Defining Private Property

[Ayn Rand]

Here is a nice encapsulation of the argument against private property from another thread

Ownership is properly understood not as something that exists between people and things, but rather between people. It's an agreement not to touch stuff which we attribute as "belonging" to other people, and for them to similarly avoid messing with things that are attributed to us. If this takes the form of a truly voluntary agreement, then it is constantly renegotiable, the distribution of ownership being determined by a consensus of concerned parties, which in most cases means through the consensus of a given community. Communal peasant societies, for example, would redistribute land on a yearly basis to the extent that it was divided, and utilise what remained collectively. What's mine is mine because we have agreed that this is so.

Private property, however, is not renegotiable; that is what makes it historically significant. It is not a claim of access or utilisation derived from the community, but a claim of absolute disposal; it is in principle asserted by the individual, rather than agreed upon by the community. Because this is not a consensual form of ownership-attribution, not something that we actively volunteer to participate in, it is therefore something that must be enforced; an agreement that we are threatened with or subjected to violence if we fail to adhere to. If I pirate a CD, for example, I may have violence levied against me in the form of arrest and even imprisonment, regardless of whether or not I ever gave the barest suggestion that I accepted the authority of the publisher and the state to impose its intellectual property legislation upon me.

Thus, property is a relationship of domination, a command to act in a certain way- to respect certain property claims- backed up by violence. As a libertarian, I oppose all forms of domination, regarding only voluntary relationships as acceptable for human beings, and so cannot but reject property is a petty tyranny.

The pertinence of this critique to the OP, just as to keep this from straying too far off topic, is that what we see private property manifesting in an overtly coercive form: an individual being kept from entering into a given area and expressing himself peacefully within it, regardless of whether he had ever agreed to accept the right of the state, or those renting from it, to dispose of that land in a unilateral fashion.

We've discussed this before but the issue is timeless and as this is now a more prestigious intellectual club, might we not start another discussion on it?

 

[Traitorfish]

From the previous thread,

So you don't oppose property in general, but the modern method of its aquisition? I guess that makes more sense.

It's not just "acquisition", it's how the social relationships in which property consist are reproduced, i.e. through coercion. These relationships are not something that are simply established, and then persist of their own accord, but something that is constantly renewed, and that is a renewal which is predicated on coercion and violence.

But, if the community designates property, can they also take it as a whim?

Perhaps; it depends what systems are used to regulate the distribution and redistribution of resources. In many agricultural societies, this is something that occurred on an annual basis, in accordance with certain customs and traditions.

 

[Ayn Rand]

Like a loon I will reply to myself, but I am really replying to Tfish.

Ownership is properly understood not as something that exists between people and things, but rather between people.

I think it is both - why do you exclude the "things"? Isn't there something necessary about the nature of these "things" which compels us to create property? It seems to me that if life existed in a World without things, people would not get together and invent property - therefore the property follows on from certain properties of the things as well as from certain relations between people.

It's an agreement not to touch stuff which we attribute as "belonging" to other people, and for them to similarly avoid messing with things that are attributed to us. If this takes the form of a truly voluntary agreement, then it is constantly renegotiable, the distribution of ownership being determined by a consensus of concerned parties, which in most cases means through the consensus of a given community. Communal peasant societies, for example, would redistribute land on a yearly basis to the extent that it was divided, and utilise what remained collectively. What's mine is mine because we have agreed that this is so.

You say it is renegotiable, but only present one method of negotiation - communal agreement.

A method of negotiated property transfer already exists - buying and selling. So when you say "negotiation" don't you really mean that you will exclude one type of negotiation [buying and selling] and enforce another [collective consensus].

Private property, however, is not renegotiable; that is what makes it historically significant. It is not a claim of access or utilisation derived from the community, but a claim of absolute disposal; it is in principle asserted by the individual, rather than agreed upon by the community. Because this is not a consensual form of ownership-attribution, not something that we actively volunteer to participate in, it is therefore something that must be enforced; an agreement that we are threatened with or subjected to violence if we fail to adhere to. If I pirate a CD, for example, I may have violence levied against me in the form of arrest and even imprisonment, regardless of whether or not I ever gave the barest suggestion that I accepted the authority of the publisher and the state to impose its intellectual property legislation upon me.

