Ownership Of Land - A Deeply Flawed Concept?

[Sonoran Na'vi]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Well - custom and culture is one way to restrict or control overuse for sure. Like the "seventh generation rule" (meaning to treat the land you live on in a way that allows the seventh generation to come to live on it as you do).
I dont believe in population as an issue. Population of any animal including the human animal grows until it reaches a natural limit of growth, determined by the resources available on the area. To move on to neighboring areas is impossible as there are other people living there, so that confinement naturally restricts a population to one area and population to the limits or resources in that area. Now you have two ways to deal with overuse of resources - accept that one day you will not be able to live on this land (or your childrens children will not be) - or become violent and start wars of conquest, which usually is not a good option as the land you conquer also has limited resources that are used up by the people who live there and such a war is an intense investment. Nevertheless, people would probably try, but basically it is a back-and-forth then. Within a short time after a conquest, the new lands are again populated and population growth and resource consumption return to a balance.
Of course if one culture decides to ignore sanity and simply strip their own land of all its resources to build a large army and waltz over the planet, that works. This is why the "fertile crescent", the origin of the dominant culture of the earth these days is a cruel joke. In the end of course it is only a temporary thing as there are always limits to growth.

What you describe is a common occurrence throughout history. People have often used up the resources in their area to devastating effects. This can be seen in deforestation, which tends to be present in many collapses of societies. The issue, as you described, is how to control the use of resources. In order to do that, outside of hoping everyone can police themselves, we need to assign a form of ownership to resources. It has already been seen that people have a hard time policing themselves over the use of resources that are not owned, as evident in the tragedy of the commons. There's also the other extreme, where ownership is too much, leading to the tragedy of the anti-commons (this was seen in post-Cold War era Russia).

[auroraglacialis]

Originally Posted by Sonoran Na'vi

What you describe is a common occurrence throughout history. People have often used up the resources in their area to devastating effects. This can be seen in deforestation, which tends to be present in many collapses of societies.

Indeed it happened a few times - Someone decided to ignore the rules, the laws of life and sustainability and managed to go forth with it. I would guess this happens if the neighboring people are unable to unite against such a danger to them all and if the people living within that civilization can be convinced that going that way is a good idea. This usually happens if they have some kind of massive surplus in the first place.
The fact that it happened over and over does rather strenghten the prediction that the current culture may eventually go the same way though.

The issue, as you described, is how to control the use of resources. In order to do that, outside of hoping everyone can police themselves, we need to assign a form of ownership to resources. It has already been seen that people have a hard time policing themselves over the use of resources that are not owned

Well to turn that around: it has already been seen that private ownership is not doing anything to increase the probability of people policing themselves over the use of the resources they now own and can legally claim theirs. This is axactly what is happening now and what leads to the greatest destruction any civilization has ever managed to bring with it. The problem is that whoever can claim ownership of a resource or land and is believed by the people to have that right has an immense amount of power and at the same time would have to have the desire to restrict his own use of these resources. That does not go together. Especially not in a scenario of competition in which each party (each owner of resources or land) has to participate in the resource race to stay atop.
Now I dont claim to know what would work, clearly to let a few individuals, corporations or states own the resources and land of the planet while disempowering all others does not work - this is what lead us here.
I give more credibility to the ability of people who actually live on and from the land to protect that land than on some initially benevolent tyrants to organize this. Lets say you live on some land - a nice valley in the Appalachians with clean water and some nice farmland. Would you actually go to the mountain tops, blast them off, drop the stuff into the river to mine coal and sell it, if you know, you will afterwards still have to live in that place? No, you only do that because you would earn money that you can use to claim ownership over a new piece of land, evicting the people that live there. There are plenty examples of that, too - indigenous people all over the world fight for their land - not for the resources but for the land as it is. German peasants and villagers chained themselves to railroads in the 1980ies to prevent their villages from becoming a nuclear waste dump even if that would probably bring in money and jobs. People refuse to leave their homes that are marked for demolition for a new coal mine. Environmental resistance is very real and it is that kind of thinking that would prevent people from taking resources. Of course, nowadays, the "owners" simply call in the police and start shooting teargas at people. “When people sit on **** that you want, you make them your enemy and you take it” - and in our world, you make them enemies by simply proclaiming the right of ownership which makes the people trespassers!

