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<!-- you can have any number of categories here --> [[Category:Mike Huben]] [[Category:Property|100]] [[Category:Under Construction]] {{DES | des = Property is a complex set of coercive rights. Most people rely on simple folk models, but at least four fields are important for understanding property: philosophy, law, economics, and anthropology. Libertarians want an absolute, full liberal property over everything, that has never existed and that most people would not want. | show=}} ==The Nature of Property== Property is a specific set of rights that are coercively enforced. Without coercive enforcement, there are no rights, there are only claims. Property is only as strong and secure as its enforcement, which is why property enforcement is generally by coercive social organizations such as governments, clans, feudal systems, etc. Individuals generally cannot create and maintain property because they are not nearly as powerful as social organizations. Thus, in modern nations, governments create and maintain property. All property reduces liberty of all others by creating enforced duties to respect the property. This is a tradeoff, between the benefits of property and the reduction of liberty by duties. For a general overview of the nature of rights, see: [[What Are Rights?]] ==Why isn't my claim good enough to establish my property?== The problem with claims is that they are costless. If you claim a particular object, I can claim the same object and so can multitudes of other people. And you cannot stop them from doing so without coercion. Unenforced claims can multiply, conflict and teem like angels on the head of a pin because they are imaginary. ==Why isn't my possession good enough to establish my property?== If an individual picks up an object, makes something or homesteads some land, there is mere possession (physical control). There is no reason anybody else can't take that posession, either peacefully (picking up an object left alone) or violently (threatening or physically overpowering the former posessor) and make it their own possession. In addition, it is VERY common for people to be in possession of the property of others. For example, I possess a tool that I borrow, but I do not own it. So claims and possession are not enough to establish property. ==How is property created?== Property, like all other rights, is created by threats of enforcement of claims. Only the coercive threat of violence can maintain posession and create property to some degree. Claims and possession are sometimes considered by coercive social organizations such as governments to determine who owns particular property, but they are not necessary. For example, governments have granted lands to colonies and businesses such as railroads without claims or possession by the colonies or businesses. Gifts and inheritances can be made without claims or possession by the recipients. Just or not, those are facts of history and daily life. ==Wait! The Non-Aggression Axiom says that retaliatory force is not coercion!== The "non-aggression axiom" specifically exempts use of force to punish or deter violators of rights claims, calling it "retaliatory". Justifying coercion by calling it retaliatory force does not make it any less coercion. In other words, they say it's not coercive only because they are in favor of it. Sorry, aiming guns at people is coercive no matter what your justification. For more on this subject see: [[Non-Aggression]] and [[Property Is Coercive]]. ==Isn't there a Natural Right to own property?== Natural rights are exactly as knowable as invisible pink unicorns: anybody can fantasize them any way they want. During the Enlightenment, when liberalism was invented, liberal natural rights were a propaganda tool used to undermine the equally fictitious natural rights of kings. But even among liberals there was no agreement about whether slaveholding was a natural right or not, because natural rights are really just words. Bentham famously dismissed the idea of natural rights as "nonsense on stilts". Unfortunately, most libertarians (including Nozick) start with this philosophical abomination rather than more factual alternatives. For more on natural rights, see: [[Natural Rights]] ==What about Locke and Mixing of Labor?== The Lockean fairytale about mixing of labor is merely a moral story meant to persuade coercive social organizations such as governments that some claims are more valid than others. Most major libertarian theorists start with the Lockean "mixing of labor" story: Robert Nozick, David Boaz, Erick Mac, and Murray Rothbard for example. However there are a number of other libertarians who do not credit it at all. There are innumerable problems with the "mixing of labor" story: * It is grossly ahistorical: it would be extremely difficult to establish that ANY current property in land was not the product of violent theft from previous inhabitants. See: {{Link| Why Do Philosophers Talk so Much and Read so Little About the Stone Age? False factual claims in appropriation-based property theory}}. * The story does not tell us how much mixing would be essential: if I