Questions and answers regarding liberty and property
A comment at c4ss.org listed some questions that I felt needed longer answers than I’d care to put in a comment, so my answers will be a longer post here on this blog.
1. how can private property be considered libertarian?
maintaining a small piece of private property seems to be a reaction to encroachments of the state. in other words, if a state exists, then only under those circumstances would private property be necessary to secure a bare minimum of the means to achieving that which you need to survive. absent the state (or any institutionalized system of expropriation), from who would you need to utilize the protection of private property against.
First, a bit about terms. The term “private property” is one that has multiple operative definitions and sets of related connotations depending on one’s political subculture. As a result, this writer prefers to avoid the term in order to try to avoid potential confusion, preferring instead simply “property”. The free-market libertarian habit of referring to “private property” is to distinguish it from “public property” in the colloquial sense of a euphemism for government property. But, since genuine libertarians don’t believe the state (as, basically, a bandit gang writ large) can legitimately own any property, the term “private property” is mostly a redundancy. All true property is non-state property. Thus, simply “property” is typically clearer in my opinion.
The above query actually contains two related but distinct questions:
- How can property be considered libertarian?
- Isn’t property unnecessary without the state?
We live in a material world. Agreed upon rules about which people (individually or collectively) “properly” control which scarce material resources are thus a feature of just about any society. From my perspective, that is a de facto property system. A far more interesting question is the matter of the content of those rules, or in other words, “What is the correct libertarian theory of justice in property?”
Apart from the state’s direct expropriation, its monopoly of legal services allows it to designate property as belonging to particular people without regard to whether or not their circumstances match any theory of justice in property. As a result, the owners of property in an ethical sense are often not the owners in the eyes of the state — and as a result, “property” becomes incorrectly associated with injustice. Proudhon went down this same path, saying both that “Property is theft” and “Property is freedom”. Those are both true because the word property can refer to either a statist privilege or a consensus-based ethical phenomenon grounded in reciprocity. In my view, social justice is best achieved not by attempting to abolish property but, instead, by achieving clarity on the matter of who rightfully owns what — and addressing it.
How can property be considered libertarian?
Is not the state’s expropriation injustice? Why? And if you’ve been robbed by a non-state actor, is that not also injustice?
Isn’t property unnecessary without the state?
States are essentially large bandit gangs. Expropriation by small bandit gangs is also a hazard, as there has throughout history always been a sociopathic minority of people who would rather use violence to steal rather than peacefully produce and exchange — takers rather than makers.
1a. isn’t private property, just like any other monopoly, but of land resources and thus not libertarian? doesn’t private derive from the same latin roots as deprive?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/privare#Latin
I’m not referring specifically to land, but perhaps you are. I believe my remarks above address the concerns behind the first of these two questions and I would like to give you a chance to discuss that before proceeding with this discussion if you would still like me to. I will say that I believe the property theory I espouse addresses the issue of land monopoly, which I view as arising from state assignation of property titles (property as statist privilege).
As to the matter of etymology…
You do realize this same line of reasoning would then apply to words like “privacy” as well, don’t you? Merriam-Webster lists the derivation of the word this way:
Middle English privat, from Anglo-French, from Latin privatus, from past participle of privare to deprive, release, from privus private, individual
I’m no expert in Latin, but since privare can be either deprive or release (as in “released from military service”, for example, and now in private life), it seems to carry a principal connotation of simply “seperate”, which would fit with the word origin ultimately going back to privus for simply an individual.
2. existentially speaking, what’s the point of business and enterprise anyway? seriously? in a stateless society, everyone–person, family, tribe, community, whatever–would be able to provide the necessities of life because there would be no entity to prevent them, or take it away.
What do you mean by “business” if not production and exchange? Does it stop being business if you don’t wear a tie?
3. isn’t any kind of profit based on some kind of coercion; either by force or deceit? if an exchange of goods, services, money, etc. is an even exchange, where does profit come from? is it even possible to make a profit on an even exchange?
Carson’s views on this are somewhat different than mine, although we reach similar conclusions — so I’ll just qualify my remark by saying you should talk to Kevin about his particular take on value and exchange.
The question assumes value is absolute, whereas I maintain it is subjective. If I have an apple and would prefer an orange while you have an orange but would prefer an apple, we might decide to trade because we would each perceive a gain in value from the exchange and thus have an incentive to engage in the action we call “trading”. Purely voluntary exchange results in mutual gain, which would be impossible if value was absolute.
