On a recent trip to the English city to Sheffield I was reminded of the cause of our problem with the growth of statism – and the threat it poses to civilization.
The purpose of my visit was to meet up with an old friend, be shown round the centre of the city (some interesting buildings, and good parks in walking distance – offering a fine view of the city) and to go out into the hills over the Yorkshire border in Derbyshire (fine hills right next to the road).
However, there was a sale at the central library in Sheffield and we visited it. Library sales are a common thing in Britain, to “make space for new books” – but also to get rid of books that are no longer tolerated, without having to actually destroy them (book burning is still considered a thing to be avoided). One of the works on sale was the four volume ‘The Science of Society’ produced by William Graham Sumner Associates at Yale in 1927 (Sumner himself having died in 1910). The four volume work was on sale for a Pound (no surprise – I was got a 1949 edition of Human Action for ten pence from a British Library sale).
In those days, even at an elite University like Yale, it was still not uncommon for academics to be free market folk and Sumner had been the best known pro freedom sociologist in the United States. The Sumner club carried on Sumner’s opinions and was to provide resistance to President Roosevelt and the other “New Dealers” in the 1930’s. So one would expect a scholarly examination of the customs of various societies (in those days the lines between sociology and anthropology were less rigid), but an examination from a pro private property point of view. Just as modern examinations are scholarly, but written from a point of view which favours violations of private property.
Well what is there?
The first thing I noticed I was expecting – the evolutionist philosophy. Just as with Hayek, private property is not supported as a matter of metaphysical (by ‘metaphysical’ I mean something that does not depend on material advantage, i.e. something that is supported on principle – Hayek’s talk of rights in the Road to Serfdom is lip surface, Hayek neither believed in metaphysical rights or even free will).
Private property is supported because it is good for society – a larger population can be sustained over the long term, and all sorts of development can occur. Cultural evolution is an older idea than biological evolution. Work on the evolution of such social institutions as language goes back to at least the 18th century. As for the philosophy of evolution (as opposed to the factual theory), I do not happen to share it. I do not believe that the moral goodness or badness of something should be judged on whether it means that a larger and more developed society can occur (this just sneaks in the assumption that larger and more complex equals good). To me not aggressing against others (by robbing, raping or murdering them) is a moral principle, a foundation in itself – not one that needs to be ‘justified’ by economic advantage.
However, why should people care what I think? If the Sumner people wanted to justify a minimal state (just opposing aggression) or no state at all, with their ‘evolutionary utilitarianism’ why should I complain?
Well I might (and would) say that just stressing material advantage (indeed sneering with contempt at the idea that there could be any such thing as principles of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ independent of ‘evolutionary advantage’) is not very inspiring – but that is not my main point.
Sumner people (and remember these are the best people of their time) did NOT uphold a minimal state.
Looking at just two pages is enough to make the point. On pages 2222 – 2223 (which are to be found at the start of section 461 in Volume III of the “Science of Society”). We are told that there are three attitudes for government to take.
One is ‘laissez-faire’ or ‘laissez-allez’ – ‘Hands Off’ the “swiftly running and delicate machinery” (which is the authors view of society – seeing society as a machine irritates me, but let us leave that aside). We are told that no government has ever adopted such a position, which may or may not be true – but is no argument against the position (unless we are to a follow an interpretation of Hegal that holds that whatever exists must be rational and, therefore, good).
Of course ‘to meddle indiscriminately’ is bad, and we are told that this is the normal default position of politicians and the writers who only see the suffering that exists – not the greater suffering that their very interventions will cause.
But there is supposedly a third alternative, indeed it “is the only hope men have”. Limited intervention by wise men. This turns out to be like Hayek’s ‘limited state’ (Hayek rejecting the libertarian non-aggression principle and the minimal state, or no state, that it demands).
Hayek, of cause, tries to set out principles for this limited state (see his “Constitution of Liberty” and other works), these principles tend to be very vague (a law must be universal [everyone to have no legs?] and so on) – but then Hayek was a philosophical evolutionist (as well as a scientific one) he did not want to be tied down to principles of right and wrong (even though he attacked other people for having a similar attitude).
The Sunmer people are rather clearer – the “only hope men have” has no principles at all. “There is no body of principles to refer to” – it would be nice if there was some guide to action, but no one has done the “dog-labour necessary to collect and classify the facts; much less have they been able to, in the absence of scientific materials, to rise to guiding generalizations”.
