WEBVTT NOTE How We Become Owners 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 How We Become Owners 2 00:00:05.000 --> 00:00:14.000 How do human beings get themselves in a position where they can control and make decisions over property? 3 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:23.000 The process today is one that is almost totally involved with exchange. 4 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:27.000 We deal with other owners. 5 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:33.240 Virtually all the property that is desirable and that we want to own in this world is already 6 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:41.000 owned by someone else. And so we have no rights over that property, and whoever is the owner 7 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:48.080 has the rights. If we want to own any part of it, what we must do is approach the owner 8 00:00:48.080 --> 00:00:55.420 and try to win a privilege from him. Since he has the rights, then we can obtain a privilege. 9 00:00:55.420 --> 00:01:01.140 And if we want to get a privilege from him, we try to work out an arrangement so that 10 00:01:01.140 --> 00:01:08.740 he will grant us the property that he already has. To do this, usually we have to give him 11 00:01:08.740 --> 00:01:13.980 a property that we have, because he wouldn't just want to be without property. And so we 12 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:21.440 exchange money for goods, goods for money, services for goods, services for money, or 13 00:01:21.440 --> 00:01:28.440 or services for goods. We just exchange things, each one of us trying to get hold of a property 14 00:01:28.440 --> 00:01:36.000 that we don't have, that somebody else does have. And that's the way today we basically 15 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:38.040 try to get hold of property. 16 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.880 Now of course you can get hold of property another way. You can become the owner of a 17 00:01:41.880 --> 00:01:47.720 property through theft. You don't approach the owner. You just approach the property 18 00:01:47.720 --> 00:01:53.480 and you appropriate it to yourself. Now, that's a way of acquiring property. I don't recommend it. 19 00:01:53.480 --> 00:02:00.280 Obviously, this is a way to create basic conflict. It does not enhance the position of anyone. 20 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:06.360 It is not a constructive procedure. As a matter of fact, if we were to have any kind of a constructive 21 00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:10.760 procedure, we would have to have a kind of procedure that we could recommend for everyone. 22 00:02:11.480 --> 00:02:15.480 If we were to try to recommend theft as a basic procedure for people, 23 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:20.840 So, we would have to recommend it for everyone. Then everybody should get to steal. Well, 24 00:02:20.840 --> 00:02:25.440 if everybody got to steal, who would produce? There really wouldn't be much incentive 25 00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:31.840 to produce because anything that you produce could be stolen. So, the chances are that 26 00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:37.080 we would more and more devote ourselves to theft. But because man is basically a consumer, 27 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:41.960 we would very quickly consume everything that had been produced up to this time. And now 28 00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:43.440 Now what would we do? 29 00:02:43.440 --> 00:02:46.680 No one would be willing to produce because the minute it was produced somebody would 30 00:02:46.680 --> 00:02:48.000 steal it. 31 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:49.480 And where would we be? 32 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:55.600 Well, we'd be right back at about as primitive a level as it would be possible to imagine. 33 00:02:55.600 --> 00:03:01.520 Actually, there are only three ways that you can deal with property. 34 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:05.560 There's only three possible systems that we could have. 35 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:11.080 One system would be, everybody gets to steal from everybody. 36 00:03:11.080 --> 00:03:33.380 The second way we could operate would be that some people can steal from other people. 37 00:03:33.380 --> 00:03:35.460 But the other people don't get to steal. 