Property rights == force?

Miscellaneous General
1

The concept of ‘property’ has always been a sticky subject. I would like to consider in this thread, are property rights simply a manefestation of the threat of the use of force?

Person A recognizes Object B as the property of Person B, only if Person B holds a claim on Object B, and Person A understands that Person B can and will use force to defend this claim. And in fact, it only makes sense for Person B to claim Object B as property if Person B is able to defend such a claim. This is why it would not make sense for Columbus to make a claim on the entire continent of North America (but it could make sense for the King of Spain to). And, no one would respect a person’s claim of property on the moon. There are no means to enforce these claims. It is also very common for conflicting claims to arise, and these can be resolved only with force or the threat of such.

This is much clearer to me than the ‘mixing of labor’ argument. Mixing of labor seems to be a special case of why an individual may make a property claim, and be willing to defend it with force.

I would finally argue that this is the initial impetus for people to associate and form governments in the first place. People collectivize the use of force to defend private property, and to settle disputes.

I am not making any moral judgements on this concept, but it seems central to the idea of free trade between individuals. The concept of property should be clearly defined first.

It is possible that this has already been hashed out. I appreciate anyone that can point me to writings that resolve this ‘dilemma’.

2

“And in fact, it only makes sense for Person B to claim Object B as property if Person B is able to defend such a claim.”

If a bunch of bandits come along to ransack my house, I may not be able to defend my property, but that does not mean it is not my property.

“I would finally argue that this is the initial impetus for people to associate and form governments in the first place. People collectivize the use of force to defend private property, and to settle disputes.”

Disagree. Read this.

3

Everything is force - property is just an unavoidable fact of life, and at any point it exists(be it the USSR or Anarcho-capitalism Land) it automatically establishes the fact there is some form of cooperation, properity, custom, market mechinism, and homeostasis rather than a war of all against all

4

Property is autocratic, but it can certainly be peaceful. If there is a dispute, it can come down to the use of force, but the disutility of fighting is often greater than the utility of fighting. The bottom line is that there are scarce resources and they will be allotted in some relatively consistent fashion. So we can choose one fashion where everything is smash-and-grab (democracy) or a system that allows for the maximization of utility in the form of the maximization of peaceful, quid-pro-quo cooperation (market anarchism).

Even if it is regarded as force, I think we all basically accept that we are entitled to what we put our labor into and any denial of this is just going to wind up being a contradiction. If I try to take a Statist’s clothes off his back and he is offended, what makes the clothes different than anything else? He feels he is entitled to his clothes, but he also feels he is entitled to do whatever he wants with my cash? What makes me not entitled to his clothes but him entitled to my cash? I don’t think a Statist concept of ownership falls under the definition of “relatively consistent.”

This is also like the monopoly debate. Every buyer and seller is a monopolizer of some sort because they control the price at a given location and time, but it fails to take into account the ease of entry into the market. I exert autocratic control over a can of pop that I bought, but you could easily go down to the store and trade your labor in the form of money for a different can of pop. Conflict is avoided and everybody can go on with their lives.

5

Property is autocratic, but it can certainly be peaceful.

I think it is also a logicl neccessity - the minute someone makes the comment "there is no property ", “property doesn’t exist”, or “we ought not have property” - I don’t think I can wrap my head around the statement, the best I can translate it is - “this is my managerial strategy” or maybe “here is how my prefered custom deals with property”.

6

I am not saying that, just because you are unable to defend your property, that it was not your property!. The fact that you are willing to defend it means you believe it to be your property (it can be argued that this is subjective)

I read the Frederick Long PDF, and I do not think it addresses my question directly. It gets into a Randian criticism of anarchy - dealing with property rights.

