Property was on Locke’s list of fundamental rights. Jefferson left it out of his list, but I guess the most radical versions of Libertarianism would place property back on the list of fundamental rights. But why should that be? Is there such a thing as a right to property?
— Depends on who you ask. Kropotkin said that all property is theft, Engels pointed out that property and slavery didn’t really arise until the advent of agriculture, while Locke, Spencer, Ayn Rand, and others have supported property rights.
The right to property extends from the right to own oneself. If one owns oneself, then he logically owns what he produces through his own effort. So if an individual clears land for planting, builds a house on it, etc. then, through his labor and expenditure of effort, he owns that land. He can then transfer it to others as it pleases, who then enjoy the same right of transfer, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
— Does a corporation “own itself?”.
logo,
you mentioned locke, who is an interesting case. property, while everyone has a right to this equally (as Kurt Weber has illustrated) is/has been corrupted with the advent of money. it is possible for someone to own something longer than they perhaps should, and in turn this allows others to own more than they perhaps should. overall, this fact creates a situation between the haves and have-nots, and things like monarchies develop. any guesses as to the way out of this?
Perhaps. But then does one have a right to own what one inherits? A person born into an affluent family has access to the best educational and economic opportunities. They hit the job market with a marketable college degree and plenty of starter cash to fall back on. In this person’s case, the sky’s the limit so long as you’re willing to work for it. That of course is the free-market success story.
Contrast this with the child of destitute immigrant parents who cannot afford college; this person is forced to work multiple minimum-wage jobs for much of their adult life (of course they could choose not to work at all, but as Marx pointed out, this is not a true choice and it sure as hell ain’t freedom). Of course, if they’re lucky, they might make manager at a McDonalds. Is it any wonder that nihilism with all it’s side-effects is prevalent in lower-class evironments? Who wants to work hard if you know you’ll be flipping burgers your whole life? Makes the heroin business look pretty damn attractive by comparison.
Then you have the problem of defining fair compensation. How is effort measured and rewarded? If a person is rewarded justly according to his or her effort, we wouldn’t need market regulation. The right to property, as you’ve defined it, would make a great deal of sense. But of course this is never the case. Contrast the Hollywood actor who makes multiple millions PER PICTURE with the construction worker who works three times as many hours, sweats ten times as much, and will never in his whole life be able to dream of the amount of money Jack Nicholson keeps in his wallet.
Sure property is an extention of oneself so long as we can define what it means to fairly procure something. And there’s good news: we can in fact define it. The people who own America’s factories, industries, the White House, the Supreme Court, both houses of Congress and ALL the oil in Iraq are defining it for us every day.
i think it depends how ya look at it (as with most things i suppose). if your looking at it within the context of a government then yes people have property rights. people do not have an inherint right to the things they create or produce simply because they created or produced it. if i make a book, what about the book has anything to do with me? simply because i cut the paper and glued it together doenst make the book itself have any connection to me. property rights exist only in our heads. if you want proof of that, just punch me in the face and take my book away from me. how does my “right” to the book matter at all other then the fact im gonna feel pretty upset afterwards. property rights exist only within the confines of the law that describes them.
Kurt, parents have to work to create a baby. So do they own that person?
Yes. As I mentioned above, the original owner of a certain piece of property has, because he owns it, every right to transfer that ownership in toto to anyone he wants through whatever means he and the receiver can agree on.
That is because the value of the work the actor does is higher in the eyes of the person paying the bills than the work of the construction worker.
I can understand this to a point, but how does it follow logically from one’s right to own oneself? If one relinquishes one’s property, it is no longer theirs and therefore becomes almost irrelevant to considerations about their own individual freedom. I think in that case we really can’t any longer call it a right. I’m not saying the state should not respect a gift or an inheritance, but how can it be a fundamental right to own something you did not earn?
But that doesn’t solve anything. What I’m saying is that the system is unfair to a certain degree. Hard work should be more proportionately rewarded if we are to take seriously one’s right to own “what he produces through his own effort.” I’m not saying that the value consumers put on entertainment should be the same dollar amount as the value they put on a construction worker’s labor. I am saying that it’s not fair, and therefore not just, to allow one person to enjoy great wealth while someone who works much harder cannot afford basic health care and other legitimate needs. It is a logical leap to reason from one’s right to own oneself to an unregulated market system. If anything, “the right to self” is best upheld where there are things like universal health care and universal access to higher education. In that case you have a more level playing field where hard work does in fact allow one to fairly reap the benefits.
Because it was given to you voluntarily by the person who DID earn it. It is his to dispose of as he pleases, without restriction (provided he does not cause physical harm to anyone, of course).
What needs to be solved?
How do you plan on doing this? By not allowing people to decide for themselves what they value more and are willing to pay more for? What about their right to self?
What you produce has no intrinsic value. Its value is determined by those who are involved in the transaction. If you can’t produce something that people value highly enough to provide you with a basic living, then produce something that will do that. Or don’t. It’s really up to you. Decide what’s more important, and act accordingly.
I don’t know about you, but around here construction workers make around $20/hour–not a bad sum at all. But I understand what you’re saying, and what you’re ignoring is that it is up to each individual to earn his own living. He has to do this by either producing what he needs on his own, or convincing others to produce it for him. There is no right to enslave.
Not really. That “universal health care” and education is going to have to come from somewhere. If you can’t find people to provide it voluntarily, you’re going to have to compel people to provide it. What about their right to self-ownership?
What I don’t see is how this principle follows from the right to own one’s self. Yes they can dispose of their property, but once they’ve done so it ceases to be an extention of their selves.
