The concept of ownership is invalid

Life is not a competition

The concept of ownership relies upon the idea that it is justifiable to exclude others from access to an object or information. In the case of "intellectual property" we claim that discovery of an idea or concept confers special privileges to whomever it was discovered by... But how has such a person suffered loss whenever someone else "copies" their idea? How would their subsequent gain be to the detriment of the original inventor?

So we move on to the ownership of an object which can be either an object constructed by a person or an object of nature. By what right would a person claim to own land, for example? We have no authority to make such a judgement since we are part of nature ourselves.

For a person to claim ownership of an object must then rely on their claim to have constructed the object, but then still, how does this confer ownership? Others would be prevented from use of the object on the grounds that having "made" it you should enjoy the advantage... But it is only in conflating the concepts of work (effort) with personal advantage that we arrive at the concept of ownership. It is invalid to say that we require work to result in comparative advantage...

After all, we are all on the same team. Or, at least it can't shown that we are on opposing teams.

8th January 2009