In short the sort of inductivism (beloved of Francis Bacon) that both Hayek and his friend Karl Popper despised in the physical sciences (where they may have overstated their case) let alone the human sciences (such as political philosophy or economics). So we have no rules for this limited intervention, and the way suggested to get them (inductivism) is not suitable for the task.
But have no fear, the warnings against intervention “do not apply to the engineer” (I wonder if they were thinking of the ‘Great Engineer’, Herbert Hoover, who was to win the Presidency a year later and who, contrary to his reputation, was a dedicated ‘scientific’ interventionist – the authors certainly meant themselves).
These all wise super beings can improve civil society by using the power of the state – even if we (the authors) admit that we have not worked out any principles for how that is to be done just yet. Still the engineers (the authors) will (indeed must) twist things to their will – it will turn out fine (although they have admitted they do not know anything) – because they are so wise.
All of the above would not matter if it were just statist ranting, but it is not. People like the Sumner club were the arch enemies of statism – way back in the 1920’s they were the best defence of civil society that there was. And it was no better outside the United States (it was worse).
Really even the anti-statist writers of the time presented no principled opposition to statism. The reader of such works as the ‘Science of Society’ is invited to think of himself as an engineer who can treat civil society (i.e. human beings and their civil interactions) as a machine to be controlled. With no silly metaphysical notions like right and wrong to stand his way. I say again that people like the Sumner club were the main anti-statist force in the conflict of ideas.
So if our civilization is doomed, it deserves to be. Pity about all the people living in it.
The reader of such works as the ‘Science of Society’ is invited to think of himself as an engineer who can treat civil society (i.e. human beings and their civil interactions) as a machine to be controlled.
I don’t find that attitude in a work from the early twentieth century odd, I think it was a widespread reaction to the spectacular engineering achievements of the time. Indeed, I would put Freud, with his rather simple and mechanical triumvirate id/ego/superego, in the same general trend. Not to mention Marx with his dialectical materialism and rather mechanical conception of history. These days we get fuzzy overflows from quantum mechanics and cybernetics. When there is little real science the temptations of analogy and fashion are pretty overwhelming.
I must admit that I find the current radical libertarian view unconvincing. To my mind the natural state of man is tribal and territorial, which works strongly against the sort of individualism and independence that libertarian social arrangements seem to envisage. Oh, well.
Sure, but things do not have to express themselves in only one way. The literal tribal view have been pretty well dead for quite some time (i.e. what Hayek called the ‘pre-extended order’) and what ‘territorial’ means can (and has) changed greatly over the centuries.
If you want give an outlet to atavistic tribal urges, go watch Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. And as for being territorial, I have yet to meet a libertarian who is not territorial… any person who thinks private property is the basis for all civilisation cannot be anything but territorial. Territorial desires can be expressed in many ways.
Can you cite an example of where Hayek says he does not believe in free will?
“And as for being territorial, I have yet to meet a libertarian who is not territorial… any person who thinks private property is the basis for all civilisation cannot be anything but territorial.”
The tribe creates private property through fear and power over their territory. It is neither justified nor tolerated, merely imposed. And that is undeniably the historical and genealogical origin of private poperty. The libertarian merely abstracts this rule of force on the ground and tries to justify it, eventually coming up with a theory of legitimacy or rightful ownership. A decent theory of property acquisition has yet to be offered by libertarians because they presuppose the legitimacy of private property (and thereafter make a fairly good model that justice in transfer of property relies on voluntary actions).
But there is no initial justification for private property (or even any laws). Take Marks: “To me not aggressing against others (by robbing, raping or murdering them) is a moral principle, a foundation in itself – not one that needs to be ‘justified’ by economic advantage.”
What we have there is purely a rhetorical (“Oh of course, how could anyone be in favour of rape!”) argument. A position asserted as somehow foundational in itself.
In reality, private property rights have proceeded because of their functionality in society, giving such societies dramatic advantages in productivity. That is not to say they should not be defended, because that productivity makes people’s desires satisfied and offers greater freedom for creative individuals to reach heights of human accomplishment. It highly naive that the idea of property rights has persisted for any other reason than it has survival value.
Excellent. Thank you for an enjoyable summary.
I’m really going to try to restrain myself and only make a few short points.
The assertion that the “scientific” planning for and design of production and distribution methods was superior to the chaos of wasteful, dog-eat-dog capitalism was widely accepted then, and has become so ingrained in the conventional wisdom of modern foundational assumptions that challenging it is met with uncomprehending blank stares.
