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  "map_content": "https://mises.org/mises-wire/did-indians-understand-concept-private-property\r\nDid the Indians Understand the Concept of Private Property? Private Property, U.S. History 10/09/2017 Ryan McMaken One of Ayn Rand\u2019s most notorious claims is that Europeans and their descendants were justified in driving Indian tribes off their lands because aboriginal Americans did not have the concept of property or property rights, and because they wished to continue a primitive existence. Rand also claims the Indian tribes had no right to the land they lived on because they didn\u2019t have a settled society, and had predominantly nomadic tribal cultures. Rand even uses scare quotes around cultures to perhaps imply that Indian culture was not any type of culture at all. Today, many critics of laissez-faire liberalism (i.e., libertarianism) continue to quote these lines in order to indict all defenders of private property, whom critics like to associate with Rand\u2019s peculiar ideology. As with so many accusations that conflate Rand\u2019s beliefs with libertarians, this is misplaced. Many libertarian writers have approached the issue from a a perspective which assumes the tribes were treated unjustly. Leonard Liggio, for example, discussed the issue from this perspective in the early 1970s, and Rothbard repeatedly wrote with sympathy in Conceived in Liberty about the tribes who interacted with colonial Americans. To this day, Indian-tribe sovereignty, as weak as it is, continues to be an important check on federal power. Regardless of how one views European and American policy toward the tribes, however, the argument that the tribes and individual Indians had no concept of property and thus whites were justified in seizing tribal lands is a terrible argument for a variety of reasons. First, as we shall see, the claim that the Indians and tribes had no concept of property is completely alien to the actual historical facts in the matter. Second, this argument is especially damaging and misguided because it creates the impression that the concept of private property is not apparent to all rational human beings, and is perhaps even an invention of European theorists. This argument, of course, is beloved by Marxists and other anti-capitalists ideologues who argue that the idea of private property is peculiar to capitalists who invented the concept to justify their own exploitation of workers. Fortunately, this is not the case at all. The concept of property in any situation where scarcity exists is self-evident, and does not require complex theories spun by Europeans to become apparent. Indian Tribes Were not All the Same One of the main reasons that even educated people like Rand believe that North American Indians were virtually all nomadic and did not understand the concept of property, is the influence of Hollywood. In Rand\u2019s day especially, popular culture virtually always focused primarily on Plains Indians frequently the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes and rarely portrayed Indian tribes with very different social structures. In real life, Indian tribes across North America prior to the 20th century varied considerably in social structure, the usage of technology, and lifestyle. Indeed, whenever one encounters commentary that refers to the Indians as a uniform group, this should be a red flag to the reader that the argument is being made by someone who knows next to nothing about the tribes. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico were not nomadic at all, and employed agriculture, much like the so-called Five Civilized Tribes (i.e., Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole). The Cherokee, of course, were known for their highly-successful use of agriculture (which prompted whites to later steal their fertile lands under Andrew Jackson). The Iroquois rotated their living quarters among several preferred locations that were regarded as the best for farming and hunting. Virtually all Indian tribes recognized the validity of personal property. Individual tribe members were not expected to share their horses, weapons, dwellings, and slaves among all other members of the tribe. Indeed, many tribes, especially among the Plains Indians, developed complex economic and social rules and mores around the so-called horse culture in which ownership of the highest quality horses were a status symbol, and a means of attaining power and prestige within the tribe. In regards to the Comanches of the southern plains, economist Bruce Benson has observed: private ownership was firmly established for such things as horses, tools for hunting and gathering, food, weapons, materials used in the construction of mobile shelters, clothing, and various kinds of body ornaments that were used for religious ceremonies and other activities. Cooperative production (group raids to take horses from enemy tribes or group hunts ) did not imply communal ownership. The product of such cooperative activities was divided among participants according to their contributed effort. Individuals might share such things as food at times, but they did so out of generosity. Food could be given but not taken because it was private property not communal property. One of the reasons that many continue to think that aboriginal Americans had no concept of private property, however, is because many tribes did regard land as being communally owned. Carl Watner explores the topic in The Journal of Libertarian Studies: Misunderstanding arising from their differing concepts of property in land was one of the main causes of disputes between the Europeans and the Indians. The Indians did not recognize land appropriation by individual members of the tribe, and even Roger Williams recognized that landownership among the Indians was usually held by the tribe. Nevertheless, among the Indians articles of personal property were owned by the individual. Each Indian tribe was perfectly well acquainted with the limits and bounds of its landholdings, even though these holdings were not enclosed in the normal European fashion. As voluntary associations, the tribes could, and in fact did, historically, sell their rights to the soil by allowing their chiefs to represent tribal interests. These chiefs were authorized to make and execute deeds on behalf of the tribe, to receive for the tribe the consideration for the deeds, and to divide such consideration among the individuals of the tribe. The authority of the chiefs, so acting for the whole tribe, is attested by the presence and assent of the individuals composing the tribe and by their receipt of their respective share of the price. Thus could the Indian tribes deal with the Europeans for the sale of their lands, and granted that the chiefs had this authority, it must be admitted that they were capable of determining what in their opinion would be ample compensation for their lands. To take this reality and thus conclude that Indians or the tribes had no concept of private property is to define down property to the point of being useless. As I\u2019ve noted in the past, communal property is private property, since ownership is restricted to specific groups of people, to the exclusion of others. Communal property is not shared among just anyone who wants to use it. Communal property is not unowned. This issue is further complicated by an overly restrictive idea of homesteading employed by some libertarian