Exchange is not completely voluntary when its context is shaped by statist plunder. For example, wage negotiations with a company that has received a large government bailout are colored by the economic influence their ill-gotten loot brings. That’s no indictment of exchange, but of the looting in the first place that warped the context of the exchange.
3a. if that exchange does produce a profit, where does it come from if not from coercion?
See above. There’s much more that could be said on this set of topics, but I’m trying to be succinct.
4. another existential question. that’s it? all we have to look forward to after the end of the state is seemingly paranoid homesteaders with guns (for protection only, of course) who only relate within their communities insofar as they can out-manoeuvre each other for the profit of their enterprise.
what would entice an anarchist to break ranks and consider libertarianism that is more than bare-bones (as carson puts it)?
No offense, but you may be projecting a bit here. I’ve placed no constraints on how anybody relates beyond asserting that aggression is bad and mutually voluntary interaction is fine. I’m not saying that production and exchange are all there is to life, but only that the production and exchange that does occur ought to be voluntary.
UPDATE: See also Kevin Carson’s followup comment…
Share ThisAs Brad says in his post, a lot of the trouble is just semantic. Property is libertarian because it’s a place you can exist and do what you like without permission or interference, and a set of moveable objects that you require to support your life or express yourself likewise without permission or interference.
There is a limited number of plots of land capable of supporting an individual within easy access distance of any community, and moveable objects are scarce because they take labor to create. People need dependable use-rights for the land and tools they use to support their lives, and confidence that nobody else will take their labor product without their permission. To obtain this state of affairs, we need a set of rules governing who has priority access to a given piece of land or moveable object, which is all that “property” is, strictly speaking.
I believe that most of the current return on land and capital, as such, is a rent on artificial scarcity created by state restrictions on competition in the supply of those factors. But entrepreneurial profit is non-coercive; it is a scarcity rent that results from anticipating shifts in demand and being one of the first suppliers when demand outstrips supply. The natural state of affairs is for entrepreneurial profit to gravitate toward zero, when market entry is free. And as Brad says, psychic “profit” in the sense of trading effort or objects in possession for something else you prefer is the whole point of production for trade.
I suppose a fair number of libertarians are paranoid and own guns, but I don’t think most of them are anywhere near as sociopathic or uncooperative as you seem to think. If anything, they tend to be more genuinely warm-hearted on average than non-libertarians, because they understand cooperation as something that is achieved by agreement between equals, and not simply organized through a state that can force people at gunpoint to cooperate whether they want to or not. IOW, they recognize the integrity of people as individuals, rather than regarding them as means to ends (an assumption I think lurks, however unconsciously, behind all the touchy-feely soccer mom rhetoric of liberals).
“Agreed upon rules about which people (individually or collectively) “properly” control which scarce material resources are thus a feature of just about any society.”
Strictly speaking that’s not true. That is to say that there’s a lot of grey area beyond “individual” control that doesn’t amount to “collective” control (although, as an aside, I think the concept of “collective control” is universally incoherent). Multiple actors can be using an object to many different ends simultaneously — in fact this is quite frequent. That’s why a lot of societies don’t focus on negotiating between claims to objects, but on negotiating between uses/ends/intents.
…hmmm, I’ve been gradually getting bothered enough by the way anarcho-communists get the rub in MA circles that I just might write something to clarify the sanity behind their wacko property-less ways.
@William — Which is why I qualified my remark with the word “scarce”, in the sense of an item which has a constrained supply that precludes the non-exclusive use you refer to. BTW, regarding “…negotiating between uses/ends/intents…” — if I recall correctly Rothbard had something similar to say on the topic of property rights not being literally to objects themselves but in their use(s) somewhere in his discussion of riparian rights / waterways / water usage rights. I believe the matter came up in a past discussion of allocation of radio spectrum. I don’t have a reference handy at the moment, though.
A printing press can be scarce. While I appreciate the qualification, I don’t really think it matters to my point. Imagine a society with access to a limited amount of gold wherein some folks want the gold to go to an art project, others for an electrical circuit, and they promptly ‘talk it out.’ (a very real, but nebulous and complex economic realm filled with things like social capital, credit and directionality in relation) This (in some form or another) is quite often the base, norm behavior for a culture. The ‘owner’ equivalent relationship to the gold is not the persons shaping it, but the idea to which it is being shaped. The people can change — or be exactly the same in both uses! — but The Use is the only recognized good.
Don’t get me wrong, anarcho-communism is absolutely inefficient at distributing resources when individuals and objects aren’t always in effectively immediate proximity (at least I’ve never read a fulfilling replacement for price signals) but such conditions DO apply to certain tribal societies, wherein we see ancom behavior. Titles conveying ultimate-use-determination-rights are really quite bad at describing what’s happening in such places.
