Interesting. I'm trying to steel-man an argument I can infer from you. And for that, the best I can determine is similar to Marcus' comment before and seems to be about exploitation of others and, in particular, the boundaries between mutually beneficial versus exploitation. The goat herding, rent-seeking scooter service, dammed stream, and opportunity costs of car "sharing" all seem to target that boundary.
But that doesn't seem to be (directly) about *types* of property. I'd agree that your A-D are qualitatively different. The qualitative differences I see are types of influence, not types of property. A and B both drain energy from the stream, but use radically different manipulations. C and D share the harvested energy, but use radically different methods for the sharing. All 4 seem to deal with the same types of things. I suppose the money implied by C might be in a different category than all the other things (turbines, dams, power lines, tanks, whatever). And I believe most people who talk about "means of production" disinclude money from that. So, from a property perspective, it's reasonable for you to distinguish C from A,B,D. But that's not what you're implying. You're implying there's a qualitative difference between all of them. For that, my best attempt is to distinguish types of manipulation. Submerged turbines are clearly different from dams as ways to manipulate a stream. C vs D seem clearly different as ways to manipulate the ecology surrounding the stream. But the things being owned, called property don't seem different to me at all. So, I still think the difference between "private property" vs. "private means of production" is ill-formed or hiding some underlying paradigm that would be better expressed in another way. On 11/14/19 5:49 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:> A) I place a 1kW turbine in the stream running past my house and use the
electricity to do something I like or feel is important. B) I dam up the stream and place a 1kW (or 1mW) turbine, holding back the water for later use, consequently denying the use/flow of that water to others downstream. C) I do B *and* I set up a storage/transmission network for said electricity which I then offer to sell/rent to others. D) I do B, but with the full agreement/cooperation of everyone downstream of me and we share in the investment of time and other resources and in the benefits. I'm trying to understand (with your help) what the *qualitative* differences might be among these.... are they simply on a quantitative continuum? Do they all require a strong egotist sense of "self"? Are the distinctions I am trying to suggest simply illusions, or projections?
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