theorists. John Locke, of course, famously asserted that ownership of land can be obtained through three methods: Homestead it via fencing it in, protecting it, and proclaiming that it is under your ownership. Acquiring the property title via voluntary transfer. Claiming abandoned land by adverse possession: move on it, fence it, mix one\u2019s labor with it, etc. Those who claim that the Indian tribes had no right to their land, often employ this reasoning to build their case. But this is too limiting in its idea of homesteading the land. Consider, for example, that a plot of land exists with a lake on it. Inside the lake are fish. A group of Indians then claims the lake as their own, in order to catch the fish, and excludes other groups from entering into the land. Have they homesteaded it? A strict view of Lockean improvement (i.e., mixing labor with the land) might be that the group of Indians have no claim to the land because they have not improved it by planting trees or putting a fence around it. In fact, the very act of excluding others is an act of improvement because limiting use of the lake ensures the lake is not overfished, and preserves the value of the land for use by a specific group of owners. The homesteading tribe has not left the lake to its natural state. Access has been controlled for the specific purpose of preserving value. In practice, value can be added to land in any number of ways, and land is useful for many purposes other than planting crops or building a factory. Thus, when nomadic tribes exclude others from specific hunting lands, they are preserving those resources such as fertile grazing areas for game that give the land value. If hunting grounds are not exclusive, and result in overhunting which drives away game, then the value of the land has been destroyed for hunting purposes. By preventing this destruction of value, the homesteaders have asserted their ownership of the land in question. In spite of the tribes\u2019 habitual use of personal property, and in spite of a clear understanding that ownership in land can be both asserted and traded, the idea that the Indians did not have the concept of property or property rights, continues to endure in some corners of the libertarian world and among conservatives. It is an ahistorical and fact-free approach that should be abandoned as soon as possible. Impact Report What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.",
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  "map_content": "This is a topic i post with extreme hesitency, regret and caution. As the mere act of acumilating publicly shared data for study is deemed as an insult. And the attempt to advance western civilization and eastern and all others is deemed an act even violence. \r\nBut i did see some interest in the question of ownership etc.  Also i saw awkwardness mentioned,  i perpetually dwell in the realm of awkwardness, so im biased,  yeah what can one say,  i think people feel awkward walking down the street these days,  and i dont know. \r\nMy only point is as i will be sharing a chinese history segment,  i know before i hear it that it will disapoint me.\r\nAs  i think people over simplify it and deal with it a touch disrespectfully.\r\n But these are the best arguments sources i know of trying to piece together some kind of an understanding of this topic. \r\nhttps://www.jimball.com.au/aboriginals/random-note-australia-day-bitterness-resentment-and-ingratitude-what-have-the-romans-ever-done-for-us/",
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  "map_content": "And some balance to this colonialism term being brandished like a machete everywhere.\r\nThis is historical fiction aiming to describe a story of these so called colonisers. Its in effect a horror production of the highest order.\r\nAnyone thinks that australua is bad now. Should read this book. Weve come along way but have a long way to go to achieving any type of a productive functioning society with reduced levels of gross injustice and aproaching borderline acceptable basic human rights for a lets say an option for every man woman and child for basic human rights, and escape from a life of abuse, or growing up in an environment where gaol is the norm , a certainty, a right of passage,   so where does this tie in to property rights law.\r\nTrying to show as i said we are talking about non fully fucntioning societies, as in how reality is portrayed by people who have had a somewhat normal sheltered existence.\r\nMy point is to remind people that there is in fact a population of australians living in lets say hopless situations with no help, either serving gaol sentences , abusive homes,  direct casualties of australian law and primative government regulations,  cultures such as sharia law actively in australia now today where women have no hope to escape. \r\nEven so called australian culture . From all racial backgrounds, failing to evolve from some of the practices activities behaviours  described in this book.\r\nAnd these people arent trying to build aps on bitcoin or learning to code, which they should be behooved the opportunity to if our media ,  government, educational institutions etc were  not devolving into satanism, civilizational suicide, and even comparable levels of uncivilized behaviour described in this book.\r\nSo my point, there is a population of australians whos primary law is not australian law, they live under total control of slave masters who prey on the weak,  weather it be the underworld group,  immediate family,  or controling manipulative partners, even workplaces where people are not primaraly concerned with australian law but with surviving and obeying or trying to escape laws imposed on them by iether groups or individuals.\r\nAnd in this oversimplified modern discorse focusing on topics google and twitter implant in society as oposed to  lives of people not in good suburbs who have never ever had a taste of normalicy,   are in effect being silenced.  And society is further being divided ever more to be conquered by political parties  whose primarl concern is not advancing australia but gaining and holding power and moving to more comunist way of life, and treating america the usa as the bad guy, and my final point is there will maybe always be a underlying vibe of awkwardness  with attempts to advance property law in australia  as there is no decent expression of the conservative western usa constitution style  even christian, \r\nLets say a basic explanation of this stuff.\r\nYou wont hear it from albanese,  sky news , the abc,  pauline hanson.\r\nThere is this thing called the hoover institution. But even they are severely lacking on many topics. \r\nOk please forgive me,  feel free to give guidence to me as to how i can improve my usage of treechat as i dont see anything else i can do to somehow make it through some days.  Im on here purely out of a last ditch effort to try to somehow make it to a situation where i can get a normal job and live a normal life.",
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  "map_content": "And the free software angle of intelectual property.\r\nhttps://youtube.com/watch?v=XMm0HsmOTFI&si=mymNrtjs1U24ZHg-",
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  "map_content": "And then we have a diferent maybe branch of Chinese property law. As opposed to your  Chinese government property law allthough they are no doubt intertwined.",
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