Comment by __MatrixMan__
7 hours ago
There are multiple usages of the word.
One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial.
The other was popular in 1700's France re: their system of privileges, and the people found it so onerous that they embarked on a campaign of executing nobility until it seemed like the concept was good and dead.
We can use the word however we like, it's just a word, but if we conduct ourselves as if they're the same sort of thing, which France was doing at that time, we're in for the same sort of pain.
So what I'm saying is that its a bad idea for us to let data be property.
> One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial
Which definition are you referring to?
Debts, wholly intangible legal fictions, have been treated as property for thousands of years.
I was thinking of the code of Hammurabi as the settled one, and membership in a trade guild--which you had to buy from the government--as the controversial one.
I wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property. In medieval Europe, Christians were prohibited from owning debt by their religions (Jews weren't, so they ended up being the lenders, which is probably why the stereotypes exist today).
I'd argue that the fungibility/resale of debt is a bad idea because it takes on weird properties when too much of it accumulates in one place.
Slight correction: Jews were religiously prohibited from charging interest... to other Jews. (As I understand it, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong: not being Jewish myself, my information is second- or third-hand for most of this). Which is part of why they ended up being moneylenders to the non-Jews they lived among. Another part was that, as people who often had to pack up and move, fleeing from armed groups (who may or may not have had the official sanction of the local authorities, but usually did have their unofficial sanction), Jews tended to gravitate towards professions where most of their wealth was portable. Farming? Nope, get chased off your land and your profession is gone. Blacksmithing? Your tools and your stock-in-trade are too heavy to move quickly. Also nope, not if you expect to need to run for your lives at very short notice. But moneylending, or selling gold and jewelry? That works. Grab one or two chests and throw them onto the cart, and you've preserved most of the core of your business, even if the mob torches the shop and any tools that were impractical to move.
So Jews ended up gravitating towards being jewelers, bankers, moneylenders, and so on. All of which, yes, did feed into stereotypes.
> was thinking of the code of Hammurabi
Do we have evidence around what the Code considered property? It seems to be vague [1]. (“Stealing” is applied to minor sons and slaves, for instance. And the terms “article” and named tangible items are used in some cases, while in others the translators chose the term property per se.)
> wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property
I wouldn’t either. I’m saying it’s old. And I wouldn’t say the concept of privately-owned land is “an uncontroversial kind of property” either, entire races had to be wiped out to consolidate that view.
[1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp
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