But their thinking this is sort of like: first, there’s this property law, and it’s all put in
place, and no market transactions are happening – everyone is just waiting for the whole
legal structure to be put in place. And then it’s in place – and now we can finally start
trading back and forth. It certainly is true that you can’t have functioning markets
without a functioning legal system; that’s true. But it’s not as though first the legal
system is in place, and then on the last day they finally finish putting the legal system
together – then people begin their trading. These things arise together. Legal institutions
and economic trade arise together in one and the same place, at one and the same time.
The legal system is not something independent of the activity it constrains. After all, a
legal system again is not a robot or a god or something separate from us. The existence
of a legal system consists in people obeying it. If everyone ignored the legal system, it
would have no power at all. So it’s only because people generally go along with it that it
survives. The legal system, too, depends on voluntary support.

I am not really going anarchist vs minarchist here. I am criticizing the idea of property rights as axiomatic. It seems like Mises/Rothbard go from self-ownership (with which I have no problem) to property rights with very little discussion. When in fact there is a lot of complexity here!. In short, they treat property as a priori, or get into the idea of a mixing of labor. But, I dont quite buy this.

For example, R Crusoe has no need for the concept of property rights, until Friday enters the picture. So, property rights have confilct, or the potential thereof, at their heart. Further, it is awkward to talk about free exchange, before ‘property’ is properly defined!. Though, I dont believe that equating property with force, necessarily throws the NAP into turmoil, either.

I feel this is a subject that has had little treatment in libertarian philosophy. But this could just be ignorance on my part.

7

Property “rights” are not a manifestation of anything. It’s an idea of what is acceptable in interaction with others. Matters of force or enforcement are no closer to the idea of property than they are to any other idea, such as the rule of not double dipping in the condiments. You can put rude house guests to the lathe.

8

I am criticizing the idea of property rights as axiomatic

I don’t think anyone disagrees, self ownership though is a bit of a wonky phrase from time to time - or there is no conclusions of such a concept that support or disprove the market mechanism.

After that we are simply identifying mechanisms at work to utilize a worth while description of the world as they present themselves to us and in the most capable way we can describe such terms, such as gravity or what ever other concept you wish to bring in.

9

I definitely agree that it is a necessity.

10

Property is not a social construct. There can’t be sentience and self awareness without a sense of self-ownership, period.

11

‘Property is a social construct’ sounds wonky. Who wrote about this???

I will argue that ‘property’ is in fact a social construct, ‘self-ownership’ excluded.

‘Mixing of labor’ with ‘frontier resources’, is just a very good way of limiting the probability of conflicting claims on property to zero.

12

OK, so I found this.

And I am not saying this crap…

The institution of private property is a wholly artificial one, the construction of society, and it therefore reflects no pre-political or pre-social moral truths. In evaluating private property from an ethical point of view, the sole relevant considerations to take into account are the prevailing social attitudes; and if (as is the case) the prevailing social attitudes regard government taxation of earnings as justified, well, then there are no legitimate grounds for complaint about taxation of earnings.

I am saying.. someone take this apart please!

13

So you think that there is property even though there isn’t property?

You can come up with some weird ideology that claims that one’s only legitimate property is oneself, but even if you did that you wouldn’t be rejecting the concept of property.

14

I am saying.. someone take this apart please!

Sure:

The institution of private property is a wholly artificial one, the construction of society, and it therefore reflects no pre-political or pre-social moral truths. In evaluating private property from an ethical point of view, the sole relevant considerations to take into account are the prevailing social attitudes; and if (as is the case) the prevailing social attitudes regard government taxation of earnings as justified, well, then there are no legitimate grounds for complaint about taxation of earnings.

There is no reason to care about this statement one way or the other: whether it is natural or artificial, moral or immoral, legit or illegit who cares - it has nothing to do with the functions and consequences it entails. This is one gigantic red herring.

15

Property is a ‘social construct,’ but not in the (to use Hayek’s term) ‘constructivist’ sense suggested by that quote. But the whole blog post is about addressing the argument in quotes, so I’m not sure why you bothered posting it.