38 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:40.580 In other words, you have a system where theft is granted to a limited number, but the others 39 00:03:40.580 --> 00:03:43.060 must not. 40 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:47.820 In a sense, that's what we have now. 41 00:03:47.820 --> 00:03:51.620 All of us don't steal, but some do. 42 00:03:51.620 --> 00:03:57.140 Often, the most serious theft occurs with a license. 43 00:03:57.140 --> 00:04:02.500 The government grants a license to certain people to steal, and those who don't have 44 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:05.860 a license and steal can get themselves into jail very quickly. 45 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:10.700 But if you are a member of the government taxing team, for instance, why, you have a 46 00:04:10.700 --> 00:04:16.500 license, and that's the difference between legal and illegal predation. 47 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:21.300 Now the only other possible system would be one in which nobody steals. 48 00:04:21.300 --> 00:04:23.100 Those are all there are. 49 00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:25.500 That's all the possibilities you've got. 50 00:04:25.500 --> 00:04:31.700 Either everybody steals from everybody, or some people steal from other people, or nobody 51 00:04:31.700 --> 00:04:33.580 steals from anybody. 52 00:04:33.580 --> 00:04:35.700 Now which is best? 53 00:04:35.700 --> 00:04:42.700 If we are going to work toward the idea of a moral world, a world that will tend to bring 54 00:04:42.700 --> 00:04:48.380 major satisfactions, we are going to minimize conflict, we are going to maximize human well-being, 55 00:04:48.380 --> 00:04:55.060 clearly, there is only one desirable system, and that's a system where nobody steals 56 00:04:55.060 --> 00:04:56.800 from anybody. 57 00:04:56.800 --> 00:05:00.700 So the idea that everybody gets to steal, we've got to throw that out, and we've 58 00:05:00.700 --> 00:05:05.380 We've even got to throw out the idea that some people somehow get to steal from everybody 59 00:05:05.380 --> 00:05:06.380 else. 60 00:05:06.380 --> 00:05:08.140 That's going to be the tough one to work with. 61 00:05:08.140 --> 00:05:13.660 But that's what we're going to have to do if we want to get to a world where nobody 62 00:05:13.660 --> 00:05:14.660 steals. 63 00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:22.300 Now, the only moral position possible is the one I've just enunciated. 64 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:27.700 That is, no one steals from anyone. 65 00:05:27.700 --> 00:05:34.960 Back in the early days, before property was owned, and before we began exchanging it with 66 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:41.340 each other, which is the basic way that we acquire property today, we had to first acquire 67 00:05:41.340 --> 00:05:49.420 property from nature. Remember, our basic property is our self. We own our own persons. 68 00:05:49.420 --> 00:05:54.900 But that's not enough. If all you could control was yourself, you would very quickly 69 00:05:54.900 --> 00:06:02.700 The only way you can stay alive is by dominating your environment to some degree so that you 70 00:06:02.700 --> 00:06:08.180 can obtain from your environment the substances, the goods, the comforts that will make it 71 00:06:08.180 --> 00:06:13.900 possible for you to stay alive. So you have to be able to control your environment in 72 00:06:13.900 --> 00:06:18.780 your own favor, at least to some degree, or you can't make it. 73 00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:26.660 So then we had to have a way of learning how to take over and become the owner of the properties 74 00:06:26.660 --> 00:06:32.900 of nature, to which the land, the growing things, the animals, the plants, the minerals, 75 00:06:32.900 --> 00:06:36.640 the metals, the water, air and other substances and so on. 76 00:06:36.640 --> 00:06:43.260 So this whole process of moving things from a state of nature into a state of ownership 77 00:06:43.260 --> 00:06:50.700 is a very interesting one and a number of people have theorized as to how it was done. Possibly 78 00:06:50.700 --> 00:06:57.660 one of the most influential statements in this area was written some time ago by a man named John 79 00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:03.820 Locke, who wrote several very influential treatises, one of them being called the Second 80 00:07:03.820 --> 00:07:06.060 Treatise on Civil Government. 81 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:15.660 And in this treatise by Locke, the idea is expressed that the manner in which we actually 82 00:07:15.660 --> 00:07:22.020 acquire property from nature is one that involves our labor. 