It is an axiom of collectivist belief that the very apparatniks who cannot be trusted with police power, military power, political power, judicial power, or cultural power because they are so corrupt, racist, and slavish in their service to evil capitalists, suddenly become competent to regulate and control every aspect of a multi-trillion dollar economy if they are given total power over every aspect of its operation, provided they are sufficiently hostile to private enterprise and property.
Nothing that happened in the lamentable 20th century, steeped in collectivist wisdom and statist ideology, can ever manage to penetrate the unshakable faith that statists have in statist solutions for any conceivable problem.
There are several regular commenters here who routinely posit the absurdity of believing that individuals should control their own lives instead of having “society” decide all questions great and small, based on a nebulous committment to the murky goal of the “common good”.
Fidel and Kim must be so proud.
Nice piece Paul. It is sobering to read that even some of the most prominent advocates of small government have tended to have no axiomatic attachment to liberty and property, grounded on no sort of principle other than “what works”. This way of thinking leads to nihilism eventually if one is not careful. I think that this was always a serious flaw of Hayek’s. (He more than made up for it with many other brilliant insights, however).
Of course, it is possible, as people like Aristotle, Rothbard, Tibor Machan, Eric Mack, Ayn Rand, Tara Smith et al have tried, to ground morality in the facts of human nature as they see it: what does Man need to thrive and survive? (answer: liberty, rules, moral values). The so-called “pragmatists” or “realists” out there tend to be little more than amoralists who think it is simplistic or “ideological” to hold such a view, but who often betray themselves by using value-laden terms to describe their idea of what is good. (Euan Gray, who seems to be a sort of positivist, was a prime offender. He seems to have left us alone in a huff..
For an interesting discussion of property rights and the need for grounding in princples rather than expediency, I recommend this article(Link), which contains some good links.
I strongly disagree, nic. You assert that no libertarian has provided a justification for initial acquisition of property or indeed things such as laws. I thought the likes of John Locke, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard — to name just three — had a good stab at doing that. In fact one could argue that a moral foundation for property rights beyond some utilitarian one is that Man needs to produce to live, and therefore needs a structure of law to protect proceeds of said production, protect exchange of said property, etc. In other words, property flows from the requirements of Man as a productive, free-acting creature. If one has a right to life, one has a right to sustain it in a way that does not coerce ones fellows. Property rights are intensely practical because they embody how an abstract right – to life – can apply.
Of course this does not get around the fact that in reality, many people who acquired property in human history did so by grabbing it from others, kicking people off common or previously unowned land, etc. (But the principle is valid even if the operation of it was brutal at times). And things like land are scarce, so presumably the principle of just acquisition is academic in a densely populated land where existing owners have all the land where there is no wilderness remaining. The principle is still vital, though, for things like intellectual property, the supply of which is probably infinite.
This is a good and entertaining case for a ground-up justification for property from first principles, as applied in the American West.(Link)
Johnathan, I have read the links you make in your comments above. The Sandefur article is interesting and instructive to someone like me who knows not a lot about property law and philosophical bases for it…so bear with me, if you can; you say in your comments that it doesn’t matter (it’s ‘valid’) how one group acquires property from another. But if that means that the property rights of the group being dispossessed are infringed, why doesn’t it? In the American west property rights were unprotected, as the articles say, but land was held or owned (effectively) commonly, for the ‘common good’. The expropriation of that land was resisted.
Why was enclosure a good thing? Did it not transfer ownership of land from many people to a few? There are surely many other examples in colonial history of property ownership forcibly being changed by the might of arms.
I am genuinely struggling to understand why private property rights are placed by many at the fundamental dead centre of a libertarian philosophy.
Because the first order of property rights is that you own yourself.
Absolutely. I am not claiming — and the books I cite don’t — that there are not problems with the theory of initial acquisition when folk live on what is known as common land, say. The problem with the American West was that the tribes did not “own” it in any demarcated way; they roamed around in pursuit of game or because of the seasons. Different tribes also fought viciously against each other as well as the white settlers heading westwards. As far as the Indians were concerned, the entire continent was “theirs” (though they were descended from earlier settlers fanning out from what is now Siberia).
The theory of how property rights can start is meant to sketch out the idea of property being grounded in some idea. I fully concede that in practice, things get a bit more complicated. That is one reason why any theory of property needs to include the idea of just recompense for previous wrongs.
Alas, that is why you have lawyers.
nic claims that I hold that such things as rape are wrong without justifying my postion.