Then it’s not an extention of yourself. It’s nothing more than the value the market places on you–in fact an affront to individuality and self-determination.
But too many people just can’t do that. Many are unable to rise above the minimum-wage job market through no fault of their own. People won’t hire them for anything else (many immigrants and minorities are in this boat). Their only choice is between working and starving. And perhaps dealing crack.
The problem of poverty and gross inequality among hard-working members of society. If you’re unwilling to recognize or care about this, how can you ask the system to care about you or your property?
That assumes the individual CAN do so. It would be absurd to suggest that the current minimum wage is actually a living wage.
Society places obligations on us to uphold the rights of each individual member. If you don’t care about the other members, you have no right to ask society to care about you. If we can in fact postulate a right to self, we must further recognize the right of individuals to choose how they want to live. And so we must decide which consideration takes precidence: the right of the rich to own things they don’t need (and without which they will still enjoy a high quality of life and financial freedom) or the right of the poor to procure those basic things necessary for real self-ownership. Is it really that hard of a choice?
And instead becomes an extension of the individual who received it.
Not at all. If you don’t like the value a buyer places on something, then you’re free to refuse the transaction.
I doubt it. Look at the success of immigrants in the United States.
Too bad for them. Doesn’t make me responsible for them.
All I ask is that government respect the rights of each individual to keep what he has earned and do what he pleases with his life as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else or demand that anyone or anything be sacrificed for his sake.
Nor does it matter. Just because something is difficult doesn’t absolve an individual of his responsibility to do it if he desires the outcome it produces.
I do care. I ask that the rights of everyone be protected equally. Obviously, you do not because you want to sacrifice what rightly belongs to one man for the sake of the “need” of another–a gross violation of one’s individual rights.
Right–but not at the expense of someone else. There is no right to enslave.
Not at all. You have the right to keep what you have created or was provided to you voluntarily by the provider.
But a premise of your argument about extention of self was that the individual had earned the property. What you’re saying here is actually that it doesn’t matter how a person might procure property; it is an extention of self-ownership simply because they can legally say, “this is mine.” I just don’t see why that should be the case, and I think the burden of proof remains on you to show that it is.
We’ve begun by agreeing on a right to self-ownership. You say that this right must imply a right to own what one produces. I’m not going to disagree with that, so long as we can define “produce.” And I think that’s quite tricky–perhaps impossible. It’s easy enough when you’re talking about goods directly put out through your own effort (a farmer owns his crops, a writer her writing). But does the logic hold when you examine market exchanges–especially exchanges that involve currency? When a person recieves a certain amount of money in exchange for a (self-extending) product, that money is nothing more than the value PLACED ON IT BY ANOTHER. It is not the same thing as what one directly produces and is therefore not an extention of the self. So a person does not have the right to own it in the same sense that she has the right to liberty (the right to own herself).
Now I’ve only taken intro college economics, but I think any economist would tell you it’s not that simple. You can of course refuse the transaction, but if the offer was a market rate, have fun trying to get a substantively different price for it. Again, what you’re calling choices are not true choices at all for most people.
Hmm…
Yes, and look at the dire poverty of many others.
http://www.universallivingwage.org/
You really make it sound somehow grossly incompassionate. The “expense” we’re talking about is the redistribution of two million dollars off of three million for the very rich. That’s not slavery; it leaves the taxpayer with plenty of financial freedom; it doesn’t tell that person how to live or think, and it’s not an infraction on a person’s self-ownership because one’s capital is not automatically an extension of one’s self.
After the original owner, it doesn’t matter as long as the owner has transferred it voluntarily.
Because it is the owner’s property to do with as he pleases, including transferring the property itself and its associated rights to another individual. If this is not allowed, then it is not property.
Wrong. Currency is property in and of itself. It can be traded among individuals just like any other form of property.
A lack of practical ability to do something does not diminish your freedom to do it.
Again, how does one person’s circumstance imply an obligation on the part of others to sacrifice what is rightfully theirs to change that circumstance?
It doesn’t matter whether or not he’ll miss it. It’s his. Can you not understand the meaning of that? To force one individual give up what is rightfully his for the sake of another is slavery, whether it’s some of his money (like you’re talking about) or his time and energy.
Yes, it is. Either he earned that property directly or it was transferred to him by someone who did earn it–either way, it’s his and an extension of his own self.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter to you, but you still haven’t come close to showing how it can then be considered an extention of the recipient’s self. A writer can claim ownership of her writing because it is an expression of who she is and the work she has done. It is a logical extension of the self. But a gift CANNOT represent an expression of the recipient’s individuality. And it’s the same with currency–no matter how much you want to simply state that currency is self-extending property. Currency cannot be seen as an extension of the self because it is not a reliable measure of the quality or quantity of the work a person has done. It is simply the value placed on a person’s work by the market. Anyone who takes the individual’s right to liberty and self-determination seriously should recognize this difference. You seem to have resorted to simple assertion to rebut it.
WHAT??? 
I don’t know what your dictionary says, but here’s how britannica defines freedom:
If you are practically unable to do something, that represents a constraint in choice AND action. You’re right: it doesn’t diminish freedom; it eliminates it.
Yeah but I just don’t care. You’d like to elevate a principle above people and what they actually value; but morality is based on values. And if you just look at what people actually value–life, liberty, happiness–money (which is merely an indication of market value) that the owner doesn’t need is just not a priority. Make a fetish out of it if you want, but there’s a reason why the twentieth century brought so many economic and social reforms: people care about people first, then property.
Call it what you want. But money is not a direct extension of liberty, time and energy, so it’s not the same thing.