Before I continue with presenting Marx's ideas, there is something else that screams for my attention. Especially because it is so fundamental for Marx's economic theory.
What I mean is so obvious, so common, and yet philosophically so problematic: it is the question "Who owns what and why?" or, in other words, "What is private property?"
Far from being a self-evident or transhistorical notion, the idea that individuals can legitimately own things, particularly land and the means of production, has been the subject of sustained philosophical debate for over two millennia.
Philosophers have grappled with a fundamental paradox: how to reconcile the apparently natural human impulse
to possess competing claims about justice, community, and the original common ownership of the earth's resources.
For Plato (c. 428 - 347 BCE), private ownership undermined the unity essential to a just state by creating divisions between "mine" and "not-mine" that fragmented civic solidarity.
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) , argued that private property was both practically necessary and morally beneficial. Property owned in common, he contended, would be neglected, for what belongs to everyone is cared for by no one.
Private property, properly understood, served virtue rather than undermined it, for the opportunity to practice the virtue of generosity through giving what is one's own. to others
In my lecture 1205 to 1218, this subject was already addressed in several ways, so this is just meant to refresh your memory and add some new thoughts.
So let's skip a few centuries and have a look at seventeenth-century thoughts on the subject as formulated by a man like John Locke (1632–1704).
One of the questions was, as God had given the earth to all humanity in common, how, then, could private appropriation be justified without violating this original community of goods?
Locke's labour theory of property provided the mechanism for this pre-political appropriation. Though the earth was originally given to mankind in common, each person possessed property in their own person.
The labour of their body and the work of their hands were properly theirs. When an individual mixed their labour with something from the common stock,
clearing a field, gathering fruit, chasing game, they joined to it something of their own, thereby making it their property.
Then, a more radical challenge by Jeremy Bentham, who rejected the entire language of natural rights as "nonsense upon stilts."
For Bentham (1748 - 1832), property was entirely the creation of law, not a pre-political right that government must protect, but an expectation that government creates and enforces.
"Property and law are born together, and die together," he wrote. "Before laws were made, there was no property; take away laws, and property ceases".
I could go on and on, but what emerges most clearly is that private property has never been a simple or settled idea.
This is what we have to keep in mind when we try to understand Marx's view of society as a class struggle between the "haves", the bourgeois and the "have-nots", the proletariat.
How does private property fit into Marx's economic theory?
Main Sources:
MacMillan The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition
of Economic Thought (2012)
TABLE OF CONTENT -----------------------------------------------------------------
1 - 100 Philosophers 9 May 2009 Start of
2 - 25+ Women Philosophers 10 May 2009 this blog
3 - 25 Adventures in Thinking 10 May 2009
4 - Modern Theories of Ethics 29 Oct 2009
5 - The Ideal State 24 Febr 2010 / 234
6 - The Mystery of the Brain 3 Sept 2010 / 266
7 - The Utopia of the Free Market 16 Febr 2012 / 383
8. - The Aftermath of Neo-liberalism 5 Sept 2012 / 413
9. - The Art Not to Be an Egoist 6 Nov 2012 / 426
10 - Non-Western Philosophy 29 May 2013 / 477
11 - Why Science is Right 2 Sept 2014 / 534
12 - A Philosopher looks at Atheism 1 Jan 2015 / 557
13 - EVIL, a philosophical investigation 17 Apr 2015 / 580
14 - Existentialism and Free Will 2 Sept 2015 / 586
15 - Spinoza 2 Sept 2016 / 615
16 - The Meaning of Life 13 Febr 2017 / 637
17 - In Search of my Self 6 Sept 2017 / 670
18 - The 20th Century Revisited 3 Apr 2018 / 706
19 - The Pessimist 11 Jan 2020 / 819
20 - The Optimist 9 Febr 2020 / 824
21 - Awakening from a Neoliberal Dream 8 Oct 2020 / 872
22 - A World Full of Patterns 1 Apr 2021 / 912
23 - The Concept of Freedom 8 Jan 2022 / 965
24 - Materialism 7 Sept 2022 / 1011
25 - Historical Materialism 5 Oct 2023 / 1088
26 - The Bonobo and the Atheist 9 Jan 2024 / 1102
27 - Artificial Intelligence 9 Feb 2024 / 1108
28 - Why Am I Here 6 Sept 2024 / 1139
The Discussion
[14:19] Max Chatnoir: Oh, you're not going to tell us now!
