If they fell, they would need to be replaced, and there lies their strongest pilar: replaced for what?

That pillar can only be counted off if the change is slow.

Its not something simple like a building, it has to be replaced fast and with efficiency otherwise the society collapses.

The property rights which are the cause of the results we see before us, they cannot question; but those rights are a house of cards... If we quit believing in them they will fall...It is just that simple...

Its not something simple like a building, it has to be replaced fast and with efficiency otherwise the society collapses.

Mr. Fight the Power wrote:

Property rights are going to exist regardless.

Property deals with the way people organize themselves around the scarce natural resources that people find value in. As long as there are conflict (conflict can be peaceful) over natural resources, there will be property rights.

Ya property is a form, as you say, of organization, but as with all forms, property is a form of relationship.... Even slavery where one man is the property of another is a form of relationship... What you should remember is that these rights have always been in flux, even to the latest moment... Just because we are used to them having some stability in time does not mean they really do... And, as with all forms of relationship, it has to serve the people on the relationship, or it weakens the relationship... So the question for us should be: Is it worth it for us to have all private property in the hands of a small class even if it weakens the whole society...

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If you are referring to particular property rights, could you please explain which ones you refer to? I find it extremely common on this thread to rail against government corruption, unfair legislation, and the rich influencing government to fulfill their needs, and then an immediate jump to blaming capital or property rights for the problems.

Perhaps it is not the concept of property that is the problem, but the violence of the state, after all, it is the common factor.

I would say that the most destructive part of property rights is the thought that it can be held in perpetuity, and can be passed as an estate to another generation...Though much of humanity has rejected the idea of hereditary government, we allow hereditary wealth when that amounts to the same thing, of a single class which is not necessarily the best class, Aristocratic, controlling the reins of government... You see, what makes a person desire wealth is not so often wellness as obscession.... Their children might be ambitious or or lazy, intelligent, or dull... Yet, for them to have the best educations, the children of the poor must be denied....If education is the key to advancement, and you are advanced; why would you want wide spread quality education??? So, to keep the rich rich, and the poor, poor; education is denied to the whole society... Capitalists love to talk about their great advances... What might it be if opportunity were general, if each generation has to excell or fail on its own merits??? Why is education so expensive???Isn't every educatated person a blessing for society, and every ignorant one a curse??? The rich deny to all the education they merit, and break people with credit for an education because they want people graduated as slaves, unable to refuse any task, and willing to accept any wage... When property rights are conceived as absolute, so that those owning property do not feel the need to support society with it, as well as themselves, then why should society which defends all property rights defend a right that does not benefit them... In fact, it is the government that stands behind every title, as the first owner, since we took this land from king and native... But there is nothing absolute about property rights...In private hands the support of the property, like the access to it is denied to other people...Why should they not benefit since it is theirs, because this is a common wealth, and because they say what the law is, and because, as in the time of Jesus, man is not made for the law, but the law for man... Property is for our common support... What a person pays to purchace it buys an obligation to society, that it will be used for the improvement of all people in the society....This was the argument for closing the commons which denied to great numbers their rights to property; because another could use it better and more efficiently with the expectation that the whole of society would benefit...Where is the benefit to making public property private???

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Maybe we owe it to future generations or justice to bear the burden of a collapsing society.

This was the argument for closing the commons which denied to great numbers their rights to property; because another could use it better and more efficiently with the expectation that the whole of society would benefit...Where is the benefit to making public property private???

Emergent properties of a system of governing rules and trends ?... If you are trying to baffle me with bushit, please consider that I am pretty much immune...If it does not make sense to you, complicating it will not make it easier to handle...

Emergence is not bullshit. It is a core principle of many varied fields.

I can list the well know societies that have been destroyed because wealth got into the hands of a few, and this divided the society better than any wall or river could have... Most societies could not break free from this situation even while they watched it destroy them... Socrates demeaned the poor... Nietzsche demeaned the poor...Neither sought to explain how a vibrant people had come and conquered but were then divided into noble and worthy as opposed to poor and ignoble... A form of economy called feudalism, where interestingly enough, no one could be said to own the land since all had rights in it- was responsible for the division of one common German people into serfs and lords... This is not a natural division...If we look today and see no feudal societies excepting the Catholic Church, it is because the division caused a fatal weakness in the face of a united bourgeoisie who used the working class as an army... Yet their secret weapon was credit, which was paid by the serfs until they bled, and when the bankers had the lords by the balls they simply changed property relations so that what was inalienable, meaning common the property of lords and serfs, was made alienable and sold off from under the peasants... Cool hey??? They have taught a great lesson...It is that property as a form of relationship can evolve, or be changed outright... There is no absolute right of property... The right is what the people say it is...

And, yes, I have heard the term emergance used before, but i never though it was a good substitute for English...Consider, if you will, how often language can be used to miscommunicate, as well as communicate..

Don't look now but the old form is falling apart as we watch... Sure, I give a lot of thought to what a new constitution might look like, and everyone should.... The thing is, that ideal and my thoughts do not count much... We have a great preamble in our constitution, and we know from the words of Aristotle that Governments are made for good... When we compare our preamble and the words of Aristotle with our reality, we can see how short we are of our goal... But the stated goals may no longer be the real goal of our government... What then; because the same thing is likely to result from any new constitution, that a promise of good might result in bad down the line.... What I am saying is that we must first face the fact that the old form has failed us, and the natural conservatism of mankind must be put aside and then a new form created...It is easier to do when the old form exists, and easier to see when the old form has been swept away..... At a minimum, we need to sweep the old form out of our minds before we can no longer exist with the form in reality so we can see our task laid out clearly..

Maybe we owe it to future generations or justice to bear the burden of a collapsing society.

I agree

Maybe there will be no future generations or even less justice if society collapses

Fido,

Economists and sociologists have been point to spontaneous ordering of social and economic institutions for 200 years.

All Jefferson mentions of forms is that government should take the form that is the least destructive to natural desired rights of man. I can't imagine he was using a rigorous philosophical meaning of the term however. He simply was using common language.