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Let me throw something in here. We've been talking about acquiring property in the state of nature. We've been thinking about natural resources and mainly about land. But look, most property isn't in land or natural resources at all. Bill Gates is one of the richest people in the world. His wealth and income aren't based on land and other natural resources.

My point is that even if people who take exclusive ownership of natural resources owe something to those who do not have any such resources, as John has suggested, that really doesn't have any obvious connection with most of what we call property today. The action is somewhere else.

Most valuable property today isn't in natural resources. It's in the products of human brain power -- software, drugs, scientific ideas, technology, and lots of other things. These things aren't created by overriding the use rights of anyone. If an inventor uses calculus and chemistry to create a new product, everyone else still has the use of calculus and chemistry. The inventor hasn't taken anything away from anyone. Calculus and chemistry are cultural resources, not natural resources. Anyone can use them and no one loses the use of them because somebody else uses them.

So it may be that the argument between Dee and John is largely irrelevant to what matters today.