[Projoy] Ha! By yielding I overcome! "Property" doesn't exist as a real thing in itself. Neither do "rights". "Property" and "rights" are ways in which people conceptualise how people should relate to each other. So, your hypothetical statement is an accurate description of who actually gets to own stuff, but not a description of most people's various ideas about what constitutes property and who should have it.

[Projoy, your previous message] I don't see two dogs fighting over a bone as a government, nor two tribes fighting over territory. If the word "government" is extended to mean "whatever way people arrange of living together" then even the hypothetical world of David Friedman's book has a government. But that empties the word of usefulness. Governments, that we call governments, have just this in common: that they impose by force a monopoly on the use of force to settle disputes.

I've just been investigating Time Capsules for a PR stunt proposal... and then looked at my horoscope which said: "Consider the long term today." (Cancer, Jonathan Cainer) Ha.

[pen] Do you take time capsules (3 times a day with meals) to give you more time to do things?

[Boolbar] Yup.

[pen] That must be me too then. I don't read horoscopes, so I have to take mine second-hand, obviously. Thanks.

I once owned a cook book by Jonathan Cainer. It consisted of recipes like, "Open can. Put beans on plate. Serve." and some strange gubbins about how vegetarianism was an affirmation of life. He's a man of many talents! If only he used some of them.