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The continuing evolution of ownership
The evolution in animals of a first possession convention, in which individuals retain what they are the first to acquire, has often been taken as a foundation for the evolution of human ownership institutions. However, among humans, individuals actually only seldom retain an item they have acquired...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2019
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6372161/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30753234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211871 |
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author | Hartley, Tilman |
author_facet | Hartley, Tilman |
author_sort | Hartley, Tilman |
collection | PubMed |
description | The evolution in animals of a first possession convention, in which individuals retain what they are the first to acquire, has often been taken as a foundation for the evolution of human ownership institutions. However, among humans, individuals actually only seldom retain an item they have acquired from the environment, instead typically transferring what they possess to other members of the community, to those in command, or to those who hold a contractual title. This paper presents a novel game-theoretic model of the evolution of ownership institutions as rules governing resource transfers. Integrating existing findings, the model contributes a new perspective on the emergence of communal transfers among hominin large game hunters around 200,000 years ago, of command ownership among sedentary humans in the millennia prior to the transition to agriculture, and of titled property ownership around 5,500 years ago. Since today’s property institutions motivate transfers through the promise of future returns, the analysis presented here suggests that these institutions may be placed under considerable pressure should resources become significantly constrained. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6372161 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63721612019-03-01 The continuing evolution of ownership Hartley, Tilman PLoS One Research Article The evolution in animals of a first possession convention, in which individuals retain what they are the first to acquire, has often been taken as a foundation for the evolution of human ownership institutions. However, among humans, individuals actually only seldom retain an item they have acquired from the environment, instead typically transferring what they possess to other members of the community, to those in command, or to those who hold a contractual title. This paper presents a novel game-theoretic model of the evolution of ownership institutions as rules governing resource transfers. Integrating existing findings, the model contributes a new perspective on the emergence of communal transfers among hominin large game hunters around 200,000 years ago, of command ownership among sedentary humans in the millennia prior to the transition to agriculture, and of titled property ownership around 5,500 years ago. Since today’s property institutions motivate transfers through the promise of future returns, the analysis presented here suggests that these institutions may be placed under considerable pressure should resources become significantly constrained. Public Library of Science 2019-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6372161/ /pubmed/30753234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211871 Text en © 2019 Tilman Hartley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Hartley, Tilman The continuing evolution of ownership |
title | The continuing evolution of ownership |
title_full | The continuing evolution of ownership |
title_fullStr | The continuing evolution of ownership |
title_full_unstemmed | The continuing evolution of ownership |
title_short | The continuing evolution of ownership |
title_sort | continuing evolution of ownership |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6372161/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30753234 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0211871 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT hartleytilman thecontinuingevolutionofownership AT hartleytilman continuingevolutionofownership |