I am guilty as charged – that is exactly what I hold.
If someone says that I have to “prove” that rape is wrong (for example by caluculating that the happiness of the rapist or rapists is less than the unhappiness of the victim) I hold that person to be an arsehole (as such things as the happiness caused by raping someone is not relevant to the act being wrong – “good equals happiness” is just a mistake – nor am I going to play the “rules of just conduct” game if we mean by “rules of just conduct” rules that produce long term happiness).
If someone does not understand that violating the person or possessions of another person is wrong, I am not going to “prove” it to them. Such things do not have “foundations” – they are themselves the basic intrinsic moral foundations.
On property it is hisorically false that all property is based on conquest (for example see Iceland), however even if it were true it would not be relevant.
“Your great, great grandfather stole this land so I can take it from you by force” is not a moral position – it is just a [poor] excuse for theft.
By the way – I do not own any land (if that is what you are thinking).
By the way without property rights there are no “civil liberties” – as if the public power owns all printing presses there is no freedom of publication, if it owns all halls and other places there is no freedom of assembly (and so on and so on).
Everyone can not use limited resources (to get their message accross) – so there are two ways to do it. Pay (oh no the rich get more say – accept that the leftists have never had much trouble getting their works on to newstands or into book stores) or politics (and anyone who thinks that they can get a fair deal from politics knows very litte about it).
“Individualism” V statism – classic mistake (“you libertarians believe a person can do everything for themselves”). It is voluntary interaction (civil coopeeration) or force.
Tribes do various nasty things – so they do. But not all tribes are the same (at any level of technology – the idea that our tools determine our minds is a Marxist error). Some tribes allow private property and some do not.
Hayek did not believe in agency – “free will”.
The Sensory Order.
The Constitution of Liberty.
Two examplies enough?
True Hayek denounced people who held that the “fact” that a human being was just a electro-chemical robot had political and moral implications – but (actually) the people he denounced had a point (althought they somehow did not include THEMSELVES when they thought about humans and what should be done to them).
Of course Hayek himself (for all his attacks on people who held that “right” and “wrong” were just flexible terms) did not really believe in basic right and wrong either – it was all just rules for long term evolutionary advantage (which just assumes that rules that maximise numbers and complexity over time = good).
More importantly (from a political point of view) Hayek offered no clear definition of what his “limited governmment” actually was – it is all vague (law must be universal [everyone to have no legs?] and so on).
So (like the Sumner Club) any politician can say “I am a limited state person” whilst increasing the size and scope of government.
The classic example is Robert Taft “Mr Republican” – the hard core free market man of the 1940’s and early 1950’s.
Accept that after “deep study” (lots of stats and other such) – he supported Federal housing subsidies, education subsidies, …… just about anything subsidies.
“antistatism” of this sort is no real counter weight to statism.
“I must admit that I find the current radical libertarian view unconvincing. To my mind the natural state of man is tribal and territorial, which works strongly against the sort of individualism and independence that libertarian social arrangements seem to envisage. Oh, well.”
A good anarcho-libertarian friend once commented to me that the greatest enemy of liberty was tribalism. At the time I thought he was exaggerating, but perhaps there is something in what he said.
All this talk of “foundations” is rather tiring. Either something is true or it is not and it doesn’t become true-er because it has something called “foundations” (whatever they are).
“Of course Hayek himself (for all his attacks on people who held that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ were just flexible terms) did not really believe in basic right and wrong either – it was all just rules for long term evolutionary advantage (which just assumes that rules that maximise numbers and complexity over time = good).”
My whole judgement is more complex, but what Paul wrote, right there, is the kernel of why I’ve said for about fifteen years that “The Fatal Conceit” is the book that Hayek should not have written. It really is most regrettable.
“I thought the likes of John Locke, Robert Nozick, Murray Rothbard — to name just three — had a good stab at doing that.”
I admit I haven’t read Murry Rothbard. But both Locke and Nozick I have and both fail to make a conclusive case. Locke allows property so long as each individual leaves “enough and as good as” for other individuals. His initial justification is not so much a right to life as a duty to preserve life. This is based on a ruling by God (which he treats as foundational but few find justifiable today).
This means that property rights are already, non-foundational: they are based on the idea that they help to preserve life. Thus even under Lockean libertarianism, you are compelled to come to the aid of another human being by law, if they lack the resources to preserve themselves, because it would be a sin to allow someone born in the image of God to die when they could be preserved. Even for Locke, property rights are functional because they allow greater productive use of land. He just doesn’t phrase it in terms of happiness but in terms of life-preservation (which is what God desires).
