I got this essay from an old friend in an e-mail this weekend. I'm not sure if I agree with everything in here, but enough thought seemed to be put in that I thought it was worthy for discussion here, after I got the OK. Have at it.

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The concept of property rights as we are familiar with is a concept that I believe is widely misunderstood. There is a common perception that a person or a group of people have an inherent right to own various forms of property. As such, it cannot be philosophically resolved that a taking of that property can justify the ends at hand.

Let me preface by declaring that this essay is not making an excuse to advocate for certain methods, such as the anarchistic abolition of property, nor the socialistic possession of all property with the state. The first paragraph alone may be used out of context to try to associate the entire writing with such notions.

Below, however, is the thesis of the matter, the main emphasis that I hope to convey throughout this passage:

In the absence of government recognition, property rights will always tend to be held by the strongest person or group of people.

Notice my intentional parsing with the usage of the word “recognition”. In this short statement, I do not use the word “intervention”, nor “regulation”, nor even “enforcement”. The argument made is even the mere recognition of property rights via a governing authority is necessary, lest they be held by the strongest. The word “strongest” is also an intentional use, and it slightly vague, as its definition can range from sheer brute strength in prehistoric times, to the advanced weaponry and tactics that exist today.

Proof of my statement should be littered throughout the entire course of human history. From the Roman Empire to the conquerors of America to the European colonization of the world, it should be clear that property rights have been historically possessed by the strongest person or group of people present in the respective spheres of influence. It could be argued that even today, property rights in the world as a whole are still enjoyed by the strongest, though I would say that great strides have been made in the post-World War II era in mitigation.

Let’s boil this down to a personal level. You are likely in ownership in several types of property as you read this article—a house, on a parcel of land which is also owned, or a vehicle, or various appliances, or even items necessary for life, such as food. You likely also hold pieces of paper to sets of data that say you are privileged to execute a certain amount of property acquisition, better known as money. Why, however, are you in ownership in such property? More to the point, how is it determined that you do indeed own such property? What is there to stop another person or group of people from establishing their own ownership over your property? The only inherent trait that is present is the strength of those at dispute. The strength can range from a knockout punch to a handgun to a gang of people that will protect their liked associates. It is easy to see how this arms race evolved into entire cultures or nations over the course of history.

Again, why are you recognized that you own certain pieces of property? It is because your government recognizes the property as owned by you, and the enforcement thereof. Some will argue that the government’s only function is to enforce the property rights of individuals or associations. While it is necessary to have enforcement of whatever property rights are recognized, this notion misses the fact that two are mutually dependent—enforcement is not possible without a recognition of what is to be enforced. In the beginning, a determination has to be made as to what property rights are as recognized by the governing authority.

Some might also argue that without government recognition and enforcement, all rights will also trend to the strongest, and property rights are not unique in this sense. Many rights are indeed only as good as government recognition, but one frequently cited example that I wish to briefly focus on are the rights enjoyed in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The key difference from property as we are familiar with it is that the rights in the First Amendment are fundamental—they are rights that you are born with, and that you possess until you die. No one can take away your capacity for free thought. Your thought can be forcibly impeded from being conveyed to others, you can be coerced into thinking in a different manner, but the thought itself cannot be possessed. Even in the ultimate act of killing someone, you cannot possess their thought—it ends the existence of the thought altogether.

Ownership of property is not a fundamental right—you are not born with any property, unless you wish to define your body as your property. Now, you may be born into property, but once again, what defines that property as yours upon birth is requisite of the recognition of the governing authority.

If we as a society can realize that what we view as property rights only exists because the government recognizes the claimed possession to the property, then it should be a smaller step towards another important realization—that the government’s recognition of property rights can change, especially as government leadership itself changes over time.

I believe that what has been written above is a truth. What proceeds, however, will clearly fall into the realm of subjective nature. If we establish that property rights are only as good as government recognition, and that they can be changed, then one may ponder whether the current government recognition of property rights may not be recognized in a way that is fully favorable to all people.

Of course, what is the definition of “fully favorable”? Is it even desired in the first place? There is no correct answer to these and a plethora of other questions. However, I do believe that there are cases where the consensus in certain beliefs may be muddled by inaccurate perceptions of property rights.

