Private Property is Coercive

[Eric080]

What would you say to someone who sees as being essentially equivalent a society that upholds private property and a statist society? In other words, what if this person views the arrangement of private property as being coercive?

It is a common libertarian argument to say that political power comes out of the barrell of a gun. If you don’t pay your taxes, then the armed guards will either fine/imprison/kill you in some form or another. But, if you were to “trespass” on a piece of land that most people consider to be somebody’s property, then the same would happen to you.

I think that defense of private property is coercive, if we are to define “coercive” as meaning “getting someone to do something they don’t want to do.” If a rapist wants to rape somebody, fending them off is technically coercive. The crux of the matter is that fending off a rapist is not initiatory. The rapist is imposing. The tax collector is imposing. The trespasser-remover is not imposing because he is reacting to the aforementioned imposing. If this libertarian critic were to say that a tax resistor is “imposing” because he is not giving his due to the state because the state is the rightful owner, this seems absurd; how is he imposing? He’s not doing anything. The tax resistor is leaving the tax collector alone.

I think Hoppe’s defense makes a lot of sense when he says that private property is never initiatory since you can only gain it through improving unowned material or trade. So you could have a private property system with no initiatory coercion whilst criticizing initiatory coercion and thus it would be internally consistent to criticize statists.

[ClaytonB]

You need to distinguish asocial action (Crusoe alone on his island) with social interaction. In the former case, conflict is not possible because there are no other people. Hence, there is no right and wrong. In the latter case, conflict is possible because you and I can have conflicting ends (we actually have an expression for this in English: cross-purposes). Jane can only be happy by making John unhappy.

Whenever this situation of conflict arises, there are two ways it can be resolved… physical conflict or verbal conflict resolution (law). In the former case, it’s a matter of who is stronger than who. The use of physical conflict in the resolution of disputes will only be favored when there is a significant disparity between the physical power of the parties - for example, if John is a very old, sick man and Jane is a healthy, strong young woman, she may simply bully John to get her way.

When there is not a significant disparity between the parties, then the prospect of physical conflict is fraught with uncertainty for both parties. A fight could be dangerous, even deadly. Hence, the parties will be wary of one another and they will be disposed to seek a less risky and costly solution. When the services of an arbitrator are sought in the resolution of such a dispute, we call this solution law.

The real point is that government is the Universal Bully. Yes, in law there is a threat of physical violence if the legal solution fails - the dispute could become violent again. But it is not a situation of one side threatening the other, like the bully who relies on physical violence. There is some kind of parity between the disputants in a lawsuit that goads both of them to find a reasonable solution to the dispute.

Government always operates through the use or threat of physical force (bullying) rather than law (persuasion based on social norms and a mutual interest in avoiding physical violence). Statutes, for example, are frequently called “laws” but they are not laws, they are policy pronouncements. “If we catch you doing X, we will do Z to you.”

Property law, on the other hand, is based on law rightly understood (not statutes). It is a social norm and an intrinsic part of human nature. Property-like behavior (possession, sense of ownership, homesteading (first-use rule), voluntary exchange, and so on) is a brute fact of human nature. The conception of “capitalist society” as merely an idea - such as heliocentrism - is a mistake. Property has always been part of human society and always will be part of it. Mises wrote a massive book on this very subject: Human Action.

Clayton -

[Eric080]

I agree with your analysis. As long as there are scarce resources and there are people with desires regarding those resources, somebody will use them. If humans demand logical consistency to their actions, then they have to justify why they get to use resource X and why this person doesn’t. Even if you were a nihilist, you may want to try to justify your actions to others or else be subject to some force against you.

This is why I see ownership as a valid concept. As long as anybody is using anything, they technically “own” that. I remember a while ago the United States government didn’t want anybody mining the moon. If they get to decide and can back up this threat with force, then technically they own the moon. So they prohibit anybody from doing anything with the moon, yet they themselves are effectively taking control of the moon…The basis of statism and bullying is hypocrisy.