Edit: “Titles conveying ultimate-use-determination-rights PER CHUNK OF MATTER/SPACE…”
So, to clarify, I’m taking issue with: 1) certain people controlling use (as opposed to debate between uses being separate from people) and 2) control of specific resources (as opposed to uses applied)
@william — This only assumes those who are having the conversation recognize each other as joint owners, even if they don’t explicitly use that term. Presumably few collectives would be willing to consult every person in the known ‘verse before acting on any and all material objects they might consider acting on. The general framework for deciding whose opinions are relevant and whose aren’t is a property framework. Nonetheless, I appreciate what you’re saying. I take it as pointing out that relative scarcity or non-scarcity (as well as shared priorities for particular uses) means property boundaries haven’t *had* to be delimited in the case of the good in question in many cases. A nomadic hunter/gatherer group might have particularly stringent rules about whose flint tools are whose, yet have no conception of land as property because they are pre-agricultural, so they’re not concerned with scarcity of good farm land, for example.
One person’s (or group of persons’) use of a thing naturally implies that others are simultaenously excluded from using it. If I and a few of my friends are using a printing press, then everybody else in our neighborhood or community is excluded from using it at the same time. Everyone in the community cannot use the same printing press at the same time.
The question is: Do I and my friends have any RIGHT to the exclusive use of that printing press? Or does someone else have the legitimate right to the exclusive use of it? If we have acquired the use of it by purely voluntary, non-aggressive means–either by voluntary exchange of property titles, gift, or having been granted the temporary use of it by the rightful holder of title–then we do have the right to use it and exclude others from using it at our discretion. But if we’ve stolen the printing press, then we have no right to the use of it, and we’re depriving the person who is rightfully the exclusive user/controller of that press, that is, the person who holds legitimate title, and restitution and compensation is due.
If we do not have such rules that delineate who is and is not the exclusive user and controller of property, then confusion ensues, and then chaos, and that’s where your “war of all against all” threatens to materialize, to use the Hobbesian phrase.
As for tribal societies who lack such rules, where all ownership is allegedly communitarian, there is usually a system of customs and superstitions perpetuated by the tribal leadership that reinforce the custom of sharing all property, which (no surprise) usually plays out to the benefit of the tribe’s leaders insofar as it maintains their power over the rest of the tribe.
Jim Jones’ colony in South America extolled community ownership as a virtue, which meant that Jones and his assorted lackeys defacto exerted exclusive control/use of the resources therein.
Bob, with all due respect, I don’t think Jim Jones’ colony illustrates the features of tribal societies very well.
Regardless of whether or not Jonestown is properly analogous, my point still stands.
It does stand, but it would be nice if you could back up your generalizing view of tribal societies with some data… I find it highly unlikely that any actual tribal society finds itself without any property owned (de facto) by individuals or groups that do not encompass the entire community, even when it lacks the concept of such property.
I think it’s a little dismissive to assert that the systems don’t think they AREN’T taking everyone into consideration. If a given person NEEDS the printing press, I can show up and argue my case. All those who have an interest in a scarce resource can be involved in the discourse.
I don’t disagree that our application of property terminology can be twisted to fit most situations, I’m just not sure it’s the best description.
Say an individual walks into a new town he’s never had any connection to before, if this all takes place within a wider culture that doesn’t recognize property, we can imagine him just proceeding to participate in the social give and take between proposed uses for an object. I think it’s somewhat useless to suggest that the traveling individual is part of a larger collective that extends the breadth of the culture at hand or is being instantly accepted as a member of the local collective.
If by “property” we mean the “proper” (i.e. rightful) sphere of control exercised in the material realm, then I’m not so sure that I’m twisting the definition so much as newly applying it to exotic examples I’ve been offered.
It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that many or most people might be willing to listen to suggestions and then act on them out of compassion or self-interest. But the notion of “control” sort of assumes the ability to say “no”, which is a more stringent test than simply seeing if members of a group are open to suggestions or not.
If you point out to me that my shoes are untied and I might want to tie them lest I trip and fall, we do not assume that my shoes are then partly yours. I might even lend you my shoes if, for some reason or another, you need them to run across a field full of broken glass because of some matter we agree is crucial. I might even give you my shoes and say “keep ‘em” if you’re shoeless and your need makes me sad and I know I have another pair at home anyway. But if I’m walking across the burning sands of some stinkin’ desert in a desperate search for water, I’m going to tell you “no” if you ask for my shoes and it’ll possibly be a fight if you try to take them by force because I’ll know my life itself might very well be at stake.
