How do we decide what is ours in today’s society? If I buy something it is said to be mine. If I give someone a something, then it becomes theirs. Our society is based on freedom. Ownership is transferred by a person willing giving over a possession in exchange for something else or as a gift.
In the case of Vern’s Volvo he buys a car, and repairs it whenever it gets damaged. He pays Grace each time to replace the damaged parts. Each and every time there is a business contract between them. He pays her in exchange for her work on his car. This work includes the exchange of the old parts for the new. He pays for the new parts, while he willingly allows her to keep the damaged parts to do with as she wants. It is as if I go to the dump to throw away some scraps. Whatever those scraps may be, they become public property as soon as I go home. It was a conscious choice to leave them behind to be the possession of whoever should decide to find them and take them home. The same logic applies to Vern and Grace. Vern left those parts at the dump, and Grace picked them up. It wouldn’t matter if Grace decided to put the parts back together into Vern’s original car because each piece becomes her each time he leaves them behind. The parts are hers to do with whatever she wishes.
The damaged pieces of a Volvo can’t be Vern’s any more than the new one can be Grace’s. Vern bought each and every piece of this new Volvo, when he contracted Grace to repair his car. Vern didn’t have the skills to do the job himself, so he trusted Grace to do whatever was necessary to fix his car. Grace was merely the “middle-man” in the transaction. She bought the parts, and Vern bought them from her. These parts that eventually would make up what is now Vern’s car are not hers because she has sold them to Vern. In the same way, the damaged parts are not Vern’s because he left them as trash that became Grace’s treasure. He relinquished any right to them that he may have had in his contract with Grace.
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