Thus, property is a relationship of domination, a command to act in a certain way- to respect certain property claims- backed up by violence. As a libertarian, I oppose all forms of domination, regarding only voluntary relationships as acceptable for human beings, and so cannot but reject property is a petty tyranny.

If I reject your communal consensus as a valid method of renegotiation then, as a libertarian, are you oppose to all forms of arrest, violence and domination that might be used against me?

Also, what about all the people who voluntarily adhere to the private property principle, and would do so even if they had a choice. It seems that you are saying "there is no choice to agree with it, so I will give you no choice to agree with it". So it is you who would deny people the choice to agree with private property, isn't it?

Edit: More correctly, you would side with those who disagree with private property but side against those who do agree with it. Isn't that substituting one injustice for another?

The pertinence of this critique to the OP, just as to keep this from straying too far off topic, is that what we see private property manifesting in an overtly coercive form: an individual being kept from entering into a given area and expressing himself peacefully within it, regardless of whether he had ever agreed to accept the right of the state, or those renting from it, to dispose of that land in a unilateral fashion.

Property would remain scarce under any system of government, and self-expression and use of property would necessarilly remain restricted and limited. That is not a problem that can be solved by government or communal consensus because it rests in reality.

 

[Lempface]

I'm definitely keeping an eye on this extremely interesting discussion. How does the community come to consensus on the division of all this property? Surely opinions would differ among members. Perhaps a 'leader' would make himself known? Ahem... a governing body?

 

[Tahuti]

Property would remain scarce under any system of government, and self-expression and use of property would necessarilly remain restricted and limited. That is not a problem that can be solved by government or communal consensus because it rests in reality.

Natural scarcity isn't the issue of private property as seen in free market economies, but rather, the artificial scarcity that critics of such perceive as arising from traditional private property. From this point of view, when property isn't actually used by its de-jure owners, it is overly restrictive to exclude others from appropriating and using it.

 

[Zelig]

If I say it's mine, it's private property. Otherwise it's public property.

 

[emzie]

I'd be more sympathetic to traitorfish if property was not taxed. In owning property, one effectively pays a lease to the government based on the value of that property.

Not long ago, Mark1031 made a thread about the so-called Just Tax, where all current taxes are replaced by a flat tax on assets. That seems pretty compatible with me.

 

[Glassfan]

Perhaps workable in small or primitive societies; but in a large, modern, dynamic civilization, it would seem that the regular redistribution of literally trillions of dollars of assets and properties would be chaotic and dysfunctional.

 

[jtb1127]

Perhaps workable in small or primitive societies; but in a large, modern, dynamic civilization, it would seem that the regular redistribution of literally trillions of dollars of assets and properties would be chaotic and dysfunctional.

Marx says that the population will ultimately be evenly distributed over the country side and urban clusters will be eliminated. Now the likelihood of this actually happening (or anything else that Marx writes about for that matter) is a different issue when debating it from an abstract point of view.

 

[DaveShack]

It seems inconceivable for there to be no private property at all. Take toothbrushes and underwear for example. You'd never make them communal property to be redistributed on need, would you?

Postulating that there must exist private property, even if it exists just because nobody else would want particular items, it follows that there must be a way to identify ownership. Any inaccuracies or ambiguities in ownership identification necessarily result in conflict. And the existence of conflict necessitates systems to resolve conflict. Whether those systems consist of rules which are voluntarily followed or the threat of physical consequences is immaterial to the necessity of the systems themselves.

In the abstract, private property is inevitable, and so are systems for dealing with ownership conflicts. Different societies may have different definitions of what is private and what is public, and they may have different systems for resolving conflicts, but the existence of such definitions and systems is a natural consequence of self-awareness.

I've taken some liberties with technique here. To really prove what I just said would require a great deal of time and effort, which I'm not going to take.

 

[History_Buff]

Perhaps workable in small or primitive societies; but in a large, modern, dynamic civilization, it would seem that the regular redistribution of literally trillions of dollars of assets and properties would be chaotic and dysfunctional.

Indeed, it would appear to me that the amount of bureaucracy required to regularly and communally distribute trillions of dollars of assets is somewhat impractical, and definitely undesirable.