[gotlucky]

Clayton, you are getting really good at explaining this. Keep it up! Definitely favoriting this post.

[Autolykos]

I agree with you, Eric, and this is why I don’t view all coercion (i.e. the use or threat of violence (i.e. physical force)) as immoral. Only initiatory coercion, or aggression, is immoral in my view. To be honest, I cringe when I read other libertarians using “coercion” to mean the same thing as “aggression”, because I think it leaves them open to accusations of inconsistency by statists.

[ClaytonB]

@gl: Thanks!

[Sphairon]

But it is not a situation of one side threatening the other, like the bully who relies on physical violence.

What if I fundamentally disagree with your notion of private property? Aren’t you and your arbitrator in effect bullying me into adhering to your standards?

Government always operates through the use or threat of physical force (bullying) rather than law (persuasion based on social norms and a mutual interest in avoiding physical violence).

The law isn’t meant to persuade, the law is meant to codify punishable behavior. Persuasion occurs during the legislative process.

Property-like behavior (possession, sense of ownership, homesteading (first-use rule), voluntary exchange, and so on) is a brute fact of human nature.

This conception of human nature probably dates the origin of the world back to the publication of “For a New Liberty”.

For thousands of years, nobody cared about your self-ownership, your homesteading rights or the voluntariness of any transaction. They’d ride in, kill you, take your land and rape your daughters. Those were the “brute facts of human nature”. Lockean property titles are a modern idea. The enforcement of such titles is an even more recent phenomenon. Appealing to human nature as a means of justifying libertarian legal theory is akin to clutching at straws.

The libertarian social vision is not categorically different from any others that require enforcement at some point.

[gotlucky]

Sphairon, are you saying that possession, sense of ownership, first-use rule, and voluntary exchange are not in fact human nature?

[Sphairon]

If history is any evidence, they are just as much part of human nature as rape, murder and slavery. Which is why I think that appeals to human nature are silly.

[ClaytonB]

But it is not a situation of one side threatening the other, like the bully who relies on physical violence.

What if I fundamentally disagree with your notion of private property? Aren’t you and your arbitrator in effect bullying me into adhering to your standards?

Well, an arbitrator is selected mutually, so this can’t happen. But yes, of course, we disagree on notions of private property in any property dispute, else we would not be disputing!

Government always operates through the use or threat of physical force (bullying) rather than law (persuasion based on social norms and a mutual interest in avoiding physical violence).

The law isn’t meant to persuade, the law is meant to codify punishable behavior. Persuasion occurs during the legislative process.

You’ve assumed away my entire position.

Property-like behavior (possession, sense of ownership, homesteading (first-use rule), voluntary exchange, and so on) is a brute fact of human nature.

This conception of human nature probably dates the origin of the world back to the publication of “For a New Liberty”.

Please identify a single culture that does not have possession, ownership (rightful possession, belonging), first-use rule and voluntary exchange. Just name one and we’re done.

For thousands of years, nobody cared about your self-ownership, your homesteading rights or the voluntariness of any transaction. They’d ride in, kill you, take your land and rape your daughters.

*groan

Those were the “brute facts of human nature”. Lockean property titles are a modern idea. The enforcement of such titles is an even more recent phenomenon. Appealing to human nature as a means of justifying libertarian legal theory is akin to clutching at straws.

You’re not addressing what I wrote. Possession is the simple act of having physical control of something, even lower animals can possess things. Ownership (rightful possession) is present in every culture without exception. You are conflating deeds to surveyed land with ownership qua ownership. Before you could own things like real estate, you could own animals and tents and before that you could own personal property and before that there was no human culture to speak of.

Clayton -

[Eric080]

Didn’t Aristotle write about private property? Of course I realize you said “Lockean” property is a modern notion, but property is an age-old institution. Sure people have differning notions of property, but you don’t refute moral realists by pointing to natural differences between cultural morality. You also can’t disprove the consistency/legitimacy of one version of property by saying other people descriptively have different notions of property.