The townspeople in your suggestion might say “yes” to a good idea from the traveler. What I’m talking about is whether or not they can say “no” to a bad idea from the traveler. It might be that they have some taboo against saying “no” and value the social cohesion this brings over the inconvenience the traveler creates. It seems more likely, though, that they’ll simply say “no”.
Do they jointly *control* x and view that control as legitimate within the context of their culture? Then they jointly *own* x if by “property” we mean the “proper” (i.e. rightful) sphere of control exercised in the material realm.
I don’t think these are that exotic of examples and my entire point is that the allocation of ultimate “control” titles to an object don’t necessarily exist in many societies. Obviously discourse can break down in any situation — even if there are strong systematic or cultural barriers to such breakdown — but that discourse can go directly to force and entirely skip the “which individual do we assign the last word?” phase. A society doesn’t need to recognize/legitimize any system of person-based claims to ultimate control.
I don’t think these are that exotic of examples and my entire point is that the allocation of ultimate “control” titles to an object don’t necessarily exist in many societies. Obviously discourse can break down in any situation — even if there are strong systematic or cultural barriers to such breakdown — but that discourse can go directly to force and entirely skip the “which individual do we assign the last word?” phase. A society doesn’t need to recognize/legitimize any system of person-based claims to ultimate control. .
What is property? What gives an individual the right to ownership? The right to property is the exclusive right to own what we produce through our labor. This right originates with the right to life and liberty, the right of self-ownership. If I exert my labor building a house, growing a crop or creating a work of art then I own the product of my exertions. If I trade my product to another individual, then the proceeds of the trade are rightfully mine.
What if I decide to purchase land with my proceeds? If I buy land from a seller with legal title, and no fraud is evident in the contract, is the land then rightfully mine? If we trace history of the land title we may find a series of transactions involving the land. Eventually we would come to the original owner, who probably received the land as a grant, or claimed it under what is known as “first use”. The appropriation or claim is backed by a sovereign or state who took by force the region in which the land is located. Property in land does not originate from labor or human exertion, but from force of law. Land cannot be produced, only claimed or conquered through force. Ownership in landed property is clearly distinct from ownership of the products produced by man. Natural resources (air, land, water, the electromagnetic spectrum, etc.) exist independent of man, who had no hand in their creation. Where does the title to land originate? What gives a man the ability to claim any part of nature as his own? Force. Land ownership is a legally granted privilege allowing the title holder to extract an access fee (rent) from his fellow men for the use of natural opportunities needed for all production. Land title is legally created property, not property created through labor. There are too many examples to list of the state giving preferential treatment to “connected” people regarding original land title appropriation. At one time in the history of our country it was legal to own another human being. This was not so long ago. It is universally agreed upon that slavery is morally wrong. Land monopoly, or private collection of rent, is in fact slavery in a different form:
“That a people can be enslaved just as effectually by making property of their lands as by making property of their bodies, is a truth that conquerors in all ages have recognized, and that, as society developed, the strong and unscrupulous who desired to live off the labor of others, have been prompt to use. The coarser form of slavery, in which each particular slave is the property of a particular owner, is fitted only for a rude state of society, and with social development entails more and more care, trouble and expense upon the owner. But by making property of land instead of the person, much care, supervision and expense are saved the proprietors; and though no particular slave is owned by a particular master, yet the one class still appropriates the labor of the other class as before…” Henry George, Social Problems, 1883
While I agree the rate of profit and returns to capital might well be artificially inflated I cannot agree with the following.
“The natural state of affairs is for entrepreneurial profit to gravitate toward zero, when market entry is free.”
The natural state of affairs when market entry is free is for net utility gain from profit-orientated investment to tend to zero. This is not the same thing as average monetary gains because the marginal utility of money declines as the amount of money an individual or group has increases. Therefore the utility of money that might be gained in profit is less than the utility of the same amount of money that might be lost. An investment would only make sense from a utility point of view if the potential profit was large enough to cancel out the greater value of dollars lower on the graph of $ vs. marginal utility. The difference between the marginal value of higher dollars and lower dollars tends to zero as the difference in the level decreases, at a small enough margin the derivative is almost a flat line. Comparetively rich people would probably be able to make bigger investment will staying in a comparatively straight area of the graph. The value of higher dollars would not be significantly greater than lower dollars until the gap between them was quite large. Therefore rich people would make larger investments for the same level of profit or make the same size investment for lower levels of profit than poor people and would therefore tend to make more profits.