財產權的起源與佔有

Possession as the Origin of Property

人們普遍認為先占是財產權的原始基礎，但是這種觀點沒有解決什麼是“佔有”的問題。本文分析普通法關於佔有的觀點，即意圖對某物或某資源實施控制的一個或一系列行為。這種理解意味著佔有行為首先是一種交流方式，如果把佔有視為一種交流方式，則就會帶來下述問題。首先財產權主張發生在能夠理解交流信息的群體文化中。其次，其他文化群體的人可能不理解這些信息，這會導致資源利用的衝突。從某種程度上說，這就是19世紀歐洲移民與美洲原住民之間發生衝突的情況，歐洲移民認為某些佔有行為（特別是耕種）應該帶來他們對於土地的權利，但是美洲本土人不接受他們的財產權主張。

It is widely thought that first possession is the original basis for property rights. But this opinion leaves open the question, what constitutes “possession”? This article analyses the common law understanding of possession as an act or series of acts that signal an intention to exercise control over some object or resource. This legal understanding means that acts of possession are fundamentally a kind of communication. Once one sees legal possession as a form of communication, several things follow. First, property claims take place within a culture of people who understand the signals. Second, people in other kinds of cultures might not understand the signals, and this fact can lead to clashes about resource uses. To some degree this was the case between European settlers and American indigenous peoples in 19th century, where Europeans thought that certain possessory acts (especially farming) should give them a property right in land, but Native Americans did not agree with this claim to property.