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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

That's like saying it's only their house because we allow them to own a house. Or, those are their children because we allow them to keep their children and not assign them to the state.

It's as if in lawless lands with tribal warfare suddenly people don't earn a living.

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yes true. property, especially real estate, is a legal construct created by the state. In older eras this was more explicit, property existed “at the pleasure of the Queen” or whatever. Now we rely on a nebulous social consensus reinforced by the courts and legislature.

Money is only a token within this game - it has no reality other than the rules. The rules are whatever society decides they are. There is not a “real” ownership that the rules are interfering with.

But that's true for any rights. The right to feel safe, the right to safety and not be harmed, raped or killed. Without society, sure, real-estate, personal safety are out the window and we could expect expropriation, rape and death.

In the US property is also governed by ones rights to defend your property. We have castle doctrine for a reason

You have "Castle doctrine" because it was deemed politically beneficial to a politician at some point. That same politician that would happily turn your neighborhood into a strip mall through eminent domain if that was beneficial for them. You have banks literally foreclosing on the wrong homes, or through simple errors, making people homeless in the process, and those same politicians are "so sad".

If you're in a Western nation and you "make" money, it is very much a partnership with the state, and your ability to "make" money would very likely disappear without the state. For someone to go on about "their" money has no correlation with actual reality, and I'd encourage them to ply their trade in Somalia. I'm sure the income tax rates are great.

This is kind of circular reasoning. You might as well say you are only alive because the state lets you live.

It's my life as much as money is my money. Yes, they can be taken away.

yes, there is always the option to return to violence, for anyone who’d prefer to be nasty, brutish, and short.

Children are a bit different because they are actually created by the parents (and the personal relationship is of course super-important for the child's development).

But generic economic resources: yes. Ownership of pretty much anything including houses relies on social acceptance of the rules of private property ownership and market value. And that social acceptance can be conditional on things like taxes to fund social goods. If you don't want to play by the democratically determined rules, then you shouldn't expect the state to defend your property.

I think that property-children is on a continuum. When you have raiding parties and tribal warfare, children were taken as slaves. From that PoV then children are in the same basket where they are protected by the norms of society, same as property.

Saying you only own your money or house because we allow you to is like saying the only reason you don't get raped or killed is because we have a structure of laws against it. Yes?

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