Take this question as an example. Would the money that is required to purchase a private yacht be better spent on saving a small group of people from a deathly medical condition? I would wager that a majority of people, absent of other influences, would answer yes to that question. A legitimate counterargument would be to say that if the money was earned with hard work, then the money should be used as the earner sees fit. So let’s raise the stakes and add that the money was not earned, but inherited. I’d wager that the percentage of people who answer yes increases. However, I’d also wager that a fair percentage of the yes voters would answer no to the following question, without other influences: “Do you believe the government should take possession of a portion of an inheritance passed from a deceased person to a living person?” Hence the possible muddling of a person's true feelings on how property should be recognized.

We could litter this discussion with several examples of where private property could be sacrificed for the public good if we wish. Should you have the right to own a type of vehicle if it causes air pollution that negatively impacts the lives of others? Should you have to sacrifice a portion of your income to provide for the education of others that leads to sustaining a stable income? The answer to these and other questions may legitimately be up for debate.

The overarching point, however, is that that such questions of property rights should not be automatically dismissed because of any notions that property rights inherently exist as a result of simply being a human being. As the thesis states, without a government recognition of the claims on property that you make, there is nothing stopping the strongest from taking the property for their personal benefit—something that is not inherent in all people.

He is arguing for socialism/redistribution of wealth, obviously.

The minute we distribute property or money based on 'the will of the people' is the minute our country goes into complete caos.



He is leaving out a huge point: That future innovation would flee this country. What incentive would anyone have to 'strike it rich' if they were going to lose all of their money the minute they made it? It would sink our country.



We have taxes in place to try and fairly redistribute wealth without ruining the core capitalism of this country. We have progressive taxes and we have an inheritance tax to try to stop dynasties from forming.

People could debate ad nauseam about what the appropriate tax rate is for the uber rich. That's really all this comes down to.

I realize it's a pretty short essay, but there really isn't any historical evidence provided to support his thesis. And the First Amendment bit is strange.

I can't belive that someone could have the whole concept of money and property so backwards.


"Francisco's Money Speech"


"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.'

"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

"But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

"Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

"Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

"Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

"Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

"But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

"Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world? You are.

"You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

"To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

"If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

"Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide-- as, I think, he will.

"Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

Heh, I thought the same thing, as I know he tends to lean left--despite his disclaimer. I have a response from a couple similar q's I asked, but again I want to get permission before posting him here.

I'll send him that article b_i posted, as well.

It's from Atlas Shrugged.

Yeah, I think that's definitely the issue. At what point does a higher tax rate take away enough motivation to create productivity to become detrimental to society? Obviously most of those rich people can afford to give away some of their money, but I would argue that lower aggregate productivity due to lack of investment is a far greater danger than a lack of social programs (because those social programs need to be paid for by economic productivity). It's a slippery slope.

The other issue with the argument in that essay that property rights are basically arbitrarily set forth by the government is that if you give the government power to change property rights, you're giving the people (albeit indirectly) power to change property rights. If you do that, there are no property rights, and our society would essentially be reverting back to determining ownership with a big stick. I think there's definitely wisdom in core property laws being exempt from new legislation.

Also, I think at some level property rights aren't subject to government regulation, only government protection. For example, it's true that fee simple titles are originally issued by the state (as an aside, it's interesting that titles originate from the state, not federal, government; I think this fact has been forgotten by our federal government), but fee simple originated during Feudal times and has remained more or less unchanged in principle since then. If our government is given the power to change how fee simple ownership works, it would absolutely destroy real estate and basically plunge our society into chaos, because let's face it, it would not be worth the risk for most people to buy property if fee simple couldn't be considered virtually absolute ownership. So maybe it's not an inherant right at birth to own property, but I don't think it's something arbitrarily created by the government, either. It's more like a contract with the government with very specific terms.

Anyway, I'm just ranting now, but I guess I just disagree with the assertion that claims of any kind exist in the scope of some government. Even without government, there are still property rights, but the government simply provides a less violent way to secure them.

FTFY.

The mistake the author is making is assuming the 'rights', property or otherwise, are granted by the government. The government is not God or some plantation owner.

Well, to an extent. The rights are protected by the government.