As a consequence, you can have a very egalitarian view of Lockean property rights if the “enough and as good as” clause is interpreted strictly. Michael Otsuka made a case along those lines in “Libertarianism without Inequality”.
Nozick even admits he doesn’t have a coherent view of rights in initial acquisition. He wants to rely on Lockean labour-mixing (you mix your labour with something, it becomes yours because your labour is yours), but he can’t decide how extensive this is. If you dispense a can of tomato juice that you own into the pacific ocean, do you now own the sea, or have you just wasted your labour and tomato juice?
Nozick wasn’t even a libertarian in later years. But his justification was not one of foundations either. He took an Ayn Randian view that we need property rights in order to offer the opportunity for people to create their own personal utopias and to reach heights of creativity, a highly aesthetic and compelling view. But they are still performing a function, rather than being intinsic.
Libertarian ideology might consider these rights intrinsic but most libertarian philosophers think they need to offer some form of justification, be it happiness, creative drive, life-preservation or even because God wills it.
“most libertarian philosphers” – let me qualify, Libertarian philosophers that I have read:)
Justify private property? Why? None can really ‘justify’ anything, just explain it. We form theories by using our reason and form a critical preference for the one which seems to best way to describe reality. Moral theories are no different and so Paul is quite correct to say that rape is wrong because his moral theory, which came from his use of reason, shows it to be wrong.
No eudaemonic system such as nic suggests will get you to ‘rape is wrong’ because the sort of utilitarian meta-context which it is predicated upon is vulnerable to infinitely regression to the notion that there is no such thing as objective reality (or even conjectural objective truth) and so such views are ultimately nihilistic and meaningless.
nic, I haven’t the time to go through all your points, but I would make one point straight off, that few libertarians now would base any idea of rights on the existence of a supreme being. Locke may have done so, but the idea of “inaliable” rights does not require a god. When Rand sought to justify property, for instance, she based it on what she claimed were the requirements of Man as a certain kind of being, not religion.
The “Lockean proviso” that you talk about (leaving enough for others) is a difficult one and in practice, impossible to observe. That does not mean Locke’s broader argument is fundamentally wrong. For me, the real value of what he says is the idea of “mixing” labour/skill with something to give it value where it previously had none. By doing this, we can see how initial acquisition of property does not become a zero-sum game, which the Lockean “proviso” does. If the first person to claim a lump of land leaves only a little for everyone else, he or she is unlikely to last long without trading with others, and over time the total stock of ownable wealth will increase, spreading property around more widely. So I think the Lockean conundrum does not matter all that much. It certainly only really applies to physical stuff like land.
Ideas about entrepreneurship can help here: if a person has the risk-taking boldness and foresight to spot that there is value in a lump of land that no-one else has seen, and with the consent of his fellows, claims it, then that gives that person a kind of moral right to extract the value he has seen in that land.
Why should any of this matter, you may ask? Paul has already answered it in his initial post. I think it matters a lot because we live in a culture that is saturated in anti-property views and misunderstanding of the value of property. The argument that property is crucial to a free society is something that is still quite a novel argument to many perfectly intelligent people. The shadow of socialism is still pretty long. We intend to shorten it.
Thanks for the Michael Otsukar reference.
We are ‘an anti-property society’? Surely not? Is there a society on earth more obsessed with house prices and property supplements? I appreciate you are making some distinctions about land because they are limited resources, but aren’t there many other ‘limited resources’ also – otherwise, why the big debate about fuel supply just now..
I’m one of those who has a difficulty about property being a prerequisite of a free society, whether anyone considers me intelligent or not. I do know there are quite few political judgements and views I find a bit alarming on here, though I nevertheless agree with a lot on here about the power of the state, and the current dangers of the ‘creep’ of that (which I don’t see abating under any of our current political choices). So, it may be the question of a simpleton if I am reading your implication correctly, but just why is private property so vital to a free society? And is it ok if some people have lots and other have none? Or do we all have to have some if we are to be free? Too many question marks?
We are ‘an anti-property society’? Surely not? Is there a society on earth more obsessed with house prices and property supplements?