pee in the ocean, I have mixed my labor with it; is the ocean now my property? * The story is only a "moral" justification for the coercion that actually makes the property. Locke's story was used to claim European usage of lands was mixing and Amerind usage was not mixing: but the deciding factor was really coercive military power. See: {{Link| Homesteadin' Is the Place for Me}}. * Why is it that a temporary mixing of labor would grant indefinite ownership? Legal practices of adverse possession are a clear exception to the story. * Why would mixing of labor be restricted to the first mixer only? Why not allow others to later mix labor and take partial ownership? * Why is it that a mixing of labor would grant absolute ownership rather than limited ownership? Locke did not say that. See: {{Link|John Locke Says Everything Belongs to Everyone}}. * Mixing of labor is symbolic language; labor cannot be mixed. Substances are mixed. What molecules are labor made out of? See: {{Link| Initial Appropriation: A Dialogue}}. * Mixing of labor is just expenditure of effort, but it does nothing to create or change ownership. Only coercion can do that. To read more, see: [[The Lockean Fable of Initial Acquisition]]. ==What about the Lockean Proviso?== Locke declared that making property was just when "leaving enough and as good for everyone else." There is a very simple measure of when this proviso is violated: whenever a price arises for any undeveloped property. That would make pretty much all property in land unjust now. A small sect of libertarians, the geolibertarians, criticize other libertarians on this bases. See: {{Link| A Geolibertarian FAQ}}. Robert Nozick excuses this injustice by declaring "it is ok to rob them of their access because capitalism is so great that they will be better off for having been robbed." (A paraphrase by Matt Bruenig.) Bruenig writes: "This solution leads to a whole host of problems, the most glaring of which is that it seems to undermine one of the key points of libertarianism. If you can violently destroy people’s liberty so long as you leave them better off, then surely a long variety of things that libertarians hate can be justified, e.g. banning large sodas. There is no reason welfare-improving paternalism should be limited just to the initial appropriation of property, though Nozick clearly would like it to be so limited." See: {{Link|The Nozickian case for Rawls’ difference principle}}. ==What is the relationship between owners, property, and other people?== For a more extensive explanation, see: [[A Positive Model Of Rights]]. An enforced right can be modeled as a social and economic relationship between three groups about a thing. Let's start with a simple story, a diagram and an explanatory table. Ronnie claims ownership of some land and pays Eddie to enforce that right against the denizens of Dallas. Eddie tells them "you have a duty not to use this land because Ronnie has the right and I will pop anybody who does." * Ronnie is a '''RightHolder''' (owner) with the right to the land. * Eddie is an '''Enforcer''' (an other) who makes threats and follows up if Ronnie's right is violated. In the US, the enforcer is the government. * The denizens of Dallas are '''DutyBearers''' (others): a duty not to use the land is forced on them by Eddie, otherwise they could use the land for themselves. * The land is a '''Thing''' (property) that is controlled by the right. [[Image:Rights.jpg|500px]] * Ronnie receives the '''Benefits''' of the Thing: ue of the land. * Eddie receives the '''Fees''' for enforcement, in this case from Ronnie. In the case of the US, from taxes on everybody. * The denizens of Dallas have an '''Opportunity Cost''': if it wasn't for Eddie, they could use the land. * If the denizens of Dallas don't obey Eddie, Eddie has an enforcement '''Cost'''. * If the denizens of Dallas don't obey Eddie, Eddie will give them a '''Penalty'''. This diagram makes clear that ownership places duties to respect ownership without requiring consent: property as constituted everywhere in the world does not require consent from others except from the enforcer. ==What are the component rights of property?== In law, liberal property rights are considered to be bundles of rights because very often these component rights have different owners. Tony Honoré, in his book [[Making Law Bind: Essays Legal and Philosophical]] p. 165, lists the component rights of ownership of property:: # the right to possess # the right to use # the right to manage # the right to the income of the thing # the right to the capital # the right to security # the right of transmissibility # the right of absence of term # the duty to prevent harm # liability to execution and # the incident of residuarity According to Honoré, for full ownership in a thing to be recognised, an individual must hold most (but not necessarily all) of these elements regarding that thing. Full liberal rights would consist of all these elements. The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_of_rights bundle of rights] theory is commonly used in first-year law school property classes to explain how a property can simultaneously be "owned" in some sense by multiple parties. For example, a husband and wife can be owners (technically, title owners) of real property that is also encumbered by a mortgage and a mechanics lien. Their neighbor may have an easement for a utility line, and a license for entry and exit to a nearby plot of land. Planes have the right to fly through their airspace. Constitutionally, the state and federal governments always holds the right to condemnation, also called eminent domain, and the government at multiple levels retains various regulatory rights such as environmental regulation, zoning, and building codes. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundle_of_rights From Wikipedia.]) ==Are there different rights for public property?== In Elinor Ostrom's article [[Efficiency, Sustainability, and Access Under Alternative Property-Rights Regimes", she identifies five property rights that are most relevant for the use of common-pool resources, including access, withdrawal, management, exclusion, and alienation. These are defined as: #Access: The right to enter a defined physical area and enjoy nonsubtractive benefits (e.g., hike, canoe, sit in the sun). #Withdrawal: The right to obtain resource units or products of a resource system (e.g., catch fish, divert water). #Management: The right to regulate internal use patterns and transform the resource by making improvements. #Exclusion: The right to determine who will have an access right, and how that right may be transferred. #Alienation: The right to sell or lease management and exclusion rights. ==Do animals have property?== Often people think of behaviors of animals (such as territoriality) as being indicative of animal property. Possession is a better description. While an animal might protect its nest, does it really have the other rights that comprise property according to Honoré above? No. And with the exception of a very few social species, there is no social enforcement of possession. Apparently, only humans have property. ==Why don't we have full liberal property rights?== The property relationship enforced by society is NEVER the full liberal property rights desired by libertarians because (a) society retains the [[Hohfeld’s typology of rights|Hohfeldian POWER]] to change the deal however desired and (b) some of the pre-existing rights and externalities of rights can be very expensive and (c) enforcement of rights is costly: both directly due to costs of enforcement and due to the injustice of violating the Lockean Proviso of "leaving enough and as good for everyone else." For (a), if government is paying for rights enforcement, it gets to make the rights it wants. That can include rights to enter with a warrent and eminent domain for example. For (b), existing commonlaw rights may lead to easements and limitations due to nuisance. For (c), enforcing rights is costly, and the more perfect the enforcement the more costly. Intellectual property is enforced through private lawsuits to prevent the cost of the enforcement of those rights unless it is profitable. ==What about self-ownership?== No human society has ever treated people as their own inviolate property. Even if self-ownership was only an aspirational goal, it could not be implemented for children or incompetents. Historically, ownership of other people (slavery, wives, children) has been the norm. Libertarians frequently base their philosophy on this imagined right. It is merely an unenforced claim. You might also be in possession of yourself, but there is a long history of others being in possession of people's bodies. If you have anything resembling ownership of your body, it is a result of rights created by government or other coercive social organizations. But they are never full liberal ownership because there are always important exceptions (resembling easements) having to do with the duties of citizenship and the facts of competency. Bodies are NEVER property (let alone absolute property) in any culture except in [[slavery]]. To read more, see: [[Self-Ownership]]. ==What about Intellectual Property such as Patents and Copyrights?== Libertarians disagree on intellectual property. Objectivist and some other minarchist libertarians insist they are valid rights to the product of our minds. Most other libertarians view them as obvious grants of special rights by government that infringe on freedoms to reproduce writings and inventions. Intellectual property is genuine property because it is based on claims that are enforced. All property (and all rights) reduce liberty by creating enforced duties to respect the property. There are many reasons libertarians might dislike intellectual property: * Patents and copyrights are for a limited time, unlike the libertarian desire for eternal absolute property. * Patents and copyrights did not significantly exist without demon government to create them. * Intellectual property might give people the accurate idea that government is responsible for the system of stable property we enjoy. ==Related Articles== * [[A Positive Model Of Rights]] * [[What Are Rights?]] {{Quotations|title=What is property?|quotes=true}}
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