[14:19] herman Bergson smiles
[14:19] Max Chatnoir: What a great buildup!
[14:19] herman Bergson: I will, Max, in the next lecture
[14:20] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aah
[14:20] herman Bergson: I was thinking...following Bentham...no law, no property....
[14:20] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): thank you Herman
[14:21] herman Bergson: And then this drive to say "this is mine"
[14:21] Max Chatnoir: A lot of laws ARE about ownership....
[14:21] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): true
[14:21] herman Bergson: How can you keep it your, and I thought....only by physical violence....
[14:22] Stranger Nightfire: Isn't there a saying about possession being 9/10 of the law or something like that
[14:22] herman Bergson: When you pick an apple from a tree...how does it become yours...as Locke claims
[14:22] Stranger Nightfire: It is very often hard to take something away from somebody who has laid claim to it
[14:22] Max Chatnoir: So law and property sort of coevolved.
[14:23] Stranger Nightfire: The law can be surprising that way as I learned when I once purchased a house and found out that it was occupied by squatters
[14:23] Max Chatnoir: to keep the peace, more or less.
[14:23] Stranger Nightfire: turns out to be a long, difficult and arduous process to evict squatters
[14:23] herman Bergson: On the one hand, I am inclined to say yes, Max
[14:24] Max Chatnoir: and on the other....?
[14:24] herman Bergson: On the other hand, Christianity had done a lot to ownership too
[14:24] herman Bergson: as if it is a divine law
[14:24] Max Chatnoir: Ah, religion.... yes.
[14:24] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): of course
[14:25] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): hmm
[14:25] herman Bergson: If the King is a steward of earth in the name of god and he gives you land, then god has given you the land
[14:26] herman Bergson: Augustine said that private property is not a problem, but the sin of greed we commit....
[14:26] Max Chatnoir: And if you sneak around and grow carrots behind his barn, then you are both illegal and immoral?
[14:26] herman Bergson: Our drive to own more and more
[14:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): Yes, i agree
[14:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): and unwilling to share with other3
[14:27] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): s
[14:28] Stranger Nightfire: I believe I said something wrong here the other day I said that three people owned as much as the lower 50% of humanity
[14:28] herman Bergson: what I also found a nice observation is what Aristotle said.... publicly owned thing .... no one cares for it....so that is not a good thing...private property is better
[14:28] Stranger Nightfire: That's actually the statistic for the United States The three richest people own more than the lower 50% in the
[14:28] Stranger Nightfire: the global statistic is actually that there are 12 people who are more than the bottom 50% of humanity
[14:29] Stranger Nightfire: who owns more
[14:29] herman Bergson: The numbers may be a bit off, Stranger, but you were close, I guess :-)
[14:30] Max Chatnoir: So ownership also includes responsibility.
[14:30] herman Bergson: Here you see how weird our concept of ownership can be...
[14:30] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well it is true that you take more care of your own things, we see this clearly with e-scooters. The rental ones are strewn all across the roads posing a crash hazard for everyone else but noone would do that with their private machine
[14:31] herman Bergson: right, Bejiita
[14:31] Max Chatnoir: I'm a little surprised they don't care more for the rental ones.
[14:31] herman Bergson: However, it seems that the Green Car system works....
[14:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): because they think its not mine so why should i care for it
[14:31] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): something like that
[14:31] Max Chatnoir: not more than for their own, but that they don't apply the same standards.
[14:32] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): seems to be the minset
[14:32] herman Bergson: As far as I know, that was one of the problems of communist countries....
[14:33] Max Chatnoir: So if you grow stuff on land that you take care of, then you get to keep it all.
[14:33] Max Chatnoir: Or sell it.
[14:33] herman Bergson: At this moment, I 'd support the ideas of Jeremy Bentham...
[14:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): the thing bothering me mostly with the e scooters is not only are they not caring for the machines but also not caring fore any other on the road that can possibly crash into them an get harmed, i have been really close a couple of times
[14:34] Max Chatnoir: Which were....
