[lbo-talk] Indians, pioneers of property rights (for Eubulides)

[Michael Dawson -PSU]

I'm not sure what point Grant is trying to make.  It isn't true that
Europeans were the first people with "property rights," so what's the
controversy here?  Property is an institution that began with the transition
to "civilization" several thousand years ago.  As tribal societies developed
big men to redistribute surpluses, some of the big men began to conclude
that some of the surplus was theirs from the start -- a pretty natural
conclusion, once big men were born into a long line of big men ancestors.
This phenomenon happened independently at many places and places around the
world.  Europe, despite its modernization of the institution, merely
inherited "property" concepts from some of these others places.  So what?


> On Wednesday, January 14, 2004, at 11:51  AM, Grant Lee quoted:
>
> >
> >     "Their spears and shields, their clubs and lines, etc are their own
> > property; they are manufactured by themselves and are the whole of
> > their
> > personal estate. But, strange as it may appear, they have also their
> > real
> > estates. Bennillong . often assured me, that the island Me-
> > mel (called by us Goat Island) close by Sydney Cove was his own
> > property;
> > that it was his father's . To this little spot he appeared
> > much attached; and we have often seen him and his wife Ba-rang-a-roo
> > feasting and enjoying themselves on it. He told us of other people
> > who possessed this kind of hereditary property..."
> >
> > (David Collins [1798], ed. by B. H. Fletcher, 1975 _An Account Of The
> > English Colony In New South Wales: With Remarks On The Dispositions,
> > Customs, Manners, Etc, Of The Native Inhabitants Of That Colony_,
> > Sydney,
> > A. H. and A. W. Reed, p. 497.)
> >
>
> When I see this kind of anthropological observation, I wonder whether
> the English word "property" precisely expresses the concept that is in
> the culture being observed, or whether there might not be a rather
> sloppy translation taking place (especially when a professional
> anthropologist is not involved).
>
>
> Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org