At the same time, viewing property rights either as communally derived or absolute private property seems somewhat incomplete. English common law has long established bundles of rights; nobody holds Alloidal Titles anymore, nor is there many people clamoring for them.

 

[Hygro]

If I say it's mine, it's private property. Otherwise it's public property.

And Rousseau said the first person to actually believe you was an idiot and ruined it for humanity.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think it is both - why do you exclude the "things"? Isn't there something necessary about the nature of these "things" which compels us to create property? It seems to me that if life existed in a World without things, people would not get together and invent property - therefore the property follows on from certain properties of the things as well as from certain relations between people.

If you mean that relationships between individuals are necessarily constructed in material terms, then I agree. To say that property is a relationship between people is to say that property is a relationship between embodied beings as they reproduce themselves in a "world of things". (That's historical materialism 101, after all. )

You say it is renegotiable, but only present one method of negotiation - communal agreement.

A method of negotiated property transfer already exists - buying and selling. So when you say "negotiation" don't you really mean that you will exclude one type of negotiation [buying and selling] and enforce another [collective consensus].

[...]

If I reject your communal consensus as a valid method of renegotiation then, as a libertarian, are you oppose to all forms of arrest, violence and domination that might be used against me?

Also, what about all the people who voluntarily adhere to the private property principle, and would do so even if they had a choice. It seems that you are saying "there is no choice to agree with it, so I will give you no choice to agree with it". So it is you who would deny people the choice to agree with private property, isn't it?

Edit: More correctly, you would side with those who disagree with private property but side against those who do agree with it. Isn't that substituting one injustice for another?

You appear to be reading some political manifesto that I have not yet written. Perhaps, daring time-traveller, you could share it with us? I would be interested to see what I have to say on the matter.

Point being, I'm not making any proposals for organisation, I'm merely identifying the coercive character of property. My commentary on communal societies is simply to provide a very general illustration of possession without coercion, to highlight by contrast the particular relationship between violence and possession in our society; a sort of null hypothesis, if that makes sense, a society lacking the coercive assumptions of our own.

To the extent that I'm offering any political program, I'm rejecting the legitimacy of coercive violence, and by extension the legitimacy of property claims. Whatever system is to replace private property, I would argue, is something that can only be determined by the struggle against coercion itself, not something that I can lay out here and now.

Property would remain scarce under any system of government, and self-expression and use of property would necessarilly remain restricted and limited. That is not a problem that can be solved by government or communal consensus because it rests in reality.

I don't recall mentioning scarcity?

Perhaps workable in small or primitive societies; but in a large, modern, dynamic civilization, it would seem that the regular redistribution of literally trillions of dollars of assets and properties would be chaotic and dysfunctional.

I think that you're taking my reference to peasant-communal practices too literally. The point is simply the renegotiability of possession in non-coercive forms of ownership. You might well argue for private property on grounds of efficiency; all I'm asking is that you recognise this as an argument for coercion.

I'd be more sympathetic to traitorfish if property was not taxed. In owning property, one effectively pays a lease to the government based on the value of that property.

All that suggests is that the state is for various reasons able to extract wealth from its citizens, and for reasons of convenience chooses to peg the rate of taxation to property values. It could easily be based on something else altogether, as with Thatcher's poll tax. Unless the state actually claims some sort of practical ownership over the property, the idea of property-ownership as a lease from the state is an ideological narrative, rather than a description of how the world actually works.

How does the community come to consensus on the division of all this property? Surely opinions would differ among members. Perhaps a 'leader' would make himself known? Ahem... a governing body?

Do you want general commentary on communal societies, or a policy proposal for future communalism? The former is too varied to give a simple answer, and the latter isn't something that I'm particularly interested in developing. (Too utopian for my tastes, as I mention above.)

 

[ParkCungHee]

Property is that which you are willing and able to use violence to control the use of.

 

[Leoreth]

To the extent that I'm offering any political program, I'm rejecting the legitimacy of coercive violence, and by extension the legitimacy of property claims. Whatever system is to replace private property, I would argue, is something that can only be determined by the struggle against coercion itself, not something that I can lay out here and now.

Would you recognize that it is possible that the benefits of coercion outweigh the violence inherent in it? I don't mean it necessarily as a defense of the current definition of property, but would you accept some form of coercion in case all other ways of organization of property will turn out to be inferior?