This topic was discussed recently, and I think language is responsible for most of the disagreement and confusion. To talk of property or ‘property rights’ as ‘force’ is very weird. Rules regarding property help to resolve conflicts (and thereby avoiding them in the first place). It cannot spark conflict in the first place. One might say that the notion of private property will create conflict - e.g. an owner feels entitled to exclusive use of a beach house, even when he’s not occupying it, and so will demand justice against a ‘harmless’ bit of unathorized use by a stranger - but these are intractable problems of living with others in a world of scarcity. The general rules concerning property are not perfect (and so may be guilty of bad results in specific instances), but they are great at coordinating action (the rule of law) and resolving conflicts when they do arise.

And though I don’t agree that ‘property rights’ are axiomatic in the way that Rothard argues* (as I understand it, anyway), I want to point out that the natural law tradition isn’t necessarily about the objective goodness or rightness of property and contract. It can be taken from a much more ‘utilitarian’ perspective of what rules/laws work best, given certain natural constraints, such as scarcity, the limits of human reason, etc. Given these constraints, if we want peace and prosperity, then we must respect property and contract. As for why our liberal rules regarding property and contract are natural law in that they best foster peace and cooperation, see above (or the link below).

*Mises did not argue from self-ownerhip to anything. I don’t know if he ever wrote or uttered the words. Mises wasn’t interested in providing a philosophical/moral justification for liberal values, other than their instrumental value in maintaining peace and a rising standard of living for all.

…Well, having written that, I’m not sure I really addressed the original post. I think you’re (unwittingly?) touching on game-theoretic explanations of the emergence and respect for property. That is, why would self-interested individuals respect one another’s property claims? You might want to check out David Friedman’s essay here. I would say this subject has been addressed quite a bit in libertarian philosophy, but that kind of ignorance is totally fine! If we trace it back to 16th and 17th century philosophers, or even back to the Greeks or Chinese or Egyptians, then there’s a lot of philosophy to explore and most of us have barely scratched the surface. It’s great that you’re thinking and asking questions and getting excited about (what is to you) a wholly original argument.

I agree. I haven’t yet read Locke very closely, but the mixing of labor is often presented as some normative justification for respecting property, whereas it’s really a positive explanation. It’s repackaging the simple rule that finders get to be keepers. You do not create some metaphysical bond by mixing your ‘labor’ with unowned dirt, but I will respect your subsequent claim on that dirt.

That’s why I prefer to call them “rules regarding property” or some such. Those declarations can then be translated to, “These should be the rules regarding property.” The liberal rules regarding property remain few, simple and general, satisfying the Humean/Hayekian test, whereas the socialist or mutualist or social democrat rules are much more numerous, filled with exceptions and much more discriminating. I like de Jasay’s distinction (featured in today’s Mises Daily!) between “to each his own” and “to each, according to…”

16

Property rights are a subset of social norms and law - perhaps the single most important subset, but still a subset.

Absent State monopoly and subsidy of law (legislative/statutory law as established within government courts), law emerges from customary settlement of disputes. To say, “the law says if you crash into my car, you must pay 1.5x the cost of repairs” is an analogical statement since there is no law or dictate anywhere which specifies that such and such must be paid. Rather, the customary price of settlement that has emerged takes on a force of its own… victims of torts know they should not settle for much less and tortfeasors know they should not expect to pay much more in settlement than the customary price for the given tort.

Property rights themselves are subject to definition within the framework of law. Property rights emerged from unwritten social norms (predating law) but like all social norms they were greatly enhanced by the rigor of legal argument - in a legal dispute, you must give reasons why things should be settled this way and not that way.

I think there is a special connection between property rights and morality. Specifically, if you begin with the public domain (unowned property) way back before Earth was very crowded, we have to ask the simple question - who had the right to claim unused land? The only clearly correct answer is that everybody had an equal right to claim unused land. It is clearly correct because it is the only answer that is ethically universalizable, that is, the only answer that does not confer privileges upon one person or one class of persons over others. The criterion for a proper claim to unused land is typically taken to be utilization of the previously unused resource… for example, tilling the land. In general, we can say that the rules for use of unowned resources must be universalizable in order to be correct rules. Hence, there can be no privileges (double-standards) in the use of previously unowned (unused) resources.

