Property

I would like to present an argument for property rights here. First we are looking for a set of universal and general principles that will determine how we are to handle those parts of the material universe other than living human beings. That is all mater except for our persons. These principles should tell us how we are to determine who can use a certain object. For each object there will be a certain set of people who can use the item in question.

The simplest case would be the null set. We can easily exclude this from consideration. This would imply that no one could use the item. If no one uses any item we will all starve. This is a principle that very few people would support.

The next case is that everyone can use the object. Here we run into the problem of destructive use or crowding. We cannot as a general principle rule out the destructive use of objects since that would involve preventing anyone from eating. Once I have eaten an apple, no other person will be able to eat that same apple. Here we see that allowing each individual to use every item as he or she sees fit will allow all items to be destroyed, which will also lead to universal starvation.

Next I want to consider the possibility of democratic control over all objects. The use of objects is to be determined by majority vote. Here we are talking about something that goes beyond democracy. For the purposes of this inquiry we cannot allow the vote to be based on principle, because here we are examining a principle which will determine how objects may be used. If the majority chooses some principle to make this type of determination, then we are using some other principle. What we are examining here is the principle that the majority may control the use of objects in any way that they see fit.

This would enable the majority to cause any member of society to starve to death, since they could single out any member of society and prevent that member from being allowed to use any material resources. If the democracy were representative, as most are, the leaders would have a powerful tool to use against dissenters. If democracy was direct, this would require the people to vote on far too many issues.

Next I consider whether a society might adopt some rules that would control how every object is to be used. This method would be impractical. It would require more rules than any individual would care to contemplate.

Finally we are left with the idea that some subset of the population must be assigned control over the use of each object by some set of universal and general principles. This control should be permanent, since if it is temporary this will encourage destructive use of the object when there is not much time before the term of control is to expire. Further control should be transferable, since it wouldn't help anyone to prevent people from giving up control over some object in order to obtain something else that they valued even more.

With this we are almost at a justification for the institution of private property. We only need to eliminate the contention that the set of people who are to be given control over an object can be a singleton. This seems obvious. Each individual will want their own personal property. It would seem unlikely that a large number of people would support a rule that would prevent individual ownership.

Now, it will still be the case that there might be a few abstract principles that would be applied in a small number of situations that would depart from the general principle of property rights. Socialism was advanced as such a system. Most socialists support the institution of private property. What they object to is individual ownership over the means of production. However, this is too broad to work. The number of rules that we would need to control the use of all objects that are used for production would be too great. Further we also have the problem that if capital goods are not bought or sold, then we have no way of determining any kind of price for them. No one will have enough information to make rational decisions concerning production.