The idea being that proper governments recognize rights that already exist, they don't create those rights. One could argue that so-called intellectual property rights aren't rights that existed before governments created them.
I keep my copy of Hobbes bookmarked for occasions such as this.
Hereby it is manifest that, during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war as is of every man against every man.
And, a few paragraphs later, the refutation of your assertion:
To this war of every man against every man this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the faculties neither of the body nor mind. If they were, they might be in a man that were alone in the world, as well as his senses and passions. They are qualities that relate to men in society, not in solitude. It is consequent also to the same condition that there be no propriety, no dominion, no ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ distinct, but only that to be every man’s that he can get, and for so long as he can keep it.
There are countless opportunities for me every day to engage in risk free petty theft, yet I don't. Why don't I? It isn't fear of the law, since I have no fear of being caught, and it isn't fear of reprisal since, again, I have no fear of being caught.
No, I think the reason why I don't steal, even when I could, probably has something to do with the same underlying basis of all those "don't steal" laws. I mean, is it a coincidence that I, and those long dead lawmakers, both think that I shouldn't steal? I don't think the existence of the law has created in me this aversion to stealing either. I could cite for you countless examples where the law and I agree to disagree. It's neither fear nor respect of the law that keeps me (and I suspect, most people) from stealing.
well... yeah. If not born into a society with established laws, there would be nothing engraining this idea that you may not take something somebody else is "using".
Said another way, if you define "government" as people agreeing on a rule, then no, property rights cannot exist outside of government. Or if they did, they would have no basis in reality so they're not worth thinking about. However, if you define "government" as a certain way of enforcement, or a way of codifying laws, or really any particular construct, then in that case property rights obviously do exist outside of government.
What Hobbes is saying is a bit more involved than that. He is saying that because people's nature (and self-interest in particular) mean that they will, in practice, not acheive universal agreement, you can't, in practice, have order without an entity which can enforce compliance with the general-but-not-universal agreement and punish defection from it, because otherwise even a general agreement will devolve into chaos. (He might have been more succinct and made reference to the "Tragedy of the Commons", except that that term wouldn't be coined for a little over three centuries after Hobbes wrote Leviathan, and even the historical events that motivated the term were still.)
As there is no global government or other power, we can observe the relationships between people that have no common power and prove his assertion false.
For example, there is no one common power that controls all American and British people. Yet Americans and British people travel to each other's homes, have relationships with each other, trade with each other, and sometimes even move from one country to another. All of this is done peacefully, with no common power that controls both sides of the equation. Same thing with relationships between Swiss people and Japanese people, or Chinese people and Egyptians, or Brazilians and Indians, or anybody else that you choose.
If Hobbes' idea was true, wouldn't the relationship between two average people that have no common power be rather warlike rather than the mutually beneficially peaceful relationships that we see every day?
Or we can observe that though someone may travel abroad, at home they are subject to a power (their home country's laws) and abroad they are subject to a power (the laws of the country they're visiting).
And then we can observe that your analogy really works best with the countries themselves, and of course the history of international relations is full of countries respecting each others' territory, sovereignty, etc. without any need for some third party to exercise power and hold them in check. Right?
Right?
Have you read much history?
A prime example of Bastiat's reasoning skills and demonstration of how much respect should be afforded him.