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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Law is the arbiter of theft. Ownership does not exist outside of law.
The social concept of ownership does not exist because of the legal concept; the legal concept exists because of the social concept.
Originally Posted by CoccoBill
This was all covered fairly thoroughly already by others, but I'd just like to point out that your definition of theft is more arbitrary than the one provided by law. One could easily imagine you aimed this comment at yourself, not unlike this whole thread.
I haven't proposed a definition of theft, at least not one that is any different than the accepted definition of theft. What I've proposed is that the concept exists without the law.
Determining which instances are theft does have some level of arbitrariness to it, but that's also a different topic.
You're trying to argue that theft and murder are some universal concepts that exist outside human culture.
I'm not sure I would say it's universal. Some people may not have concepts of "theirs" in the first place. But what we do know is that we do have a concept of ownership and theft regardless of what the law says.
Originally Posted by OngBonga
You can remove the word "criminal" from this sentence and it still means exactly the same thing.
It wouldn't. It would undermine my entire position because I would be saying that the concept of theft is dependent on the law.
Originally Posted by JKDS
Go ahead and try to define theft without invoking property rights.
Go ahead and try to define property rights without invoking some rule making body.
I would certainly be in a quandary if I was talking about the law.
Let's say you live in the woods. You find some seeds. You clear a space, till the soil, plant them, guard them, nurture them, etc., then eventually you have tomatoes. You start picking your tomatoes and are going to eat them, but then somebody else comes along, punches you, and takes your tomatoes. Even though there is no law designating ownership or conduct of any sort, the reality of the situation is that those things exist because of your efforts and purpose, and that before you could fulfill the purpose for which you created those things, somebody else took them.
This is where the concept of theft comes from. The law is a reflection of these basic physical and social realities, but that doesn't mean the law determines the existence of the physical and social realities.
Originally Posted by MadMojoMonkey
it is much lamented that America got its land because it displaced people from said land. Those people did not believe (or even understand) that land could be property. The notion of property of said land was explained to them when they were killed for going where they'd always gone.
So property is a conceit - and one that not all human cultures adopt.
So the idea that "taking" is the same as "theft" on some deep, human level is demonstrated to be false.
The concept is probably not universal. But we have it, so the concept exists for us.
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