[14:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): its selfishness
[14:34] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): pure an simple
[14:34] herman Bergson: Yes, you sell it....and this transaction is a contract and creates ownership for the buyer, for instance
[14:34] Stranger Nightfire: Responding to Max, who knows about the facts surrounding the potato famine in Ireland
[14:34] Max Chatnoir: I agree, Bejiita
[14:34] Stranger Nightfire: indeed the potato crop had been hit by a disease
[14:35] herman Bergson: but weren't there also intentional actions to make it worse?
[14:35] Stranger Nightfire: but that's only part of the story, as the poor people of Ireland were horribly dying of starvation, while farms all over Ireland were growing all kinds of crops, and those crops were being exported for profit farms owned by English for the most part
[14:35] Max Chatnoir: was it a fungus?
[14:36] Stranger Nightfire: In my book Common Decency and Morality trumps the law
[14:36] Stranger Nightfire: Ultimately, food must belong to the people who need it to survive
[14:37] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): true
[14:37] herman Bergson: In fact you mention virtues there, Stranger....
[14:38] herman Bergson: Aristotle would agree with you
[14:39] herman Bergson: You almost could think that the law forces virtueness on people....
[14:39] herman Bergson: If you behave indecent,the law punishes you for it so you won't do it again and be virtuous
[14:40] Max Chatnoir: defining a standard.
[14:40] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ah
[14:40] Stranger Nightfire: Consider how many rich men have gone to prison for much of anything in recent American history
[14:41] herman Bergson: btw...a sidetrack....bat to trump the law.....a peculiar verb in the current context
[14:41] Stranger Nightfire: The irony of it struck me
[14:41] herman Bergson: Yes, for a non-native speaker it even sounds confusing
[14:42] herman Bergson: to trump the law / boven de wet staan
[14:42] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): dankjewel
[14:42] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well w clearly see that with Trump, He makes it so he is above the law, and many other rich ones do the same, like Musk for ex
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): btw while i Prague i learned a thing. When they did not like the politicians there they were threwn out the window; they called it defeneseration
[14:43] herman Bergson: Let's not talk about that person....only about the verb
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): defenesteration
[14:43] Max Chatnoir: defenestration
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[14:43] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): they should do that in white house i thik
[14:43] Stranger Nightfire: The word is a card term that overrides another
[14:43] Stranger Nightfire: That is the context of what I was saying
[14:44] Stranger Nightfire: A gaming term This card trumps that card
[14:44] herman Bergson: The word is derived from the dutch word "troef", I guess
[14:44] Max Chatnoir: Oh, right. What does it mean?
[14:44] herman Bergson: Like dollar comes from "daalder"
[14:45] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): yes
[14:45] Max Chatnoir: stomp on?
[14:45] herman Bergson: trump
[14:45] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): so trump is not only a name?
[14:45] herman Bergson: trump card
[14:45] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aaa almost like before swedish crowns, our value was called daler, or riksdaler
[14:45] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): daler
[14:45] Max Chatnoir: most names mean something.
[14:46] herman Bergson: Ok...now we turned into a cosy etymology cass ㋡
[14:46] herman Bergson: class
[14:46] .: Beertje :. (beertje.beaumont): ツ
[14:46] herman Bergson: But that isn't my profession :-)))
[14:46] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): In Swedish the word "trumpen" means grumpy/angry, just like him
[14:46] herman Bergson: So, on to the next lecture, I'd say
[14:47] Max Chatnoir: Grumpy.
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): so it's in his name for us
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): well
[14:47] Max Chatnoir: So you make the card grumpy?
[14:47] herman Bergson: Unless you still have a remark or question about the current theme
[14:47] Stranger Nightfire: Interesting in my case that my RL name Mark, refers to the Roman God of war
[14:47] herman Bergson: mars
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): naaa it only works in swedish i think
[14:47] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): our word trumpen
[14:47] Stranger Nightfire: Considering I started this lifetime as an exceptionally warlike child and eventually became a pacifist
[14:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ok
[14:48] herman Bergson: Yes Stranger, we all make mistakes ㋡
[14:48] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): yes true
[14:49] herman Bergson: I'll leave you with the ambiguity of my remark and thank you all again :-)
[14:49] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): ㋡
[14:49] Particle Physicist Bejiita (bejiita.imako): aah
[14:49] herman Bergson: Class dismissed....
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