83 00:07:22.020 --> 00:07:25.820 Let me, I'll paraphrase what Locke says. 84 00:07:25.820 --> 00:07:31.560 I don't have his quote immediately before me here, but here is the idea that he was 85 00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:33.180 getting at. 86 00:07:33.180 --> 00:07:40.420 Locke begins by saying that, at first, everything is in a state of nature. To wit, no one owns 87 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:46.840 anything except himself. Now, Locke acknowledges that. He recognizes that ownership begins 88 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:53.580 with the ownership by the person of himself. So he says that. He says, of course, to begin 89 00:07:53.580 --> 00:08:01.700 with, each man owns himself and we may rightfully say that his energy, his skills, his brains, 90 00:08:01.700 --> 00:08:07.260 And his ideas are rightfully his, and therefore he owns that much. 91 00:08:07.260 --> 00:08:11.480 But now everything else is unowned, it's in a state of nature. 92 00:08:11.480 --> 00:08:19.020 And what happens, says Locke, is that this man desiring, let us say, to own a field will 93 00:08:19.020 --> 00:08:24.380 go out and clear the field, taking out the things that would prevent a crop, that is, 94 00:08:24.380 --> 00:08:30.400 he cuts down the trees and removes the rocks and the other impediments, and then he plants 95 00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:38.640 points it into a crop of some sort, and having done so, says Locke, the man has been mixing 96 00:08:38.640 --> 00:08:45.100 his energy with the natural resource. Now since he owned his energy, and that's already 97 00:08:45.100 --> 00:08:50.480 been acknowledged, then a property of his to which his energy has been mixed with the 98 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:57.840 land and by this process, says Locke, the land becomes his. Now that provided us with 99 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:05.180 with a very early idea in this area, and it could be called the labor theory of ownership. 100 00:09:05.180 --> 00:09:13.640 It suggests that the ownership of the natural things, the order of nature, comes into our 101 00:09:13.640 --> 00:09:22.960 ownership by virtue of an act of labor wherein a person works, releases his energy, mixes 102 00:09:22.960 --> 00:09:48.760 This theory, although it does appear to have a great deal of validity, would probably only 103 00:09:48.760 --> 00:09:58.060 hold in an agricultural or an agrarian culture that had not begun thinking yet in areas of 104 00:09:58.060 --> 00:10:06.560 manufacture and mass production and mass distribution. Although it seems viable, in actual fact, 105 00:10:06.560 --> 00:10:12.320 that really isn't what we did. And that's not the way it works. The labor theory of 106 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:18.760 of Property Ownership, although it has some merit, will not stand the ultimate test. It 107 00:10:18.760 --> 00:10:21.880 leads into contradictions. 108 00:10:21.880 --> 00:10:28.760 To illustrate this, let me show you what might happen. Let's suppose that you are a much 109 00:10:28.760 --> 00:10:34.720 younger man than I, and I am presuming that you are a male. So you are much younger than 110 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:40.720 I, I am an old man, and I have, let's suppose, six grown sons of my own. So that puts us 111 00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:42.240 in different age groups. 112 00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:47.900 Now let me suppose that you have decided that you would like to be a farmer. 113 00:10:47.900 --> 00:10:53.980 This is back in the agricultural days and this would be the prime job for you to undertake. 114 00:10:53.980 --> 00:10:57.300 So you'd like to be a farmer and you know how, you were raised on a farm and you're 115 00:10:57.300 --> 00:11:01.420 really looking forward to this and you live in an area where there's a lot of land that 116 00:11:01.420 --> 00:11:02.420 is unowned. 117 00:11:02.420 --> 00:11:04.820 This is virgin territory. 118 00:11:04.820 --> 00:11:05.820 Nobody is there. 119 00:11:05.820 --> 00:11:06.820 And I mean this. 120 00:11:06.820 --> 00:11:07.820 Nobody. 121 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:16.320 Primitives that may inhabit the area. There aren't any primitives here. Nobody. The land is clean. It's clear. No owners. It's virgin. 