True but it misses the point. We live in a country where the State seizes a large chunk of our wealth above a certain level when we die and a large part of it during our working lives; we have planning controls, listing laws, zoning laws, regulations on how we can decorate and change the appearances of our homes. It is now the case that one cannot even change the windows of your home without some sort of approval. Yes, we are a property-owning country, but we have allowed the regulatory state to take enormous powers over our use and enjoyment thereof. Hence my point.
Graham, you have problems with property being a prerequisite for a free society, but it is not really all that strange an argument. If you believe that you own your own life as a free man, then by logical extension one needs to own the things that you make to sustain that life. There are other arguments too, such as the fact that private property, if held by a large number of people rather than a single monopoly (which means the State, in practice), acts as a check on power of the state. Even if one does not own much property, the existence of others who do is a guard against monopoly power. For example, I used to rent a home rather than own it, but that is okay so long as there is a choice from whom to rent, and so on.
Property is not the sole prerequisite for a free society, of course. There are other key conditions, but property is a key condition and there are practically no examples of a free society in which private property rights were absent.
This book (Link)is a good example of my argument.
OT I know but isn’t it pleasant to have a whole series of civilised discussions without someone throwing a tantrum…
I’ve worked in the property area, as a developer, not a planner I hasten to add. But I can’t see how a free for all could work. I’ve worked quite lot in the northern dales, where there is constant pressure from landowners to get land released or have it included in the ‘envelope’ for development. A lot of resistance to development comes from other property owners to stop this as they regard it as devaluing their amenity, or actual property value.
There surely has to be some refereeing of this, and in this respect aren’t land use definitions and planning conditions sensible, however flawed a system it is in practice. I can’t see how else it would be done – half of Weardale and Teesdale would be built on otherwise…
“I think it matters a lot because we live in a culture that is saturated in anti-property views and misunderstanding of the value of property. The argument that property is crucial to a free society is something that is still quite a novel argument to many perfectly intelligent people. The shadow of socialism is still pretty long. We intend to shorten it.”
And this I agree with wholeheartedly as the ideal of private property is clearly highly valuable and yet ignored by a great many people who see themselves as somehow transcending such rights. We use our theories to dispute the inconsistencies and contradictions of egalitarians and socialists (usually those with only a shallow rhetorical view). But we still need to turn our critical view on even theories that we hold dear, and possibly infer better versions of them.
Where Marks comes in very strongly is against this “scientific society” view that says that planning is possible, but not how it should happen or who could possibly be qualified to do the planning. I am not refuting that part of his argument as true laissez-faire society works so well. I am merely saying that even property rights and laissez-faire ideals are not immune from critical debate.
. A lot of resistance to development comes from other property owners to stop this as they regard it as devaluing their amenity, or actual property value.
Absolutely! I don’t contest that. People can be hypocrites: businessmen will lobby for tariffs and subsidies, eminent domain land-grabs, etc. We want to protect what is ours and enhance it, and property owners are not above denying to others the freedoms they have previously enjoyed. Human nature and all that.
This thing about property has come up before, and been argued endlessly before, so I doubt anything I say will resolve the issue, but here’s a quick take.
Matter is just matter. It has no value or meaning until it is used somehow to facilitate life. That is why even animals exhibit territoriality—it is a claim upon a resource necessary for life.
Pre-humans undoubtedly felt territorial, and fought to defend certain traditional areas that contained the game, water, and plants they used for sustenance.
The change came from matter to property when humans began to invest conscious thought into certain pieces of matter, changing the relationship from one of convenient use to intelligient application.
Tools, clothing, weapons, homes, and, finally, croplands and herds of domesticated animals are human property because of the enormous investment of intellectual effort required for these items to exist.
It is so difficult now to imagine the extraordinary effort it must have taken to reason out the workings of the bow and arrow, or to plan out the first deliberate growing of crops for food, or how to domesticate and care for a certain type of animal, that we fail to appreciate that the first successful flight of an arrow, or first harvest, or first shearing party, was the Appollo moon project of its time, worthy of the same level of respect and admiration.
Property rights exist because of that effort—in recognition that nothing happens to enable humans to survive without the intellectual effort to fashion matter into a serving piece of property.
All property rights are, in fact, intellectual property rights.
This is most clearly reflected in the Homestead Act, under which settlers were allowed to claim a certain amount of land providing they lived on and improved it by building, farming, etc.
It is a distillation of the meaning of property, and the necessity of possessing it as a right protected by law, not subject to the whim and caprice of an autocrat or society at large.
When property rights are disussed in a vacuum, without specific context, the subject becomes murky and obscure, as anything would in that situation.
