h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, and from how many horrors and misfortunes might not one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: 'Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.'


Rousseau, The Origins of Inequality

Rousseau was no paragon of virtue. I think he is getting at Locke's view of private property. Private property is necessary and so is public property. The difficulty is in finding limits to one that does not encroach on the other. In our society both are essential.

The right to private property is not absolute.

I think municipalities like us to own our own homes as it gives them a base to tax us on. It is called property tax and is applied to a percentage of your assessed value of property. A most unfair tax I think. The only fair tax is income tax properly applied. There I go again off topic, moving from property to taxes

I'd say that in general Rousseau, like Adam Smith, was a doofus. I agree "In our society both are essential." And, that is half of what Rousseau said. In our society private property is essential. Of course, our society is not, in my opinion, a paragon of virtue.

Society is composed of individuals and it is only individuals who are or are not paragons of virtue. What is a "doofus" ? It is not in my dictionary of Current Usage.
I live in Canada.

Societies are capable of having both virtues and vices, are they not? If so, a society which could be described as "A model of excellence or perfection of a kind; a peerless example" in the area of virtue, would be a paragon of virtue. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=paragon It doesn't seem to be just individuals.

A doofus is a twit, a dope, a simpleton, an unintelligent but somehow lovable individual.

I live in Canada too.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/doofus

He's not more of a doofus than Proudhon who said that property is BOTH theft and freedom.



Oh, and I live on the left edge of Canada.

hey it's not called the Enlightenment for nothing.

^he's in Japan.

Funnily enough, I said something like that in a sociology class in teachers' college in 1999, just to sh*t stir! (I said something like "oh, so, maybe agriculture was the original sin"...) The very economically conservative lecturer went into a tail spin..

Ah yes, but I am from Canada

By the way, I am not from Canada...

Awwww c'mon Adelaide, you're from NZ, its practically the same thing.

Your country, like ours, is full of polite, well educated, well meaning people and its nearest neighbour has nearly ten time the population and 20 times the national ego and is full of loudmouthed, arrogant showoffs who think themselves superior by virtue of where they were born.

Not to mention, they're both freezing cold and full of Scots people!

Not to mention, they're both freezing cold and full of Scots people!

Och, Aye lassie! And the Canadian scots are often more tartan-wearing, haggis-noshing, caber-tossing, whisky-without-the-E-swilling than yer average Glaswegian

As are the New Zealand Scots! (My ancestry includes all 3 types, ones from Nova Scotia, the Heelands, and a place called Waipu. (I don't know, why would you?)

It's pretty common for expats to take their native cultural dressing way more seriously than the folks back home. For example, both St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo see more celebration in the US than in Ireland and Mexico, respectively.

hmm. I wonder if St. Jean Baptiste Day is celebrated more in Florida than in Quebec.

I don't think so, I have a bungalow in Florida ( damaged by Hurricane Charlie) I have never met a French Canadian down there

One of the biggest Fat Tuesdays in the world is in New Orleans.