Somebody said...

I can't quite seem to get the idea of ownership sorted in my mind, so I thought I'd blog about it again and see if it helps. The paper I keep coming back to is <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=189830">this one</a>, although I have to admit I don't get on with everything it says, I like the way in which it tries to be ontologically real about the thing.

So, what's the problem? The problem is that I want to see ownership as a real relation between people and objects/people and things. I think this is the natural way to think of the world - if I say that I give myself to you, I don't merely mean that I'm giving you a bundle of abilities and rights relating to me, I seem to be implying a much deeper relation between the two of us. Most theories and documents I look at put ownership as a bundle of rights, generally the right to use and the right to dispose of in whatever way. These seem to me to be consequences rather than the actual relationship itself, however.

Ownership is tied very closely to possession - it is, if you like, a kind of permanent and unqualified, form of possession. What is possession, though? and how does ownership extend beyond it?

If I hold something in my hand I could be said to be in possession of it - this seems a somewhat brute physical relation, but I believe it must have deeper and more profound meaning and consequences than that. The metaphor that is used in the article linked about is the idea of an extension of the self. Whilst I don't like the idea of property as an extension of the self, I am more than happy to accept the idea of property as an extension <em>to</em> the self. By holding something in your hand, you are holding it to yourself, and asserting your primacy over it such that it is in essence subordinated to your being and becomes a kind of extension to it. It is ordered around you, it is added to you. If we use the metaphor of slavery, there is a kind of bondage to you that goes on that could take all sorts of forms.

This relationship obviously extends in other ways beyond what the physical action of holding represents - it seems that we can socially construct a lot more relationships than we are able to maintain individually. It is also true that we can claim something as our own without ever touching it - it seems in this case we change the objects identity by a kind of 'intentional underwriting' of its existence. By saying 'you are mine' the words I utter seem to perform a similar function to that of holding the object. It an I form a kind of bond, albeit a fairly provisional one.