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Comment by sonnyblarney | Hacker News Reader

"A person can enforce ownership of their physical property by themselves"

Except in reality, you don't. The state very strongly enforces your property rights that's a good chunk of why the police exist, and most people do not own guns.

The OP argument is not unreasonable.

To wit: in Canada, there is actually no enshrined right to own property. The far left party opted to keep it out of the new constitution written in the 1980's so Trudeau Sr. was forced to keep it out if we were to have a new constitution at all. So it's an intellectual concept.

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I'm not sure if I completely agree with "Except in reality, you don't."

In some sense I enforce ownership of my house just by living here. Someone is here most of the time. The lights are on. There is activity. That keeps others out.

If I just abandoned the place, eventually someone might poke their head in and see if there was anything to take. Sure, that would be illegal, but the cops aren't going to post a guard for me under most circumstances.

You actually see this happen in downtrodden neighborhoods where whole blocks get abandoned. In theory that property is still owned by someone, but without anyone actually there, eventually houses get stripped of valuable goods and in some cases squatters move in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensible_space_theory is an academic theory of this point of view.

Another good example is house sitters. When traveling for extended periods of time, people will let trusted 3rd parties stay in their house for free. Why? Enforcement of property ownership.

Yeah but well before your presence is a relevant factor in preventing squatters, everyone in the whole equation has long been socialized to understand that you can't take other people's stuff without dire physical consequences. That is 100% the power of the state and 0% you.

I don't think that's true either.

When my 3yo kid takes a toy from another kid without asking and I tell him he has to give it back, that's socialization and that's not the state.

dude, how hard is this to understand? if a group of dudes with guns were to rock up to your house and say 'get out, this is our house now', you would not be able to do shit unless you somehow go john wick on them. the monopoly of violence and enforcement of rules within a territory (a state) is the foundation necessary for property rights.

just because we don't walk on all fours and smell urine for information doesn't mean that we would not revert back to aggression and dominance if you remove all manmade recourses for settling disputes and enforcing property rights. why on earth would you think people would respect ownership of goods when you can just take what you want through intimidation? all ordered systems are at the mercy of entropy and it takes effort (i.e. the state) to maintain such order. it only takes one person to step out of line in times of anarchy for others to realise that it makes no sense to cooperate and follow rules when there is no one to enforce them, sending the whole system back into chaos.

If there were no state, your 'occupation' of the residence would be meaningless, guys with guns would take it from you.

It's feudal based on hard power in one way or another.

The way it's set up now is the cops enforce a common set of rules we agree upon.

You don't have the power to enforce your property rights. Nobody really does.

Again, I don't think that's really true historically. Even in pre-state societies or in present day societies with failed or weak states people still have homes that they live in consistently from day to day.

Sure, sometimes the dudes with guns show up and force them out, but that isn't a constant occurrence.

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