: : : Stealing is to be looked as a universal 'wrong'... : : I agree. Stealing is universally condemned in every society which has the notion of property. Some societies have no concept of "property", but that doesn't mean that they tolerate stealing, rather it means taht the concept fo stealing cannot exist; it would be like a bunch of eunuchs discussing adultery.
: K: I'm not so sure about that. A society thta has no concpet of property, would still have goods and as such there would have to be some regulation of how these goods were used. For instance, say we have a communal lawn mower, that we all use one day per month. If some 'rouge' was to take the mower and keep it for say 5 years, would that not then be some kind of theft?
: [Now i think about it HOW can one have a society without properrty. Even communal goods have an owner, the collective. Or perhaps i misunderstand you?]
I meant private property. You make a good point, in that most "property-less" societies have collective ownership. however, take an example like the Pygmies of central Africa. petty personal items like knives, talismans, etc. are woend individuially, but teh society has no 'means of production" per se; they get all tehir resourecs through hunting and gathering, and laboring for agricultural tribes. Meat and things liek that are shared by teh whole community. This lack of individual property makes theft very rare, because people are less likely to setal what they already own (at least in part) as one of teh collective.
None.