Property is that which you are willing and able to use violence to control the use of.

Is it, really? I don't want to argue that violence is a consequence of the control of property, but is it really a definition? If so, why are so many people not aware of that fact?

Also, I'd like to ask the question if all forms of private property are created equal. Many people who wouldn't ever question physical property reject intellectual property, and under many socialist states there was a difference between capital and actually "private", i.e. personal property, such as items of everyday use like furniture.

 

[uat2d]

I don't understand the purpose of this topic, defining private property? Private property is what belongs to a determined individual or group of individuals rather than to everyone in the community, and it's essential that both private and public property exist.

For example the lamp in my room is private property because it was me alone who bought it and still pay for it and I'm also the only one who has the right to use it, this is different from the lamp that lights the street because it was the state with everyone's taxes who bought it and pays for it and everyone has the right to be lightened by it.

What's to discuss here?

 

[Traitorfish]

(For the record, you're dealing with I'm a (broadly) Marxian communist and Park's a Platonic anarcho-pacifist, which means that you're going to get significantly divergent answers to some questions, so bear with us.)

Would you recognize that it is possible that the benefits of coercion outweigh the violence inherent in it? I don't mean it necessarily as a defense of the current definition of property, but would you accept some form of coercion in case all other ways of organization of property will turn out to be inferior?

Well, speaking only for myself, I would tend to define the most inferior society as that which makes use of the greatest coercion in its reproduction, and the most superior society that which makes use of the least. So if you asked me if I would accept the use of limited coercion to preserve the greatest overall freedom, then I'd say yes. My anti-capitalism is consequentialist, which is to say that I do not believe that capitalism is the most superior (i.e. freest) system of social organisation available to us.

However, there is an important point of principal here that separates me from most liberals, in that I don't think we should pretend this is anything other than coercion. If you have the slightest confidence that what you're doing is the right thing, then you should be able to acknowledge it in the bluntest terms. This is something that most liberals seem quite incapable of, preferring to compare the current order of things against some hypothetical crapsack world, and attributing themselves the difference as a sort of "negative violence". Which, y'know, "".

Also, I'd like to ask the question if all forms of private property are created equal. Many people who wouldn't ever question physical property reject intellectual property, and under many socialist states there was a difference between capital and actually "private", i.e. personal property, such as items of everyday use like furniture.

In the sense that they represent varying levels of abstraction, sure. Fundamentally, even property-relationship is distinct, in that it represents a unique assembly of people and things, so even to take about "intellectual property" or "personal property" is to make a significant abstraction. That doesn't mean that they don't share significant common dimensions- if they didn't, we wouldn't be able to talk about "private property" at all.

I don't understand the purpose of this topic, defining private property? Private property is what belongs to a determined individual or group of individuals rather than to everyone in the community, and it's essential that both private and public property exist.

For example the lamp in my room is private property because it was me alone who bought it and still pay for it and I'm also the only one who has the right to use it, this is different from the lamp that lights the street because it was the state with everyone's taxes who bought it and pays for it and everyone has the right to be lightened by it.

What's to discuss here?

Have you actually read any of the posts in this thread? Without meaning to sound patronising, I honestly get the impression that you have not.

 

[Tahuti]

I don't understand the purpose of this topic, defining private property? Private property is what belongs to a determined individual or group of individuals rather than to everyone in the community, and it's essential that both private and public property exist.

For example the lamp in my room is private property because it was me alone who bought it and still pay for it and I'm also the only one who has the right to use it, this is different from the lamp that lights the street because it was the state with everyone's taxes who bought it and pays for it and everyone has the right to be lightened by it.

What's to discuss here?

Because - for example - a real estate dealer may be convinced his property is his own and may exclude anyone to it, even though he doesn't use it (this example is relevant considering certain West-European countries have squatters, who justify their position on the idea that something ceases to be property once it is no longer used by its owner). The capitalist conception of property is that anything that is legally declared property of someone, is his property, regardless the circumstances, whereas - for instance - the social anarchist conception of property is that not only it must not only be legally his, but also must use it lest lose it to someone who wants to use it.