But as far as land ownership, the state government holds the allodial title to all the land and grants fee simple title over individual parcels, so in a way, the ownership is granted by the state, but it is a permanent contract under which the only rights the government maintains are (according to Wikipedia) taxation, eminent domain, police power, and escheat. The government has very specific rules for eminent domain (which include reimbursement), and escheat is pretty much impossible these days. I think everybody knows the abuse that is possible with eminent domain, and I think that very well highlights why the government can't arbitrarily change ownership of resources based on such vagueries as "the will of the people."

Eminent domain allows for seizure for "the public good," but even that requires just compensation. If that weren't true, I think even potential seizure for "the public good" might even make property ownership too risky for many people.

Got a reply. I've done some formatting edits to clarify who's saying what--it wasn't exactly written in the manner we're used to on a message board.

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First of all, there are comments that question where property rights come from, and assumptions that I state that they only exist in the presence of a governing authority. I would agree that this is not the case. The capacity to claim ownership over an item of property is directly tied with the existence of the property itself. When it is created, existing, or destroyed, so is the ability to assert a property right.

Again, the issue is how that property right is recognized when there is a dispute to the property’s ownership or even usage. In these two sentences:

I agree with the first sentence, and I hope the paragraph above clarifies the question. The second sentence is in fact very close to my core statement—indeed, without government recognition, conflicts over property rights claims can get violent, and invariably favor the stronger of the side in dispute.

There are also comments that have concern over the government’s arbitrary ability to change its recognition of property rights. The fact is that governments have frequently changed over history on their recognition of property rights in ways that some, if not most, may consider benign. Whenever an official is elected that wants to raise or lower taxes, they are changing on how they are recognizing the property rights held. It has been done more directly democratically when an initiative is passed—say, a local school bond. It can also be done with real property—say a government recognizes that land with an owned building on it can be better utilized by more people than the owner as a road (utilizing what we know as eminent domain).

The difference is that the government can provide safeguards against the alternative in the absence of government recognition. Using the eminent domain example above, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would require that just compensation be given to the landowner (presuming this example is in the U.S.). Without the U.S. government’s recognition via the Fifth Amendment, the landowner could be left with nothing. In the absence of any government recognition of his land claims, a stronger mob of dissatisfied travelers could forcibly take his land to assure the road is built.

There are also comments that question whether certain types of government recognition of property rights are proper or practical, such as the comment,

or

These are legitimate questions that can be debated. There are certainly improper ways that the government can recognize property rights, and that includes cases when it takes property for itself from individuals (socialism being the most extreme example). The key, however, is that the method a government recognizes property rights can be preferable over the case of absence (where the strongest tend to own them), and that the current method of recognition could be improved upon.

Violations of rights are punished by the government, which I guess is similar to having them protected. Government does not grant us rights, it's only real function is to punish criminals. We make violations of our rights into crimes, so that the government can enforce those rights. In the case of property, core fee simple property excluded, the government's recognition does not grant you rights to some piece of property. The government's recognition is simply a public annoucement that it believes that your claim to the property trumps all others in a dispute. Your rights to that property already existed when consideration was exchanged and that preoperty want from it's previous owner to you.



How is an angry mob who wants something really any different than the government wanting something? Both rely on force and the threat of further violation of rights to get what they want. One of the ideas that I think the author is ignoring is that the government is the same as this 'strongest group of people' (s)he fears.

For example, taxes that redistribute wealth, aka welfare. The government is acting as the mob and taking property from someone who has it and giving to someone who doesn't, under the threat of violence, arrest, and further reduction of rights, jail.

Let's look back at soem quotes from the original post:



By the chain of exchange of goods, services, or money from the original creator of the product to the claiment.



You are born with rights to your mind and body, these are what generate free speech. As you have a fundamental 'right' to this speech as a product of your mind and body, you have a fundamental right to all the products on your mind and body, and this how property rights are derived. You own the products of your mind and efforts, they are your property, and are free to exchange them as you see fit. Anyone who does not have these rights is by definition a slave.



But it is inherent in democracy that the strongest mob, called 'voting block' in this case, can take that property at the ballot box, using the government's guns instead of their own. The fact that society recognizes property as a natural right, "I have a right to my body, it is my property, you cannot rape me", is what holds the mob back. Yes, there are plenty of criminals that violate our natural rights, but this occurs with or without any government, and as the original post stated, though later contradicted, this is how society came into existence. It's not the government that prevents the angry mob, it's the angry mob that creates the government.