122 00:11:16.320 --> 00:11:24.320 Okay, so now you decide you want to be a farmer and you go into the area and you take a look around and you say, 123 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:33.820 boy, this piece right here would be ideal for me. Let me suppose that we're talking about a plot of land that contains 640 acres. 124 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:33.820 and whatever else you want, pigs and geese and chickens and so on, and you want to have a poultry yard and you want to have a wood lot where you can, you know, get wood for the fire and this sort of thing, and you'd like to have a cash crop and then a basic crop, and well, you've got lots of ambition, and you're young, and you're going to be a prosperous farmer, and that's going to be your life. So now, here you are in an area where there is no other owner, and so you decide that this particular piece is going to be yours. 125 00:12:33.820 --> 00:12:38.140 First thing you've done here, you've valued. 126 00:12:38.140 --> 00:12:40.500 You see something that you value. 127 00:12:40.500 --> 00:12:43.820 And you've checked, and there isn't any owner. 128 00:12:43.820 --> 00:12:48.900 So it's obviously something that you could take without molesting anyone. 129 00:12:48.900 --> 00:12:50.220 There isn't anybody there. 130 00:12:50.220 --> 00:12:53.100 You can't molest a non-existent person. 131 00:12:53.100 --> 00:12:57.000 So your position is perfectly moral up to this point. 132 00:12:57.000 --> 00:12:59.740 So you go out, and now you mark out. 133 00:12:59.740 --> 00:13:01.220 You bound, don't you? 134 00:13:01.220 --> 00:13:02.820 You create a boundary. 135 00:13:02.820 --> 00:13:07.740 So you go out and you mark out the territory you're going to have. We'll assume that 136 00:13:07.740 --> 00:13:13.540 this land slopes gently, it has good soil, and there's a stream that comes down out 137 00:13:13.540 --> 00:13:19.280 of the mountains and flows part way alongside of your property, and you use the stream as 138 00:13:19.280 --> 00:13:24.940 part of the boundary at one point. And then you figure a line over to another point where 139 00:13:24.940 --> 00:13:29.620 there's a big bunch of rocks, and that'll be another boundary to your property. And 140 00:13:29.620 --> 00:13:33.900 And then you run down another way and there's a little grove of trees there and you put 141 00:13:33.900 --> 00:13:38.580 blazes on the trees through there and one of those trees becomes the corner tree that 142 00:13:38.580 --> 00:13:41.820 marks the corner of your property in that area. 143 00:13:41.820 --> 00:13:46.060 And then you go out to find the fourth corner and that's just open field. 144 00:13:46.060 --> 00:13:51.420 You can't find any kind of a marker there at all, so you cut a stake and you drive it 145 00:13:51.420 --> 00:13:53.660 into the corner to mark that corner. 146 00:13:53.660 --> 00:14:01.020 So now you've marked out a territory roughly 640 acres and this is the one that you believe 147 00:14:01.020 --> 00:14:03.180 you'd have. 148 00:14:03.180 --> 00:14:08.500 Now before you go and ask the girl to marry you, you want to do a few things first. 149 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:12.860 You want to get in a garden crop and start things up and then you'll head back for the 150 00:14:12.860 --> 00:14:16.140 city and your proposal of marriage. 151 00:14:16.140 --> 00:14:21.600 So you get a plow and you start plowing in one place and let's suppose that you've plowed 152 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:27.640 up about an acre of ground, and I appear on the scene. And I say, Hi, young fellow, what 153 00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:32.240 are you doing? Well, your response obviously is going to be, Well, what's it look like 154 00:14:32.240 --> 00:14:37.520 I'm doing? I'm plowing. And I say, Well, yes, I see that. But why? Here you are out 155 00:14:37.520 --> 00:14:43.060 in a wilderness area. What are you plowing for? Well, you say, Because I'm putting in 156 00:14:43.060 --> 00:14:49.060 a farm. You can't put in a farm without plowing. I say, Right you are. But the interesting 157 00:14:49.060 --> 00:14:52.660 And the same thing is, I came out here to do the same thing. 158 00:14:52.660 --> 00:14:57.740 And so you say, well, fine, it would be nice to have a neighbor out here that is kind of 159 00:14:57.740 --> 00:15:01.700 a lonely area, and here's the land I'm planning. 160 00:15:01.700 --> 00:15:06.380 And then you explain to me where the rocks are and where the stream is and how you put 161 00:15:06.380 --> 00:15:10.140 the blazes on the trees and where you drove the stake. 