So in the latter definition of property, your house is your house as long as it is your residence. But in the more traditional defition of property (which is what most countries around the world use), your house is your house as long as it is legally declared as your property, even if you haven't set foot in it for decades. That's what's debated here; whether property is your property once it is declared as such until you die or relinquish it, or until you cease directly using it. Which is quite fundamental, as the entire foundations of any economy last on what is property and what's not.

 

[Leoreth]

Well, speaking only for myself, I would tend to define the most inferior society as that which makes use of the greatest coercion in its reproduction, and the most superior society that which makes use of the least. So if you asked me if I would accept the use of limited coercion to preserve the greatest overall freedom, then I'd say yes. My anti-capitalism is consequentialist, which is to say that I do not believe that capitalism is the most superior (i.e. freest) system of social organisation available to us.

However, there is an important point of principal here that separates me from most liberals, in that I don't think we should pretend this is anything other than coercion. If you have the slightest confidence that what you're doing is the right thing, then you should be able to acknowledge it in the bluntest terms. This is something that most liberals seem quite incapable of, preferring to compare the current order of things against some hypothetical crapsack world, and attributing themselves the difference as a sort of "negative violence". Which, y'know, "".

I agree about the last paragraph. I just replied to your quote above because it sounded a little as if you were saying that the level of coercion in our society exists in a vacuum. Surely everyone would agree that less coercion is always better than more, however, sometimes coercion is necessary for organization. It's not as if peoples' well-being depends solely on their freedom. Allocation of resources plays an important part here, too, and I don't buy the laissez-faire argument (and I think neither do you) that it follows automatically from their freedom.

So I think it first has to be shown how coercion can be removed without losing the general well-being the current conception of private property provides. Simply criticizing coercion with the implication that this can be maintained without it sounds a little like the perfect solution fallacy to me.

 

[lovett]

I think, perhaps, this article might add some clarity and comprehensiveness to this thread. It is an attempt to tease apart that various different notions which go together to make up 'property rights' in our society. The author is a theorist called John Christman.

He wishes to bifurcate the notion of ownership into two parts; control rights and income rights. Control rights are the rights to dispose of property; to use it how one wants, to exclude others from using it and, perhaps, to transfer it. Income rights are the rights to derive income from property; to derive extra benefit from however one uses it, above and beyond that implicit in its use (e.g. that implicit in consuming food one owns). He is especially concerned with those property rights implicated in self-ownership; income rights over our talents mean the ability to derive income from exercising them (e.g. playing baseball for money). Control rights means the ability to exercise those talents precisely as we want (e.g. playing baseball without interference).

Property rights are some combination of these two types of rights. Absolute property rights would consist of absolute control and absolute income rights. The exclusive rights to do whatever one might want with one's property and the exclusive right to garner whatever income one can from one's property. In ourselves we have and should have significant (perhaps absolute) control rights. Such rights are a large guarantee of personal autonomy. However this argument does not imply we should have absolute income rights even as regards self-ownership; there is no obvious argument that links income rights to autonomy in the same intimate way. An argument for absolute property rights must contain arguments for both control ad income rights in whatever it is thought we should have property rights in (ourselves or external objects).

Moving on from definitions, I think that Jeremy Waldron's Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom should be essential reading to anyone concerned with the coercive aspects of property rights. Certainly, to anyone who thinks property rights are not potentially freedom restricting. Waldron specifically focuses on how property rights have thoroughly robbed the homeless of their freedom. If public property were to be annihilated altogether -if all property were private- the homeless would be even more thoroughly unfree. This is because to be free do do something one must be free to do that thing somewhere. If I am not free to speak anywhere, it is absur to say that I have freedom of speech.

But property rights range over places; private property rights over a place implies that the right-holder can coercively prevent me from doing things in that place (for instance, my neighbour can prevent me from sleeping on his lawn). This reduces everyone's freedom in specific ways; it prevents doing things owners would prevent one from doing on an owners land.

For the homeless, this plight is dire. They have no land of their own; they have nowhere in which they can do certain things. If no property were public, they would have no place in which they were free to do anything. They would not be free to do anything. A fully comprehensive range of private property rights would leave these people in a state of profoundest unfreedom. Our current arrangement of property rights merely leaves them in a set of terrible unfreedom. I necessarily shorten Waldron's argument; my point is mainly to refute anyone who believe private property rights guarantee everyone's freedom. For those who lack property, they clearly do not.