permanently.
Two questions follow:
Should the tribe be considered the “owner” of the entire territory it traverses?
If not, did the pioneer “steal” the land—or did he claim land that was previously unowned in the relevant sense?
Now throw in other tribes who fight each other for the right to roam the same thousands of acres.
Collectivism never works.
"if we cannot clearly show that Jones or his ancestors to the property title in the watch "
I lost the thread here. Pity.
I wonder how this theory applies in the case of two-way intent to dispossess the others of land. For example, in Israel/Palestine.
The problem in "Israel/Palestine" doesn't really have to do with stealing. Jews and Jewish organizations bought land from its legal owners over the course of several decades, and Jews came to form a majority in the portion of Mandate Palestine that the 1947 UN Partition plan designated to be a Jewish state, and Arabs formed a majority the portion designated to be an Arab state. Seems like basic right of distinct peoples to self-determination should have followed UN vote in 1947, maybe with some minor real estate disputes.
Of course the problem was, as Einat Wilf describes in great detail in her book "The War of Return" (highly recommended) that while the top priority of the Jews/nascent Israelis was to have sovereignty over their own population, it was *not* a priority for the Arabs that the Arab population of Mandate Palestine should have a sovereign state (many, including the Mufti of Jerusalem, thought the entire region should be part of Syria; even Rashid Khalidi admits that the concept of a Palestinian Arab identity was not widely developed at that time).
For the past 100-plus years, the top priority of the majority of Arabs and their dominant leaders, within the Ottoman Empire, Mandate Palestine, and the multiple surrounding Arab countries, was that the Jews not be allowed to have sovereignty in an amount of that land. And unfortunately when those rare Arab leaders have come along who were willing to peacefully coexist alongside a sovereign Jewish state, they were intimidated into submission or even assassinated by the hardliners (the original King Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat, the Nashashibi family within Palestine, etc). The most dangerous thing an Arab leader can do is to say they will make peace with Israel--even MBS in Saudi Arabia remains afraid although he would like to.
This is the (actually very simple) reason that what should have been a minor real estate dispute instead became an intractable generations-long bloodbath. The Arab/Palestinian side insists that Israel cease to exist, and Israel refuses to cease existing.
Now THAT, for sure, is stolen land. They're still working out who is the thief and who the thieved.
P.S. I see that the potential benefit to Israel (and the severe blow to, um, "anti-Iraelists") of a successful overthrow of the Islamic Republic in Iran is now gaining acceptance as the reason for the news blackout of the uprising by Western media over the last 3 weeks. Could well be true. What's the professor have to say on this...?
The silence of both journalists and so-called social justice warriors regarding the Iranian people’s attempt to oust a brutally repressive regime indeed speaks volumes about their character and motivation.