Matt Yglesias tweeted that the concept of property did not exist prior to the development of the state. What are they teaching kids these days? Those of us old enough to remember the earlier years of the holocene era clearly remember having property before any “state” existed.
Fortunately for Mr. Yglesias, Stacy McCain was awake in class and has reminded him of the teachings of the learned Prof. Iowahawk. Read the whole thing.
UPDATE–I am informed that Mr. Yglesias was graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. I’ve heard of Harvard. Back home in Nashville, we called it The Vanderbilt of the North.
And here’s a question for Mr. Yglesias to consider: If the concept of property requires the existence of a “state,” why do hunter-gatherer societies understand the meaning of words such as mine, yours, his, hers, ours, or theirs?