It is necessary to remember that “valuable property” has no meaning without the questions, “Valuable to whom?” and “For what purpose?”.
This was very abbreviated and choppy. My apologies. I have some time specific errands to take care of and am already behind schedule.
Johnathan Pearce writes: “For an interesting discussion of property rights and the need for grounding in princples rather than expediency, …”, and clearly approves of principles, as do I.
However, I have a hypothesis: “Principles are nothing but expediency put through a low-pass filter, with the material part of the impulse response having a duration measured in centuries.” [ie principles are what works best over the long-term. Accordingly any politician who is not also steeped in history is nothing but a transient phenomenom (and a nuisance).]
How’s that for a theory of social engineering?
Best regards
Can not “Property” i.e. land, manufactures, works of art, footballing talent etc,. be abstracted from the discussion. The issue, to my mind, is how these things are to be transferred between individuals. The Libertarian argument about property therefore appears to come down to the support of heredity as the main method of transfer.
“The Libertarian argument about property therefore appears to come down to the support of heredity as the main method of transfer.”
Not exactly, although in practice in many societies that will be common. The essential method of transfer for libertarianism is voluntarism: a transfer is just if both parties agree without any use of force. I actually find this part of libertarianism far less controversial. If you presuppose the existence of absolute property rights, then it seems to follow that one can choose to transfer one’s property in any one desires. The problem is identifying the just acquisition of initially unowned property (which is really only land because most other sorts, as has been pointed out, is intellectual property).
There is also the question of whether justice in transfer is just in extreme circumstances. Say someone has just been bitten by a snake and will die in the next 30 seconds unless someone sells them the antidote. The antidote salesman (who has lots of medicine available for his own use as well) could charge any amount he liked at that point if he has an absolute property right over the antidote, even to the point of making the bite victim sell himself into slavery for 10 years in return for the antidote. There is no coercion here as external causes have brought the victim into this difficult situation. The victim is free to take it or leave it (and then die).
We might argue that in these extreme circumstances, those that still hold to a strict view of property are fetishising property rights as something ideal when really they perform a functional role: i.e. encouraging people to invent and make antidotes in the first place.
nic, I think we are all agreed that heredity works well most of the time and there are problems with the state attempting to do the job instead. However why should “the have nots” or your antidote salesman not use their power to acquire what they don’t have. Should not libertarians be trying to identify and propose ways to augment the heredity approach because otherwise the likes of Marks or Brown will able to mobilise the masses into using their power to take what they don’t have.
The Libertarian argument about property therefore appears to come down to the support of heredity as the main method of transfer.
In practice, most transfers of property have inter-generational, so that point is true as a factual generalisation. But the libertarian argument certainly does embrace the idea that property rights must include the idea of being able to transfer X to whomever you wish. Another important points is the ability and right to exclude a person or group from your property.
If you guys are nice to me, I might “transfer” you a pint of beer sometime. Good discussion. Have a minty rest of the weekend.
Nigel, that is results driven, and by nature pragmatic.
Principles are by nature goal driven.
Principles can imagine that which has not been. Expediancy can only selectively copy that which has been before.
Any illusion that principles are a summation of what works best over the long term, is because the principles that do work best over the long term have a survival advantage.
Midwestener wrote: “Principles can imagine that which has not been. Expediancy can only selectively copy that which has been before.”
I do think the point you are typing to make is worth making. However, I’m going to be slightly picky (US meaning) over terms here.
We all think, from time to time, that we have had a brilliant idea that is a matter of principle. However, until the idea has general acceptance in society, it is only a hypothetical principle, not an actual principle. It can only become an actual principle by either being tried successfully or by being discussed positively by so many for so long that it is, in effect, tried successfully. [And that, of course, applies to my idea of principle as low-pass filtered expedience over centuries.]
In deference to balance of pickiness (can one say that where you are), my concept of long-term successful expediency does rely (according to my UK dictionary) on the first of two definitions: suitable for achieveing a particular end. I accept it does rather go against the other definition: concerned with what is opportune rather than right or just and more specifically governed by self interest rather than by what is moral.
Best regards
Nigel, I’m not sure the dictionary you prefer. I don’t think it makes a lot of difference but I’ve gravitated towards FreeDictionary.com. I use many others when there’s doubt, so feel free to suggest another.
