...Hyde Park Barracks, Maquarie St, Sydney. Designed by convict architect Francis Greenway, the barracks housed convicts who slept in hammocks. The neighboring buildings, in the skyline, are the old mint and land titles office. Property is theft...
It looks somewhat stark to me (even on this sunny day) but I guess it should. It is a prison after all! Nice shot. I like that line that leads you into the picture.
@fueast Well of course Proudhon was terribly misquoted. He has been quoted to have said: "Property is non-reciprocity, and non-reciprocity is theft... But common ownership is also non-reciprocity, since it is the negation of opposing terms; it is still theft. Between property and common ownership I could construct a whole world."
In capitalist societies the only property which a work has is their labour which is exchanged for a monetary value. A convict however that was transported to Australia did not own their labour but it was put to use by the state in a form of common ownership. The irony for mebof this photo is that the old convict barracks, or the home of those from whom their labour has been dispossessed, is situated between the mint and land titles office. Money=capital, land title=private property, and this new society or whole new world, is built on the common or state owned labour from those for whom their is no reciprocity of exchange value until their convict sentence was served. Hence property is theft.
No, I am not a Proudhonist. Marxist or anarchist, but have read lots of philosophical and political theory which I occasionally reflect on.
@peterdegraaff Interesting as always! So much hidden in a photo. Weirdly since teaching environmental management I have read a lot more political theory. Am trying to teach it to engineering students which makes me rather unpopular with most :-)
@fueast When I was at University, one of my lecturers in anthropology lectured on the masters degree in environmental science and management. This meant we were exposed to things like systems theory, min-max problems, and a whole range of interesting environmental theories including deep ecology, etc He had lived with bushmen in Kalihari and was a proponent of neg-entropy. Later I had a friend doing e masters course and they gave me copies of their readings. It looked quite interesting and an amalgam of multidisciplinary approaches. Given my connection to environment I should have perhaps pursued this as further study. @ayearinthelifeof That is a big question. Surprisingly, the lists that Monty Python made in two their sketches are actually quite reasonable. Ie the drinking song based on philosophers names "Immanuel Kantwas a real pissant..." and the German 19th century soccer team. There is an old saying, from Lenin I think, that to understand Marx one must read Hegel. But then again to geta broader picture one must read Feuerbach and Stirner. I always liked Stirner's little book the Ego and it's Own. Marx heavily criticized it. Much of Marx can be quite impenetrable, but I prefer the early works, and the Eighteenthzbrumaire of the Emperor Napoleon is a good read. Hegel the Philosophy of Right is what structured Marx's thinking. I prefer Nietsche's essays to his books. Aristotles Pilitic and Nicomachean Ethics plus Plato's Republic have influenced many centuries of thinkers. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. I have always been keen on Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Umberto Eco and Baudrillard amongst modern writers. Derrida can be extremely hard to read without first having read sod of the other texts I have referred to. My favourite of his is Glas which traverse Hegel, Marx and Jean Genet. It is all worth a good read. Main thing is to start somewhere and read broadly and don't get to caught up in their polemic
Ahh I have Nietsche's essays, majority of Platos works and some Aristotle, I just haven't gotten around to reading them yet, I am reading quite a lot at the moment. George Carlins - When will jesus bring the pork chops, Richard Dawkins - The selfish gene and Hunter S Thompson's Hells Angels book. Not much philosophy but plenty of truths.
@peterdegraaff I read fear and loathing a few years back and have just got back to reading some more stuff, I read the Rum Diary last. I love the way he writes. Each chapter rolls into the next at such a pace that you never want to put the book down till its over. The Hells Angel one is not fictional, its an elaboration on some newspaper articles he did.
In capitalist societies the only property which a work has is their labour which is exchanged for a monetary value. A convict however that was transported to Australia did not own their labour but it was put to use by the state in a form of common ownership. The irony for mebof this photo is that the old convict barracks, or the home of those from whom their labour has been dispossessed, is situated between the mint and land titles office. Money=capital, land title=private property, and this new society or whole new world, is built on the common or state owned labour from those for whom their is no reciprocity of exchange value until their convict sentence was served. Hence property is theft.
No, I am not a Proudhonist. Marxist or anarchist, but have read lots of philosophical and political theory which I occasionally reflect on.
@ayearinthelifeof That is a big question. Surprisingly, the lists that Monty Python made in two their sketches are actually quite reasonable. Ie the drinking song based on philosophers names "Immanuel Kantwas a real pissant..." and the German 19th century soccer team. There is an old saying, from Lenin I think, that to understand Marx one must read Hegel. But then again to geta broader picture one must read Feuerbach and Stirner. I always liked Stirner's little book the Ego and it's Own. Marx heavily criticized it. Much of Marx can be quite impenetrable, but I prefer the early works, and the Eighteenthzbrumaire of the Emperor Napoleon is a good read. Hegel the Philosophy of Right is what structured Marx's thinking. I prefer Nietsche's essays to his books. Aristotles Pilitic and Nicomachean Ethics plus Plato's Republic have influenced many centuries of thinkers. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. I have always been keen on Derrida, Foucault, Barthes, Umberto Eco and Baudrillard amongst modern writers. Derrida can be extremely hard to read without first having read sod of the other texts I have referred to. My favourite of his is Glas which traverse Hegel, Marx and Jean Genet. It is all worth a good read. Main thing is to start somewhere and read broadly and don't get to caught up in their polemic