162 00:15:10.140 --> 00:15:13.940 And I say to you, well, now that's all very nice. 163 00:15:13.940 --> 00:15:18.920 But you know, we believe in Locke's labor theory of ownership. 164 00:15:18.920 --> 00:15:24.140 And I respect your labor, but I don't respect your dreams. 165 00:15:24.140 --> 00:15:26.240 And Buster, you're dreaming. 166 00:15:26.240 --> 00:15:29.240 I don't know that you'll ever even get to marry the girl. 167 00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:31.040 I don't know that you'll have six kids. 168 00:15:31.040 --> 00:15:34.700 I don't know that you need a piece of land as big as this. 169 00:15:34.700 --> 00:15:37.460 You could be struck by lightning tomorrow. 170 00:15:37.460 --> 00:15:40.200 Why should I respect your dreams? 171 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:42.680 Now I do respect your labor. 172 00:15:42.680 --> 00:15:47.700 You've mixed your energy with an acre of this soil, and I wouldn't trespass that. 173 00:15:47.700 --> 00:15:52.820 That would be a trespass because that's your property. You've mixed your energy with it. 174 00:15:52.820 --> 00:15:57.300 And I even respect that stake you drove down in the far corner. Because your energy is 175 00:15:57.300 --> 00:16:03.020 there too, and I respect that. But all is territory in between. What have you done to 176 00:16:03.020 --> 00:16:08.240 claim that? You haven't done a thing except dream about it. And I don't consider that 177 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:12.940 valid because I got dreams too. And I'll tell you what I've got. I've also got six boys 178 00:16:12.940 --> 00:16:19.100 is out here in my wagon, and they've all got plows. And this is the land we want. So we're 179 00:16:19.100 --> 00:16:23.260 going to give you plenty of respect, and we're not going to trespass at all on the parts 180 00:16:23.260 --> 00:16:28.160 you've plowed. And we won't even trespass your stake. We're just going to cut across 181 00:16:28.160 --> 00:16:35.940 lots because we want not 640 acres, we want about 5,000 acres, and we need this piece. 182 00:16:35.940 --> 00:16:41.100 So I'm going to reserve the part where your labor is involved, because that's what Locke 183 00:16:41.100 --> 00:16:47.860 Now, what would you think of me if I pulled that? 184 00:16:47.860 --> 00:16:51.940 We actually have special names for fellows that do things like that. 185 00:16:51.940 --> 00:16:55.540 Well, we have a whole series of names for them, in fact. 186 00:16:55.540 --> 00:17:01.220 But the name I'm thinking of here is we call such a man a claim jumper. 187 00:17:01.220 --> 00:17:04.080 You see, that's what a claim jumper is. 188 00:17:04.080 --> 00:17:06.060 He jumps a claim. 189 00:17:06.060 --> 00:17:09.580 He doesn't jump labor. 190 00:17:09.580 --> 00:17:18.300 And a man who is a claim jumper is a thief. Even though he isn't interfering with the 191 00:17:18.300 --> 00:17:25.180 labor of the other party that was there, he is interfering with the plan that the other 192 00:17:25.180 --> 00:17:32.060 fellow had, and the other fellow, in this case you, wouldn't have put your plow in 193 00:17:32.060 --> 00:17:39.140 the ground unless you thought you could have that much land. Because if you were only going 194 00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:47.240 You see, that's the point. 195 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:53.960 If we're going to avoid molesting one another, we have to learn that molestation begins with 196 00:17:53.960 --> 00:18:04.680 the violation of the will of the other party's property claim, not just his labor, his claim. 197 00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:13.720 And so I would be guilty of theft if I came in and impose my will over you in such a way 198 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:22.080 even to interfere with your dreams when your dreams are founded upon claim and when they 199 00:18:22.080 --> 00:18:25.200 don't involve molestation of anyone. 200 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:28.840 Remember when you came into the area, there was no one there. 201 00:18:28.840 --> 00:18:30.560 Your position is moral. 