Of the four definitions here, we’ll skip number four as obsolete, number three seems rather useless to purpose, and number two specifically disassociates ‘expediency’ from ‘principle’. So that leaves us with number one, “Appropriateness to the purpose at hand; fitness.” which seems to me to be derivative from experience.
So let’s look at the definitions of principle.
I disagree with your precondition that “the idea has general acceptance in society” in order to qualify as ‘principle’. I think this misconstrues or misunderstands the meaning(s) of ‘principle’.
Besides, aren’t all principles hypothetical? Even our knowledge of gravity is hypothetical. Newton was close, Einstein is closer. But in the absence of perfect knowledge, all principles are, in that sense, hypothetical.
I think I’ll stand where I’m at this time. But an interesting digression, all the same.
nic makes a valid point in taking John Locke (the 17th century writer – in case people come upon this thread by chance) to task.
The “Lockian proviso” stuff (which collapses property rights into an argument about economic prosperity – Hayek style, most people will tend to be more prosperious over time if we allow private property in land than if we do not) comes from a popular interpretation of the Bible.
Locke followed Pufendorf (as he normally did – for example Pufendorf supported compulsory charity [without seeing a contradiction there] and so did Locke) in holding that God gave the world as a block to humanity in general, so any indivdual owernship has to be justified.
However many people have always taken the view that the worls is unowned till a bit is occupied by a reasoning agent – basically God gives it only in the sense of go out there and inhabit it (and then it is yours).
Hugo Grotious (spelling alert) was one scholar in Locke’s time who took this view.
nic also asks me WHY I support the libertarian position (i.e. that force is only justified in countering agression).
Well I will not go into the debate between mininal statism (or minarchism) and private property anarchism (or anarchocaptialism) – but I will try and reply to nic’s question.
I support the non aggression principle principle for three reasons.
P.P.E. Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Philosophy.
I hold to be wrong to use force or the threat of it to do other than counter aggression (my position is actually more complicated than that as I accept that there are other virutes apart from the virtue of non aggreesion right [the traditional interpretation of what “justice” is] and I understand some “lesser evil” arguments – but the bald statement will do for here).
Robbing, raping, murdering (etc) is just “wrong” (because it is) – and it is not less wrong if people working for something called “the state” do these things.
Politics.
Hayek claims (in the “Constitution of Liberty”) that a limited state can be defined and a minimal state can not.
I hold the opposite view. I hold that Hayek’s (and other writers) efforts to define a “limited government” end in almost total vagueness. Whereas it is possible to at least explain what a minimal state would be (whether it is possible to have one is quite another matter).
In short Hayek (and others) “limited state” conception is totally useless for trying to limit governement – as it can not even be explained clearly (let alone defended).
A politician (be he Robert Taft or George Walker Bush) can say he beleives in limited government – whilst supporting almost any intervention (and there is no contradiction as the “limited government” concept is hopelessly vauge).
So let us say that I did support some government intervnetion (I do not, but let us say that I did) – I would still support the evil “Lasser Faire” that Hayek (and so many others) attack – for the simple reason that it can be defined.
The statists demand statism (ever more government spending and regulations) – antistatists must hold to strict antistatism. Or bit by bit (Fabian style) we will get ever more statism.
If there are not political forces that are pulling against the statist forces (not some of the time and half heartedly – but all of the time and with a full heart) then the result is not some “limited government” – it is (evenutally) total statism.
Economics.
Like the rest of that branch of the Austrian School that follow Ludwig Von Mises, I hold that government interventions (for logical, not empirical, reasons) reduce the very human welfare they are intended to promote – i..e that they make things worse than they otherwise would be.
I do not hold that the world is perfect – or that it would be perfect if government was radically reduced in both size and scope, but I do hold that it would be a lot better than it is now.
Only civil interation (i.e. action that respect the nonaggression principle) will improve human welfare over the long term.
So (to return to philosophy) there is no great contradiction between Hume or Hutchinson (or even Hayek) style rule utilitarianism (although I am not a follower of this doctrine) and natural law – as long as we interpret both of these positions correctly (which I hold that Hayek for one does not) and look at the long term.
Of course to those who hold that “in the long run we are all dead” all of the above will be absurd.
However, I tend to look beyond my own future (not a difficult task in my case).
So
Philosophy – aggression (by state officials or unofficial bandits) is evil (because it is).
Politics – there has to be team pulling against the statists (and really pulling against them) or there will be ever greater statism.
and Economics – statist “reforms” make things worse than they otherwise would have been. Indeed statism (taken to its logical conclusion) leads to economic collapse.