Re: agriculture & property

["k" <http://www.kathaus.org/~cat>]

Hey Robert,
hmmm,
i think that property precedes distrust.  and dependency is
a difficult and nuanced concept.

first, agriculture does not automatically mean an
authoritarian regime but it does greatly enhance the
chances.  for various reasons; access to good lands, access
to water, food storage ability, increased fertility (because
less walking around means fatter people) which leads to
surplus population, all these can lead to conflict and thus
to property and ways to protect that property and ways to
enforce ownership.
but because agriculture depends on permanent land use, there
is incentive to make it property.  one really wouldn't want
to start to cultivate land and then have someone else come
along and tell one they were going to cultivate it now. 
maybe property doesn't necessarily lead to authoritarianism
but that slope is mighty slippery.  there is a lot of force
moving in that direction.  
in gatherer/hunter societies there is no way to make
property, it is just too easy to move away.  the concept
doesn't exist.  but once the concept of property is
entertained a whole host of yuckiness becomes possible,
because it is now thinkable.
and, too, maybe property doesn't lead to distrust but to me
it precedes it.  it could be possible to have property in a
straight across way, but once again, i think the slope into
fighting over the good bits would lead to distrust pretty
darn quickly once all the good bits were in someone's hands.

and to be clear, none of this would happen overnight, more
likely over generations.

as to dependency, well, no matter how you live you are
dependent on others, the environment and random chance so i
don't think relations inside a system of property is
different on that level.

if you are interested "People Without Government" by Harold
Barclay is good.  I have not read "what is property" by
Proudhon but maybe there is something in there.  there is a
whole lot of things relating to property on
theanarchistlibrary.org.

anyway, thanks for dinner.  i guess you are busy on t-day
(not sure what is happening here anyway), but i am sure we
will have our usual NYE Ethiopian feast, consider yourselves
invited.
--kathryn
katciao