202 00:18:30.560 --> 00:18:36.680 You couldn't have been immoral because the moral theater is the theater of interhuman 203 00:18:36.680 --> 00:18:41.480 relationships and there was no human that you could interrelate with. And consequently 204 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:46.960 your position had to be moral. No way for it to be otherwise. But now I come into the 205 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:53.360 area and there is another person there. Now the only way I can retain my moral position 206 00:18:53.360 --> 00:19:00.320 is to recognize the rights of the other person. But in this case I wasn't willing to. And 207 00:19:00.320 --> 00:19:05.560 And so at this point, I would have become a thief. A claim jumper. That's a special 208 00:19:05.560 --> 00:19:11.460 type of thief that this particular type of action would be called. Now the interesting 209 00:19:11.460 --> 00:19:20.820 thing is, and this is a fascinating thing to me, in more cases than not, we recognized 210 00:19:20.820 --> 00:19:26.220 this way back even when we were thinking that Locke had spelled it out correctly. And when 211 00:19:26.220 --> 00:19:34.020 When this type of behavior occurred, the second arrival on the scene, in this case me, would 212 00:19:34.020 --> 00:19:39.240 take a look at the other fellow who got there first and say, dog on it, you beat me here. 213 00:19:39.240 --> 00:19:43.640 And I would just love to have that piece of property that you've claimed. But I'm going 214 00:19:43.640 --> 00:19:51.380 to respect your claim because what's very important to me is that you respect mine. 215 00:19:51.380 --> 00:19:55.380 So we're going to end up having contiguous boundaries. 216 00:19:55.380 --> 00:20:00.480 Your boundary and my boundary will be the same on the east side or the west side or 217 00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:06.700 the north side or wherever of your land or maybe on two sides because I've got six grown 218 00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:12.300 men and they're grown and they've got wives and so on and we're going to build a kind 219 00:20:12.300 --> 00:20:17.020 of a community and I can make you a part of the community and you can make me a part of 220 00:20:17.020 --> 00:20:27.060 So, even though you've got the best land, mine's going to be awful good. 221 00:20:27.060 --> 00:20:32.900 And what's very important to me is that I have you respecting me. 222 00:20:32.900 --> 00:20:34.560 Because now we become stronger. 223 00:20:34.560 --> 00:20:39.020 New people coming out will see that we respect each other. 224 00:20:39.020 --> 00:20:41.580 And so then they begin to respect us. 225 00:20:41.580 --> 00:20:43.500 This is how we did it. 226 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:50.700 This is how human beings began, at a very early process, taking over land and becoming 227 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:56.500 the owners of it. As a matter of fact, in certain parts of the world, we did it in very 228 00:20:56.500 --> 00:21:04.500 unique ways. For instance, if you examine the old Roman custom in Italy, and even some 229 00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:12.560 of the Etruscans predating the Romans, developed what were called the Freytrees and the Gems. 230 00:21:12.560 --> 00:21:18.800 Those words correspond roughly to the tribes and the clans, and they relate to the descent 231 00:21:18.800 --> 00:21:20.880 of property through the family. 232 00:21:20.880 --> 00:21:22.560 This is the gems. 233 00:21:22.560 --> 00:21:29.120 And what would happen in those days when a man would go out and lay claim to a field, 234 00:21:29.120 --> 00:21:32.840 and it would become his, he would mark it out, of course. 235 00:21:32.840 --> 00:21:37.360 He would put piles of stone to delineate the major boundaries. 236 00:21:37.360 --> 00:21:40.340 But you know, they didn't know how to build fences in those days. 237 00:21:40.340 --> 00:21:45.220 They knew how to build walls or to dig ditches, but they didn't have barbed wire, and they 238 00:21:45.220 --> 00:21:50.620 didn't know anything about putting up picket fences or inexpensive fences. And the idea 239 00:21:50.620 --> 00:21:55.200 of putting up a wall, that's a very costly thing. When everything is done by hand, you'd 240 00:21:55.200 --> 00:22:00.500 have to have hundreds of laborers if you have any size property at all, and you just couldn't 241 00:22:00.500 --> 00:22:06.500 afford that. So do you know how they used to do it? How they used to make their property safe? 242 00:22:06.500 --> 00:22:12.620 They had what are called the lares, or the Roman household gods. 243 00:22:12.620 --> 00:22:15.440 And every family had its own gods. 244 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:23.780 And so the man who had claimed this land would now take and set up little images at intervals 245 00:22:23.780 --> 00:22:25.740 along the boundary line. 246 00:22:25.740 --> 00:22:32.060 These are the lares, and that made the boundary sacred, and nobody was to trespass it. 247 00:22:32.060 --> 00:22:39.160 And so as a stranger came along and he recognized the Lares, it became a religious taboo for 248 00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:41.820 him even to walk across the boundaries. 