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OrphanWilde comments on Why capitalism? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Any entity which acts as the final enforcer for any set of rules at -all- is a government; your city can send police to arrest you, your county can do likewise, so they both qualify; your HOA has to sue you for breach of contract in a court run by a government who will enforce the decisions of that court by sending a policeman if necessary. Tony Montana isn't -a- government, but rather an agent of one; the Mafia.
But Tony Montana isn't an agent of anyone, he works for himself. There is no final enforcer in that situation, it's an anarchy in that sense (which is why the drug trade is violent). But property still exists.
In fact, governments are much closer to anarchies than your "unlimited escalation" would allow. The reason I can't enforce property rights in my land isn't because of some rival government, but because of anarchy that the government can't suppress.
Finally, you concede the possibility! Yet property still exists there. So how's property merely a creation of government again?
The property of whom? You? Begging your pardon for insensitivity, but in what meaningful sense do you own it?
ETA:
Does it belong to someone else? In what sense do -they- own it? They get use of it? Do I own the sky because I can enjoy its hue? Or do they, or representatives on their behalf, actively prevent anybody else from taking use of it? If that's the case, in what sense are they, or those representing their interests, not a government?
I own it in the sense that I acquired the land lawfully, I have the title deeds, my name is on the land registry in the capital, I used to "properly" own it until the anarchy, and if the government makes its writ run again, I'll own it again "properly." It's all quite awkward because I wanted to sell the land before this happened, but obviously now no-one is keen to buy.
But now there are other people squatting on the land. They didn't chase off the government, they just took advantage of the chaos. They get the use of it (they are farming it). They do prevent other people from making use of it, yes (otherwise farming would be pointless). But they're certainly not the government, they're just some squatters. If all their neighbours (also mostly squatters!) showed up arrayed against them, they wouldn't be able to hold onto the land. They aren't capable of "infinite escalation." But human society doesn't work like that (mostly). And I'm certainly not going to put together some group of mercenaries to expel them. So those guys now effectively own the land, and they could probably sell it to some other group of squatters living in that anarchy. As long as the central government doesn't reclaim the area, or some rival government emerges, effective property ownership in that area is going to be governed by the tacit norms and mutual understandings among those people. Which sucks for me (although it's not like the land is worth a huge amount) but does appear to have been the norm for most of human history.
I take no disagreement with anything you've said - "infinite escalation" is strictly theoretical, as there's an upper bound on resources. So do we have any disagreement at this point?
You seem to be saying that property, at least in land, derives from government. I'm saying no, not necessarily, and I have given you a concrete example. And frankly I think that most property derives from private, tacit, anarchic methods of enforcement, and that government, while sometimes a helpful agent, isn't the prime mover.
I don't understand your example. My view of property is force based, you own a land either because you can protect it by force or because someone who can i.e. the government allows you.
Thankfully force is not the only arbiter of human relationships. However its opposite, compassion or altruism does not seem to play much of a role in the idea of property. A third option is trade, cooperation for mutual gain, non-altruistic, and force plays a role in rare cases in punishing defectors but usually people don't defect largely because they want to continue a beneficial trade and not because of that kind of fear.
Is your point that property can be trade-like? That it exists not only because either you or the government has enough guns to chase away trespassers, but also because a tit-for-tat trade-like "I won't touch stuff you call yours if you promise the same" social agreement is seen as mutually beneficial, even without much of an enforcement?
Kinda. I would de-emphasise the "mutually beneficial" and "promise" bits and emphasise the notion of self-reinforcing equilibrium. After all, you do have to defend your property, because theft does exist, but you don't have to defend it very much, at least in normal times, because Hobbes was wrong; we do not have a constant 'Will to contend by Battle.' Similarly, international relations are fundamentally anarchical, so most countries judge that they need armies, but that doesn't mean that they are constantly on a war footing, nor that "there is no place for industry, .. culture of the earth," etc.
How does that not apply to things other than land? You have your life because either you can protect it by force or because the government does so.
You've given me a concrete example of how, as soon as government stopped enforcing your property, it stopped being your property. What exactly did private, tacit, anarchic methods of enforcement avail you?
It stopped being my property, but it didn't stop being anyone's property. There's nothing to say that private, tacit, anarchic methods of enforcement will give the same result as government enforcement.
So in a traditional (patriarchal) household, each husband is a government, right? And all parents, too?
No, because few husbands or parents are willing or able to act as final enforcers.
Final enforcement requires unlimited escalation. No matter how you escalate the situation, a final enforcer will escalate back.
Is this equivalent to saying that a government is any entity which has the will and the ability to kill you if it deems necessary?
And I think that parents of small children are final enforcers. No one sues their five-year-old for throwing a tantrum.