[Huck]

I would suggest that the foraging "civilization" doesn't have property rights as we know them. So there is no conflict of property rights. There is a conflict between a society that has such rights and one that doesn't recognize them at all. (Tribal territory, used by custom, isn't the same thing at as a property right.)

What is the basis of a "natural" right to property, and if it is natural, pre-existing law, then explain for me how it applies only to some human beings? I think you hang quite a lot on that phrase "as we know them." Are natural rights so completely open to interpretation that whole ways of life are beyond their scope?

[annalex]

That, basically, is the question in the article. My contention is that only the right to bargain and to self-regulate, and to engage in mutual violence under some conditions are natural rights.

[PatrickHenry]

What is the basis of a "natural" right to property, and if it is natural, pre-existing law, then explain for me how it applies only to some human beings? I think you hang quite a lot on that phrase "as we know them." Are natural rights so completely open to interpretation that whole ways of life are beyond their scope?

I doubt that we'll resolve this here. The right to property doesn't exist in a vacuum. Property rights are a concept. When a society develops and applies that concept, it prospers. When a society lacks that concept (e.g., the North American indians), it is at a serious disadvantage if it finds itself in competition with a society which is advanced enough to have property rights.

In principle, the concept of property rights could have applied to the indians too, but they preferred to live in their tribal societies.