249 00:22:41.820 --> 00:22:47.420 And these taboos of these early boundaries were so strong that when another man came 250 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:53.720 into the area, they would not dream of having contiguous boundaries. 251 00:22:53.720 --> 00:23:02.080 That is, man A, who establishes the first claim of land, would have, let's say, a rectangle 252 00:23:02.080 --> 00:23:07.440 of property—he's got that—and another man comes in and likes the general area, but 253 00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:15.240 he will run absolutely another complete rectangle, but there will be a space between his boundary 254 00:23:15.240 --> 00:23:22.160 and his neighbor's boundary that would vary anywhere from 8 to maybe 30 feet in width, 255 00:23:22.160 --> 00:23:27.460 and those areas became the first public roads because his boundaries were sacred to his 256 00:23:27.460 --> 00:23:34.240 gods and the other man's boundaries were sacred to his and you just didn't trespass the gods. 257 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:40.580 So the space in between was public and anybody could go there but you just didn't trespass 258 00:23:40.580 --> 00:23:45.020 anybody's private land. That's how that got started over in that part of the country. 259 00:23:45.020 --> 00:23:52.940 So we've been engaged in this process of claiming resources from nature for a very long time. 260 00:23:52.940 --> 00:23:57.260 And what we actually do, we don't do it on the basis of labor, although Locke thought 261 00:23:57.260 --> 00:23:58.540 we did. 262 00:23:58.540 --> 00:24:01.960 We do it on the basis of establishing a claim. 263 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:04.260 And here is the process. 264 00:24:04.260 --> 00:24:10.960 We first value it, then we ascribe the boundary, and then we take control. 265 00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:19.800 That is, we serve notice on everybody that we can reach through any known method of communication, 266 00:24:19.800 --> 00:24:25.500 and hopefully through all known methods of communication, that that property is ours. 267 00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:30.880 And having served that notice, then we begin making the ultimate decision over the property. 268 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:33.000 Now how do we serve notice? 269 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:39.880 Well, in the old days, with the gens and the fray trees, you put up your lorries, and that 270 00:24:39.880 --> 00:24:45.720 That's serve notice. This is yours. Today, or for many years, actually hundreds of years, 271 00:24:45.720 --> 00:24:54.560 we've built fences, or we have put cairns of rock at places where corners appeared, 272 00:24:54.560 --> 00:25:01.000 or we have blazed trees, or we have built a cairn of rock and then buried inside the 273 00:25:01.000 --> 00:25:07.560 cairn a drawing describing the boundaries of the property. Then we make copies of that 274 00:25:07.560 --> 00:25:14.100 and we leave it at important trading junctions like at a general store or any place else 275 00:25:14.100 --> 00:25:20.380 where people tend to congregate to let everybody know, well that's ours. 276 00:25:20.380 --> 00:25:26.320 Sometimes we post a notice on a tree, this is ours, no trespassing, keep off, this means 277 00:25:26.320 --> 00:25:29.000 you, and so on. 278 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.280 These are communication devices. 279 00:25:32.280 --> 00:25:33.780 Actually we went on beyond that. 280 00:25:33.780 --> 00:25:38.660 We finally got to the place where we drew up a document called a deed. 281 00:25:38.660 --> 00:25:46.020 And then the owner of the deed was in a position where he had a piece of paper that established 282 00:25:46.020 --> 00:25:48.060 that he owned that property. 283 00:25:48.060 --> 00:25:52.300 And then, you know, we got into trouble because, of course, in this juncture we turned to the 284 00:25:52.300 --> 00:25:54.540 government to provide the deed. 285 00:25:54.540 --> 00:25:56.260 And the king granted the deed. 286 00:25:56.260 --> 00:25:57.380 This is a grant deed. 287 00:25:57.380 --> 00:25:58.700 It comes from the king. 288 00:25:58.700 --> 00:26:03.900 Many kings can grant this because to begin with, you see, the king owned all the land 289 00:26:03.900 --> 00:26:04.900 in the realm. 