"I haven't violated your property rights until my bullet hits you in the chest" or "The ludicrous notion that owning property entitles you to do anything you want with it"

Economics Political Theory
1

Ok, I chose the title to draw attention, but my message is this:

Owning property does not allow you to make any use of it you desire. You can not use your property to destroy, attack, or damage someone else’s property, or even credibly threaten their property.

I started this thread to examine the apparently widely held idea that ownership implies complete freedom of usage. Up to a point, I agree. That point is when one individual uses their rightfully owned property to directly damage, or credibly threaten to damage, someone else’s property. For example, if I shoot you, I have violated your property rights. If I threaten to shoot you, at what point are you “allowed” by private property law, or individualism, or whatever, to respond? The precedent, and widely held notion, is when you feel an immediate, credible threat to your life. Then you can shoot me, preemptively. Private property “law” doesn’t mean you have to wait for the actual violation - you can strike first to protect yourself.

The thread that started me down this post was one asking about anthrax and terrorism, and the discussion of whether it violated personal property rights to take the anthrax away from the terrorist preemptively. Applying the same logic as the gun scenario above, private property law would allow me to infringe on your right to own property when I feel credibly threatened by your deadly disease. If I am allowed to submit a case to an arbiter of law, whoever they may be, they could weigh the case and perhaps create a peaceful injunction against the threatening use of property. If this was ineffective, then I am only left with the alternative of defensive violence to stop the credible threat. Peaceful arbitration may allow a peaceful resolution of the conflict of property rights. Otherwise, I believe that the logic for my invasion and destruction of the terrorist’s (or hobbyist’s) deadly disease is the same as the logic that allows me to shoot you if you threaten me with a gun.

What about personal property, rather than life? I believe that the level of response warranted by a real threat against my property, rather than life, may be different, but that the logic of response is inescapably the same. If my neighbor begins to allow the dumping of toxic waste on his property, even before it reaches my property I should have the right to injunction against his threatening use of his property. A decision would have to be made regarding the likelihood of real damage to my property and the severity of that damage. At some point between “no dumping” and “a massive river of ultra-toxins” I am entitled to stop my neighbor from threatening my property.

If my neighbor happens to run a livestock feedlot, and collects his sewage into a lagoon, I do not have to wait for the lagoon to overflow or burst on to my land before taking action against the threatening use of his land. I am not talking about smell, or flies (I will address this in a moment). I am talking about a real risk that my land or water will be polluted by his sewage. Containing and processing his waste are costs of his business. He does not have the right to pollute my land with his sewage, and I should not have to wait for a catastrophic and irreparable impairment of my land before I can get him to stop.

About the smell - I do not think that the principle that air is a commons is acceptable or supported by private property law. If his stink existed prior to my purchase of title to my land, then perhaps I am subject to some sort of grandfathering of his stink. But if a new operation is put in, then their stink molecules are perceptibly and measureablely impairing my land. The stink is a different degree of, but wrong by the same principle, as releasing anthrax spores into the air or directing a bullet at someone.

I would argue that a mini-mart does not have the right to fill my bedroom with photons, either (through ultra bright security lights). I respect their right to protect their business, but they should not be able to impair my usage of my property. Their security system and lighting must respect my ownership of my property.

If the neighbor has a tree that appears to be ready to fall on my property and cause substantial damage, I have the right to make him brace or remove it. One might say, “No you don’t. You should take action on your own property to prevent the damage.” This statement is like telling the shootee to get some Kevlar.

So how far does it go? Does the carbon dioxide I exhale infringe on my neighbors property rights? What if I fart in his general direction? I believe that these are infringements or impairments below the level that are actionable by ideal private property law. But storing 30 tons of TNT in a residential neighborhood is far above the actionable limit. Having Captain Tripps in your basement is above the actionable limit. Certainly there is a grey area somewhere, where arbitration must happen and everyone won’t agree, but a fart or an H-bomb aren’t in it.

Sustainable private property rights require responsible ownership, where responsibility is recognition and preservation of the property rights of others. Thanks for your time and attention.

2

I agree largely with the above. Have you read Rothbard’s article on the law, air pollution and property rights? I think he reaches largely similar conclusions. IIRC, he mentions things like smells are treated as nuisances.

-Jon

3

See Coase’s The Problem of Social Cost.

4

Clear and present danger.

If your neighbor poses a clear and immediate threat to your life or property then you can take action but if you merely perceive that there is a threat because of their possesion of something that could possibly harm you or your property in the future but isn’t at this particular time then any action you took would be as an aggressor.

