NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/14210

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-02 | 2.6 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uniwa!DIALix!tillage!gil
From: [e-mail] (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Sheep in Organizations
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 93 05:08:03 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents
Lines: 44


In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

 > >Sorry Victor, but "WE" do not "OWN" anything at all. Neither the State
 > >nor the collectivity (despite Rousseau) is a *person* in its own right,
 >
 > Where is it written that only individuals may "own"?  In the current
 > US legal system, the Federal government "owns" national park lands in
 > the name of the general public. If you have some ideological committment
 > to a theory of property in which "own" means something else,  replace
 > "own" with "holds title under current law" if that makes you feel better.

Well, of course one can also argue a case where a conflict of interest
might arise in a private person owning land, who is also a citizen of a
democracy which has a public interest in the same land, or indeed a
case where the State owns land in the name of the public, of which an
individual citizen also a member of that public by definition makes a
private claim on that land. But apart from its utility as an exercise
in pedagogy, however, the case is pointless and cannot be pursued in
law. The matter must always rest on the strength of claims on their own
merit as they stand from time to time.

I had already argued for the far more accurate and reliable *tenure*
which can be tested and assessed by due democratic processes. It seems
appropriate here to add "title" as relevant to the formal recognition
of such tenure as it has been negotiated by due process, describing its
nature and the manner by which it was derived. But whichever way you
wish to look at the problem, if you care to actually *think* through
its various complexities, it remains that the concept of "ownership"
with respect to land is misleading and problematic.

There is no "ideological committment" as you suggest; merely a report
on the facts of the matter as they pertain out there in the real world
in response to your petty and wholly uninformed nit-picking against a
plea for land justice arising in Alaska. There is plenty of scope for
a sound and workable compromise, were you willing to pursue it.

We have been through this before however, during your membership of
this group in fact, so I must reasonably assume that you have a brain
of your own and I'll not bother expanding on the it again merely for
your benefit.

Gil