[Anenome]

@Eric080

What would you say to someone who sees as being essentially equivalent a society that upholds private property and a statist society? In other words, what if this person views the arrangement of private property as being coercive?

In what sense? Need more information.

@Eric080

It is a common libertarian argument to say that political power comes out of the barrell of a gun.

Huh? Political power comes from the consent of the govern. It’s the communists who say political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

@Eric080

If you don’t pay your taxes, then the armed guards will either fine/imprison/kill you in some form or another.

Oh, you don’t meant the philosophic basis of political power, you mean how power is enforced.

@Eric080

But, if you were to “trespass” on a piece of land that most people consider to be somebody’s property, then the same would happen to you.

I think that defense of private property is coercive, if we are to define “coercive” as meaning “getting someone to do something they don’t want to do.”

The problem here is that you’re a bit confused. Coercion is morally neutral. It’s context that allows you to determine wrong or right in an instance of coercion. Of course someone using force to defend their own property means using coercion, but the question is whether it is an immoral initiation of coercion or whether it’s a moral responsive coercion.

@Eric080

If a rapist wants to rape somebody, fending them off is technically coercive.

And would be a moral use of coercion. Again, coercion is not innately wrong, it can be used morally to stop immoral uses of coercion. In fact the final option to stop immoral coercion is to use coercion to stop it.

@Eric080

The crux of the matter is that fending off a rapist is not initiatory. The rapist is imposing.

True.

@Eric080

The tax collector is imposing.

Not in a legal context. The problem is that we have collectively defined the laws and decided that it is legal to charge people taxes and what the consequences for non-payment should be. If you don’t like it, start a political movement to change tax laws.

As long as there is the possibility of changing tax laws via peacable means, eg: voting, then you don’t have a moral right to resist taxation.

@Eric080

The trespasser-remover is not imposing because he is reacting to the aforementioned imposing.

It would be better if we had a society that didn’t automatically induct you into its legal system at birth, but forced you to agree to its legal system or find another legal system. Then everyone truly would be given a choice as to what laws to live under. I’ve proposed such a system in other areas on this site.

@Eric080

If this libertarian critic were to say that a tax resistor is “imposing” because he is not giving his due to the state because the state is the rightful owner, this seems absurd; how is he imposing? He’s not doing anything. The tax resistor is leaving the tax collector alone.

Either abide by the laws, change them, or leave the jurisdiction. Don’t pull logic like this. It’s silly.

[Anenome]

@Sphairon

If history is any evidence, they are just as much part of human nature as rape, murder and slavery. Which is why I think that appeals to human nature are silly.

No, he means private property is essential to human existence, and in that sense is “part of human nature”. Reality itself forces private ownership on a human being as a matter of life and death.

By this I mean that something as simple as eating means owning the food and walling it off for your exclusive use–when you eat it. If you do not gain food for your exclusive use, you die. End of you.

Rape, murder, slavery–these are optional actions which many human beings will go their entire lives without doing. They are not intrinsic human nature or human existence, unlike eating.

Similarly, a human being needs shelter, NEEDS, as in life and death. And when we transitioned to farming, we now NEEDed a large amount of property to feed ourselves and our family. Farming supported much larger numbers of people than hunting-gathering, meaning that property ownership now became a matter of life and death as well, for if you could not wall off X amount of land, you could not feed your family for that year.

So yes, we must have property if only because we must eat and must be sheltered. Nobody must rape, enslave, or murder. Those are not essential to human nature. Property is essential.

Our first ownership is that of the atoms of our physical body, without which we literally would not be alive. So, yes, ownership is intrinsic to human nature, because you must own to live. To die, in fact, means to lose your life, which is sustained only by your body, which is itself owned by your consciousness which is produced by that body. Which must be fed and sheltered.

All our concepts of ownership are abstractions from the basic needs we must fulfill to stay alive. That food is mine. That shelter is mine. I produced them. Production then, is the means to sustain life, and we own ourselves and our production. Without production, we would have neither food nor shelter.