Hacker News Reader

But now you're not talking about a "right", but merely a biological imperative. Nothing that separates humans from, say, spiders. And then your "natural right" to property extends no farther than your ability to defend it from someone bigger and meaner than you.

I can shoot you, and then your land becomes mine, by "natural right". Is this really the hill you want to die on?

View on HN

I was not addressing "rights", but that the concept of "property" exists independently of the state.

It really doesn't in regards to land in modern society, though. Ownership of land is quite literally a deed on file with the government.

Feudal society, maybe.

Not even in feudal society. That "deed on file" was originally a relationship with the sovereign lord (usually the king) who actually "owned" the land. In fact, ownership in Anglophone countries is still referred to as "fee simple", derived from "fief"; you hold the land from your Lord the state, under a form of tenure that happens not to include any feudal obligations ("simple").

Do spiders have a natural right to own property?

Because again, that's what you're arguing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com