http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_rights#Thomas_Hobbes_.2817th_century.29"Hobbes' reflection began with the idea of "giving to every man his own," a phrase he drew from the writings of Cicero. But he wondered: How can anybody call anything his own? He concluded: My own can only truly be mine if there is one unambiguously strongest power in the realm, and that power treats it as mine, protecting its status as such."
So, the forwarded definition of property is "that which the unambiguously strongest power in the realm treats as property"? Void for circularity. Also void for lack of context (what defines "unambiguously"? "strongest"? "the realm"?). Even if those issues get resolved, you still have to deal with the following
exhaustive methods by which material could be granted or lose the label of "one's property":
- change in opinion of the unambiguously strongest power in the realm
- replacement of the unambiguously strongest power in the realm
- transition away from a valid assignment of unambiguously strongest power in the realm (death of a monarch, competing factions, invasion, collapse of a state, etc.)
- this one is especially bad, because it results in the immediate revocation of all property in "the realm"!
Since the result is essentially a codification of "might makes right", I suppose you are compelled to acknowledge that slaves were property in the the States ultimately joining into the Confederate States of America until 1860(
ish; depending on definition of the "unambiguously strongest power in the realm"), and property in Maryland and Missouri until 1864 and 1865, respectively. And that people can again become permissible as property at the whim of any "unambiguously strongest power in the realm". Is this really the position you want to take?
What is the point of a philosophy that is not based on facts?
Already covered by FredericBastiat and namesake Frederic Bastiat.
Also, you still need to address your own question:
You haven't answered. Who is the legitimate owner -Turks and Israelis or the descendents of the dispossessed Armenians, Arabs and Greeks?
The answer is the Turks and Israelis. Any other answer ignores reality. Any philosophy that says otherwise is better suited to castles in the sky than the world we live in. I personally find the reality very ugly and have had heated discussions with Turks on the value of restitution and reconciliation. I've been about the lake Van and Rize areas; its pretty clear who owns what and any effort to make the world a better place must start with the reality of where we are now.
In ethical terms we are evolving. Those who owned slaves were not evil brutes any more than woman who has an abortion is an evil brute. Today we see slavery as wrong and abortion as tolerable. If we were having this conversation 1000 years ago, the situation would be exactly reversed. Thats precisely why I object to people saying intellectual property is illegitimate. It implies there is some kind of eternal ethical standard and that they are on the right side of it and that those who happen to like the benefits on intellectual property are moral pygmies. When if fact, they simply find it ugly and would do better to communicate a better alternative.