Per your anthrax example, I could care less if my neighbor possesed it since I’m immune thanks to Uncle Sam. Others in the community could also get immunization shots if they were concerned enough about this persons behavior and believed they might release it into the environment for whatever reason. Getting the neighborhood vigilante squad to invade their home and take away their anthrax would be unfitting of the crime because they have committed no crime to begin with.

Nothing is stopping the community from boycotting this individual in every conceivable way so they are confined to their property until they either get rid of the anthrax voluntarily or starve to death though.

I think you are confusing morality and legality.

5

I am curious about your definition of clear and present danger.

I am also curious about your stance on any of the other situations I pose other than anthrax. If you and I own adjoining residential sized property, am I within my rights to manufacture mustard gas or tabun, or store lead azide? The first two gasses are incapacitating or fatal with no warning. Lead azide is used in the manufacture of munitions, and is extremely explosive and unstable. If I have a shed on the border of my property, near your house, is it OK for me to store the lead azide there?

The reason I ask is because that we seem to agree on the pointed gun - a clear and present danger. My scale of “clear and present danger” includes explosives that are not properly stored and whose damage radius would extend beyond the original property owner’s land. It includes biologic or nerve agents that are in dangerous quantities and not safely contained - and depending on the toxicity of the material that may be any quantity. As I said in the original post, I include imminent threats to the property, as well, not just to life. If my neighbor’s irresponsible action (or inaction) will irredeemibly compromise my property, I should have the right to peaceful injunction or arbitration prior to the despoiling of my land (or me).

We could argue about restitution, and how his finances would be tapped to compensate me for the land. But in many cases of injury, and also in many cases of gross pollution, the victim (or the victim’s property) will never be the same.

Also, I believe that private property theory also prohibits the boycotting solution, if by that you mean preventing access to his land. I believe I read in Rothbard somewhere that encircling could not be tolerated, because it effectively deprives the encircled party of their property. It is one of the rules that are proposed to make sure that private property functions smoothly. I think rules demanding responsible ownership also are necessary to make sure that private property functions smoothly.

6

This sounds like a “27 Ninjas” argument…

First you have to ask yourself, honestly, what is the likelihood that individuals would have access to such reagents in a free market? Further, that said individuals would bear the substantial risk of acquiring such materials given that A)they’re just as dangerous to the owner and B)they would likely invalidate any number of agreements to which the owner was previously party, and would quite possibly be grounds for voiding any and all PDA contract, effectively placing the violator in a position where he would be unable to demand recompense for any theft or damages caused to his properties.

But, in all reality, we’re talking about a very, very, very small proportion of individuals.

As long as people are aware of the situation, there are a nuber of remedies (including ostracism/boycotting) that could resolve the problem. If people are unaware of the situation (e.g., the mad scientist creating toxins in his basement unknown to passers by and neighbors), you just have to be content with the fact that there will always be a very small number of sociopaths like this who are undetected. If you’re asking, “What is a free market going to do about undetectable sociopaths, sleepers, as they were” then you’re asking for me to postulate how a free market would handle an impossible task.

I’m not sure I follow - his property is functioning just fine. If all the people who own the surrounding lands decide to stop granting him an easement of access, then he’s up the proverbial creek until and unless he makes amends. His right to his property is in no way predicated on others being obliged to permit him access over and through their respective properties; especially under the circumstances you describe.

7

You’re making this too complicated. If everyone has the right to the full enjoyment and use of themselves and their property, it follows that nobody has any right to the enjoyment or use of anyone else’s property without their license.

To borrow an analogy I read in the archive, if I own a brick and we each own a window, I can do whatever I want with my brick and my window. But because you have the equally exclusive right to your window, I can’t do whatever I want with my brick and YOUR window.

You don’t need any qualifiers to the property principle because the exclusion of other people’s property from your use is implied in it.

8

I don’t think he’s making it too complicated…

What I think the OP is saying is that just because you own a brick doesn’t give me a right to take your brick away, just because I think that you might throw that brick at my window. However, I should have a right to take your brick away if you say to me that you are going to throw the brick through my window and pull your arm back as if to throw it. But those are the extreme examples, and there is a grey area. Can I take your brick if you tell someone that you plan to throw the brick through my window, and then that person tells me? Can I take your brick if you have thrown it through several people’s windows in the past few days, and my window is the only one still unbroken?

The answer that has been offered up in other discussions is that each person must decide for themselves when to violate the NAP in their own defense, and simply hope that a judge or jury finds them in the right.