On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession

by Stephan Kinsella on April 19, 2025

From a twitter post. Kinsella on fie-ya.

This is why I use conflictability (or rivalrousness) instead of scarcity, ¹ since the latter term is ambiguous and has different connotations. In common usage it just means lack of abundance. In terms of praxeology and property rights it means the opposite of…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) April 19, 2025

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This is why I use conflictability (or rivalrousness) instead of scarcity, ² since the latter term is ambiguous and has different connotations. In common usage it just means lack of abundance. In terms of praxeology and property rights it means the opposite of superabundance. They are different concepts. In the strict sense if you live in a world of a trillion bananas each one is still a “scarce resource,” that is, each one is “scarce” even though bananas are very abundant and practically the banana is not “scarce” in the colloquial sense.

When Hoppe and others use imaginary constructs like the Schlaraffenland ³ (like the Garden of Eden or Land of Cockaigne) they in effect “take the limit,” to use a calculus concept—so that something that is in very-large-supply (in which each unit is still itself “scarce” or conflictable) becomes infinitely available, meaning it’s now a general condition of human action and not a scarce resource at all. So in this unrealistic-world, if you could imagine an infinite supply of bananas, each one would not really be scarce because your taking it from me does not deprive me of it since I can immediately conjure another one (by the same token you would have no reason to ever take it from me since you have your own infinite magical supply).

In other words, things that are such that they are infinite supply–superabundant–are such that they are literally not means of action anymore but are general conditions thereof; and each “unit”, to the extent that concept makes sense anymore in such a dreamworld, is not really an ownable thing and thus not a stealable thing. That is why no property rights apply. And in the real world, this is the case only with information which plays a distinct role in action from that of scarce (rivalrous, conflictable) means. (See ch. 15 of my LFFS, Part IV.E)

This is where my point in “The Title-Transfer Theory of Contract” comes in: where I distinguish between means and possession of means which are economic-descriptive-causal; and property rights which are normative-prescriptive and are normative supports for action and possession in a social context. In my view the importance of these nuances and distinctions cannot be overstated and an understanding of all this is necessary and critical in order to avoid confusion in these matters.

The reason knowledge or ideas cannot be ownable is the same reason that a superabundant banana cannot be owned: ideas guide action but are not scarce (rivalrous) means of action. An actor, say, Crusoe, has possession of and employs scarce means but does not possess (in the same way) ideas/knowledge. He needs both for any action, and the better the means (in terms of causal efficacy) and the better the knowledge (in terms of accuracy) the more successful the action, but scarce means of action, and knowledge that guides the action, play distinct roles. In the social world where norms (laws, property rights) are introduced, the laws play the role of normative support for the possession of scarce means facet of action, but not for the possession of knowledge facet since there is no possibility for conflict over the knowledge part and thus nothing for “property rights in knowledge/ideas” to add.

Similarly with the (hypothetical, imaginary, and frankly impossible—see below) super-banana in a world of infinite or super-abundance of bananas: Since it can never be lost or taken there can be no conflict over it, and thus no real “possession” of it–it’s not a scarce means of action that plays a role in action, like scarce means and knowledge do–it’s more like a general background of human action; and because it’s not possessed it makes no sense to add “normative support” to it in the form of law or property rights.

(Regarding the hypothetical of the suber-abundant bananas: Some constructs are not impossible, as is the Schlaraffenland, or the “evenly rotating economy,” but are just unlikely or less rich or applicable, like the Crusoe economy or a barter economy without money. This is another important distinction to keep in mind. See LFFS, ch. 7, text at notes 38-40; and ch. 23, text at notes 16-17.)

And also somewhat analogously, as I pointed out before, ⁴ bitcoin cannot be owned since it does not “exist” as an independent material thing—but which is instead just the conceptually understood unit of an abstract concept of a spreadsheet or ledger, essentially a data or information structure that is also was just stored on or impatterned in some existing material substrate or carrier, which itself has independent existence and as a scarce thing, an owner according to standard property allocation principles (original appropriation and contractual transfer)—and because it does not exist in this sense it cannot be possessed and also cannot be owned; but then it does not need to be owned, as it does not need the normative support of property rights for the same reason information does not: information or knowledge is not conflictable, there can be no conflict over it, so property rights make no sense as it is not “possessed” and thus cannot be and does not need to be “owned”; it needs no normative support. Same with bitcoin: “it” can be “possessed” only in a figurative but practical sense of being controlled by its holder by virtue of the secure encryption scheme of Bitcoin; it is simply impossible for someone to “take” it given the design of the system. Thus property rights and ownership of bitcoin not only makes no sense but would be superfluous. Bitcoiners’ instincts are right when they refer to “ownership” of bitcoin as absolute or perfect ownership, but what they really mean is control or possession that is of a type that cannot be taken—there is no danger of conflict and thus there is no conflict, and so property rights, which only add normative support on top of control or possession, but which are not perfect (since property rights are normative and prescriptive and unlike physical, causal laws, can be violated), make no sense and could never be as good as the security of possession/control the bitcoin holder already has by virtue of the design of the BTC system itself.

It would be like having a house with a lock that could not be broken, or an invulnerable suit of armor that no one could pierce; or invulnerability like Superman or The Hulk, or even like God–which is getting to the fantastical just like the Schlaraffenland or evenly-rotating-economy constructs … all this shows that property rights for such things simply make no sense: not for bitcoin, not for knowledge, not for God, not for super-abundant bananas. But unlike superabundant bananas, knowledge really does guide action and is useful, and Bitcoin is useful too as a medium of exchange and maybe, someday, money…