>>832463>>832473That is the idea.
"Mine" and "thine" is mediated by the Sovereign, who is the collective "mine" and "thine".
Property is only excluded from other subjects, but your sense of "property" is in the same way that a child has possessions in his father's house. Technically, the father owns the entire house, but you still get your particular room and items.
As far as Hobbes is concerned, this is as good as it gets.
Without security to procure any fruits of property, there would be no foundation for property at all without unceasing interruption and jockeying (which is no basis for any prosperity, you cannot begin any industrial venture if it keeps being interrupted on insecure grounds).
Hobbes cites Cicero (a staunch proponent of liberty) for proof of this:
Thomas Hobbes>Which is so evident, that even Cicero, (a passionate defender of Liberty,) in a public pleading, attributes all Propriety to the Law Civil, "Let the Civil Law," says he, "be once abandoned, or but negligently guarded, (not to say oppressed,) and there is nothing, that any man can be sure to receive from his Ancestor, or leave to his Children." And again; "Take away the Civil Law, and no man knows what is his own, and what another man's." This is ultimately back to the guarantee of arbiters.
Where does your property begin or end? –You cannot just say, "This is mine" over someone else's "thine" without conflict. That is the role of the arbiter to mediate and say, "This is thine" to you and "This is thine" to someone else, and the "mine" and "thine" between every person of the State is manifest through the cult of personality of the Sovereign, who is the person for all persons, bringing all of "mine" and "thine" into harmony, so everyone can feel at peace with each other.
Plato Laws on the necessity of arbiters>Athenian: And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of others not so well.
>Athenian: The next step will be that these persons who have met together, will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and in this altered state of the government they will live.So this is a denial of Aristotle's concord of clans and immediate friendship. The presumption isn't that man to man is a friend and not a wolf. The presumption is arbitration is necessary or else there will be no groundwork for communication at all. Without this unity, your community of goods has no lifeline or means of exchange.
Hobbes: The Sixteenth, Of Submission To Arbitrement; [OR, the NECESSITY of an arbitrary power]>And because, though men be never so willing to observe these Laws, there may nevertheless arise questions concerning a mans action; First, whether it were done, or not done; Secondly (if done) whether against the Law, or not against the Law; the former whereof, is called a question Of Fact; the later a question Of Right; therefore unless the parties to the question, Covenant mutually to stand to the sentence of another, they are as far from Peace as ever. This other, to whose Sentence they submit, is called an ARBITRATOR. And therefore it is of the Law of Nature, "That they that are at controversy, submit their Right to the judgement of an Arbitrator."Hobbes: Propriety Of A Subject Excludes Not The Dominion Of The Sovereign, But Only Of Another Subject>From whence we may collect, that the Propriety which a subject hath in his lands, consists in a right to exclude all other subjects from the use of them; and not to exclude their Sovereign, be it an Assembly, or a Monarch. For seeing the Sovereign, that is to say, the Common-wealth (whose Person he represents,) is understood to do nothing but in order to the common Peace and Security, this Distribution of lands, is to be understood as done in order to the same: And consequently, whatsoever Distribution he shall make in prejudice thereof, is contrary to the will of every subject, that committed his Peace, and safety to his discretion, and conscience; and therefore by the will of every one of them, is to be reputed voyd.Plato:>That the man who receives the portion should still regard it as common property of the whole StateHobbes>Propriety of a subject excludes not the dominion of the Sovereign, but only of another subject.Plato Republic>And the chief cause of this is when the citizens do not utter in unison such words as ‘mine’ and ‘not mine,’Hobbes:>But in a Common-wealth this measure is false: Not the Appetite of Private men, but the Law, which is the Will and Appetite of the State is the measure.