“In an urban version of animals marking their territory, residents use chairs and other objects to tell anyone who passes that someone has taken the trouble to dig out enough snow to park a car — and that person expects the spot to remain available when the vehicle returns.” The Columbus Dispatch
Don’t tell the tired snow shoveler of Chicago that she can’t appropriate public property — at least until the next thaw, that is.
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havent orange cones been used to mark space for years?? what is so stylistic about this??
people have property…if you equate that to animals and territory so be it.
dumb.
What? No accusation of lies and fraud on the Internet?
It may not have as much to do with private property but it does have much to do with justice. If only that same perception and vigilance would be carried further in the minds of the denizens to stop the thievery of the State (via currency counterfeiting and coercive taxation) to support the corruption of ego-driven interventionism.
Shoveling snow from a parking space is a way of homesteading what was, following the snowstorm, an unowned and undeveloped wasteland. To place a token sign of ownership on the parking space and for it to be respected by other people is an example of the natural, spontaneous and peaceful order which governs human interactions in the absence of the unequal possession of force.
In the same way, I would imagine that the hunters and trappers who are allegedly making a living catching raccoons and possums in ruins of the city of Detroit also respect each others’ territories. The only way that this peaceful coexistence could be turned into murderous competition would be if some clown in the government tries to outlaw, license, tax or in some other way attempts to introduce overwhelming and unequal force into the activities.
Marking the spaces in Chicago is a long-held tradition. But I also saw something after this recent blizzard about a neighborhood that resorted to pitching in money for someone’s relative to come clear the street, because they got tired of waiting for the city to do it. Always love to see the “public goods” problem debunked by real life situations.
Quote from jl: “Marking the spaces in Chicago is a long-held tradition.”
An example of non-state ‘government’, perhaps? Would Nock approve?
By and large, streets (and the pavements and parking places along them) have their origins in the cession of the private properties for public purposes, though there have been various legal methods employed for effecting this result. Typically, as well, the private property owner is legally responsible for maintaining unobstructed, safe passability, etc. (and is even making financial contributions toward any “public” maintenance as a portion of real estate taxes paid).
If the snow had been cleared from parking spaces by the authority, parking could be considered as having reverted to the situation prevailing before the snowstorm. But, if each such space had been
cleared individually by the effort or expense of the property-owner (or renter). such cleared space would, indeed be his “property” until conditions were back to normal.
We did the same thing in Detroit, too. Residential streets are not plowed by the city. It was simply because if we took the time to shovel the space we didn’t want someone else taking it. It was also common for neighbors to get together and shovel several spaces together along with the street and clear the snow for the elderly or otherwise handicapped.
That’s what happens Gene. I live on a big street that gets plowed by the city, and nobody thinks they have a right to claim these spaces with old chairs and such. While on the side streets, it’s bad news if you dare move a chair and occupy that space, that you didn’t shovel, with your car. I’ve seen someone do that once, and the person decided to teach’em a lesson by hosing water over the vehicle every 5 minutes until there was a thick sheet of ice on the car.
“The logic of territorial behavior is simple and relevant. An individual of a territorial species claims a territory by marking it in a way recognizable to other members of that species. Other members of the species, as a rule, either do not trespass or retreat when confronted by the owner. What enforces this pattern of behavior is a commitment strategy. The claimant has somehow committed himself to fight a trespasser more and more desperately the farther the trespasser penetrates into the territory. Unless one of the two combatants is much more formidable than the other, a fight to the death is a loss for the winner as well as the loser. Hence the trespasser, perceiving the commitment strategy, realizes that continued trespass is a mistake and retreats. The result is a positive property right in the sense in which I have just defined it.” David Friedman in A Positive Account of Rights
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