But in the case of owned physical resources, precisely the opposite holds. To say that something is “mine” is to say exactly that I have a privileged position with respect to the thing owned vis-a-vis everyone else. Only I may rightly unlock the front door to my house without permission from another. Only I may rightly operate my car without permission from another. And so on. That is, private property is that property in which there does exist a double-standard (privilege) with respect to the owned object.

But by delimiting privilege to extend only as far as actual ownership, we minimize the extents of privilege (double-standards). The State is the aggrandizement of privilege to all things. Look at the hubris of Intellectual Property, for example. The recording industry literally claims property rights in every CD and hard drive which is imprinted with a certain pattern of bits. That’s insane. Private property minimizes the extent of privilege.

Clayton -

17

That’s why I prefer to call them “rules regarding property” or some such. Those declarations can then be translated to, “These should be the rules regarding property.” The liberal rules regarding property remain few, simple and general, satisfying the Humean/Hayekian test, whereas the socialist or mutualist or social democrat rules are much more numerous, filled with exceptions and much more discriminating. I like de Jasay’s distinction (featured in today’s Mises Daily!) between “to each his own” and "to each, according to…

Good call. And I have to say the article was not one of Long’s better moments, still though at least de Jasay is getting some recognition with Mises fellows.

18

The institution of private property is a wholly artificial one, the construction of society, and it therefore reflects no pre-political or pre-social moral truths. In evaluating private property from an ethical point of view, the sole relevant considerations to take into account are the prevailing social attitudes; and if (as is the case) the prevailing social attitudes regard government taxation of earnings as justified, well, then there are no legitimate grounds for complaint about taxation of earnings.

This line of thinking goes back to Rousseau, “The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this imposter; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody”

The Grounds of the argument is that those portions of man kind that existed without visible states, borders, or permanent properties such as the native indian new nothing of property and thus shared everything. This ideology was successfully challenged by Thomas Woods while dealing with the myth of Indians as “socialistic” Environmentalist. (http://mises.org/daily/2642)

I revert to a quote from that article

“Although we often hear that the Indians knew nothing of private property, their actual views of property varied across time, place, and tribe. When land and game were plentiful, it is not surprising that people exerted little effort in defining and enforcing property rights. But as those things became more scarce, Indians appreciated the value of assigning property rights in (for example) hunting and fishing.”

From reading the above discussion I do feel that no one is attempting to refute property per say, though just how it is acquired; specically objects. Using the example of person A and Person B; While Person B is out for his morning stroll and comes to find a cave. After looking around noticing that no person is habitating the cave decides to make it his base location where he sleeps, eats, and plans his days out, similar to homesteading. Then comes along person A, whether or not person A is passive or aggressive, B has established this property as his. Should person A attempt to aggress in any manner the food, location, or other objects that person b has aquired through no force to other humans, then person be has the option to defend or not defend his propety. The underlying understanding is that it is his property to begin with.

The Premise is that property is obtained by staking the first claim or building it, the fact that one may not be able to defend it does not mean it is just or right for other to take it over. In fact what would be right in such a situation, is for the original owner to reclaim the property once he is able to do so, or its equivilant value. If the original owner never decides to reconquer this property it does not mean it has been morally transfered but rather stolen with no intent of redemption.

19

Practically everything is force. The question is whether it is legitimate use of force or not. And yes, I agree with the people saying it’s a social construct. And also agree, that it is unavoidable concept. At least as long as we care about scarce resources (until we evolve into super-meta-humans consisting only of brains in a vacuum, hehe).

20

If we look at the physics definition of force of course everything is force, motion cannot exist without it much less life, but if I pick up a stick to use as a tool to reach fruit higher than my natural ability. Proceed to carry it around with me as my property what force have I used?