290 00:26:04.900 --> 00:26:10.460 So when you had a deed, it was a grant deed, and His Majesty has granted it to you. 291 00:26:10.460 --> 00:26:17.840 Now the interesting thing was that if you lost the deed, you lost the land. 292 00:26:17.840 --> 00:26:22.340 If a thief could pick up that piece of paper and get away with it, he had stolen your property 293 00:26:22.340 --> 00:26:24.980 right out from under your nose. 294 00:26:24.980 --> 00:26:30.480 And that meant that the protection of that deed was a very, very important thing. 295 00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:35.820 And people lost their property on occasion when their deeds were lost. 296 00:26:35.820 --> 00:26:41.360 As a matter of fact, during some of the days in early England and France and other parts 297 00:26:41.360 --> 00:26:48.940 of Europe when this practice was invoked, many lordlings and princes went around deliberately 298 00:26:48.940 --> 00:26:52.740 stealing deeds in order to get property that they wanted. 299 00:26:52.740 --> 00:26:57.640 They simply would attack a man who owned a deed and take it away from him. 300 00:26:57.640 --> 00:27:02.200 And when they had the deed, they had the property, and he lost his claim to it. 301 00:27:02.200 --> 00:27:05.320 So this wasn't a—we didn't like this. 302 00:27:05.320 --> 00:27:11.780 And we began, shortly after this country was founded, we came up with the idea of having 303 00:27:11.780 --> 00:27:14.200 title insurance. 304 00:27:14.200 --> 00:27:20.000 Now that's a marketplace development so we could protect ourselves from the tendency 305 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:22.200 of somebody to steal our deeds. 306 00:27:22.200 --> 00:27:26.840 You see, they're not going to steal the land, that's not portable, that's going to be there. 307 00:27:26.840 --> 00:27:32.480 But if they could steal the property by getting the paper, you see, well then they've accomplished 308 00:27:32.480 --> 00:27:33.480 it. 309 00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:42.200 So now we have a marketplace method of taking the deed into a place and we have the title 310 00:27:42.200 --> 00:27:48.920 searched when we buy to be sure that we really are the buyer and we're dealing with the owner 311 00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:54.640 of the Property and this will be ascertained and it can be ascertained in the market and 312 00:27:54.640 --> 00:28:04.520 then we have the title transferred to us and we get a piece of insurance that guarantees 313 00:28:04.520 --> 00:28:09.640 our title so that if anybody comes around and steals the deed we can go and get another 314 00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:10.880 copy. 315 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:13.980 Of course the government maintains the same records. 316 00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:18.580 Government duplicates many of the things that we do in the market so usually in most county 317 00:28:18.580 --> 00:28:23.860 Court Houses have a court of record and they record these things too, but that's just 318 00:28:23.860 --> 00:28:29.380 a duplication and we have them in both places, but you can do it either way. 319 00:28:29.380 --> 00:28:33.680 Actually the best way is in the market where you get title insurance, that's one way. 320 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.260 We also have a way of getting an abstract where you get a complete record of the history 321 00:28:38.260 --> 00:28:44.220 of that property from the time it was first privately owned and this is a way that we 322 00:28:44.220 --> 00:28:45.220 do it. 323 00:28:45.220 --> 00:28:53.400 Well, the owning of property, the first acquisition of property came through the process of claim. 324 00:28:53.400 --> 00:28:57.660 We establish claim and then we become the owner. 325 00:28:57.660 --> 00:29:02.000 And then later on when we have a great many owners and we want another piece of property, 326 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:05.620 we deal not with the property directly but with the owner. 327 00:29:05.620 --> 00:29:09.580 And that way we operate within a moral framework of reference. 328 00:29:09.580 --> 00:29:14.620 We respect the boundaries of the people who are the owners and they respect our boundaries. 329 00:29:14.620 --> 00:29:19.360 And when we operate that way, we have the best kind of arrangement that we know anything 330 00:29:19.360 --> 00:29:24.320 about. Now maybe there's a better way coming, I don't know what it is, but anyway, that's 331 00:29:24.320 --> 00:29:30.160 the way we do it, and when we do it, we avoid conflict. So I'd like to recommend it. Thanks 332 00:29:30.160 --> 00:29:30.660 very much.