But maybe it will not work at all, maybe this circus goes on until all resources are gone - then people dont have anything to squabble over and then the Cree will have spoken truth with their "only once the last tree is gone..." saying.

We have to learn from people who managed to live sustainable. That is my whole point. We cant look at solutions in societies that already failed or are about to fail. We cant look at the Mayans, at the Romans, at western capitalism, not even at the sovjet states who declared themselves communist. Instead we need to look at the aboriginal people, the natives, the different cultures of the world for inspiration. I am not saying that we all need to adopt their way of living in all ways per se - but they lived sustainable and free - if that is what we want, we need to learn from them instead of regarding it a great gift to bring them a solar powered TV. I guess however that learning from them might lead us to the conclusion that we have to live way different than now if we want to avoid the mistakes prior civilizations have made and if we want to have people living in freedom and content.

[Sonoran Na'vi]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Indeed it happened a few times - Someone decided to ignore the rules, the laws of life and sustainability and managed to go forth with it. I would guess this happens if the neighboring people are unable to unite against such a danger to them all and if the people living within that civilization can be convinced that going that way is a good idea. This usually happens if they have some kind of massive surplus in the first place.
The fact that it happened over and over does rather strenghten the prediction that the current culture may eventually go the same way though.

Many times people do not know the consequences of their actions until it is too late. The advantage we have today is that we know of many of the failures of past societies, so that we may have the chance to learn from them.

Well to turn that around: it has already been seen that private ownership is not doing anything to increase the probability of people policing themselves over the use of the resources they now own and can legally claim theirs. This is axactly what is happening now and what leads to the greatest destruction any civilization has ever managed to bring with it. The problem is that whoever can claim ownership of a resource or land and is believed by the people to have that right has an immense amount of power and at the same time would have to have the desire to restrict his own use of these resources. That does not go together. Especially not in a scenario of competition in which each party (each owner of resources or land) has to participate in the resource race to stay atop.
Now I dont claim to know what would work, clearly to let a few individuals, corporations or states own the resources and land of the planet while disempowering all others does not work - this is what lead us here.
I give more credibility to the ability of people who actually live on and from the land to protect that land than on some initially benevolent tyrants to organize this. Lets say you live on some land - a nice valley in the Appalachians with clean water and some nice farmland. Would you actually go to the mountain tops, blast them off, drop the stuff into the river to mine coal and sell it, if you know, you will afterwards still have to live in that place? No, you only do that because you would earn money that you can use to claim ownership over a new piece of land, evicting the people that live there. There are plenty examples of that, too - indigenous people all over the world fight for their land - not for the resources but for the land as it is. German peasants and villagers chained themselves to railroads in the 1980ies to prevent their villages from becoming a nuclear waste dump even if that would probably bring in money and jobs. People refuse to leave their homes that are marked for demolition for a new coal mine. Environmental resistance is very real and it is that kind of thinking that would prevent people from taking resources. Of course, nowadays, the "owners" simply call in the police and start shooting teargas at people. “When people sit on **** that you want, you make them your enemy and you take it” - and in our world, you make them enemies by simply proclaiming the right of ownership which makes the people trespassers!

But maybe it will not work at all, maybe this circus goes on until all resources are gone - then people dont have anything to squabble over and then the Cree will have spoken truth with their "only once the last tree is gone..." saying.

We have to learn from people who managed to live sustainable. That is my whole point. We cant look at solutions in societies that already failed or are about to fail. We cant look at the Mayans, at the Romans, at western capitalism, not even at the sovjet states who declared themselves communist. Instead we need to look at the aboriginal people, the natives, the different cultures of the world for inspiration. I am not saying that we all need to adopt their way of living in all ways per se - but they lived sustainable and free - if that is what we want, we need to learn from them instead of regarding it a great gift to bring them a solar powered TV. I guess however that learning from them might lead us to the conclusion that we have to live way different than now if we want to avoid the mistakes prior civilizations have made and if we want to have people living in freedom and content.

The heart of the matter is that some sort of property rights need to be assigned to resources. Not assigning property rights will not work in large societies because people will maximize their use of the resource. Even many smaller, tribal, societies assigned use rights to land or a resource, giving the right to use the land or resource to an individual or a group for a particular amount of time.