Property Rights

Here I go again, advocating property rights.  Watching a YouTube video in opposing libertarianism has stimulated my thoughts on this subject.  I've been thinking about a hypothetical example that might serve to illustrate property rights.

Suppose that I live in a house with a few roommates.  It is the custom in our house to put our names on our toothbrushes and place them in a toothbrush holder in the medicine cabinet.  One of my roommates takes the one with my name on it and uses it to do some household cleaning.  I ask various roommates what has happened to this toothbrush and he informs me about what he has done.

Now it is unlikely that I would call the police to deal with this situation, nor am I likely to respond violently.  Taking the toothbrush is really a small matter.  However, even though this is the case that doesn't change the fact that I and most of the other roommates are likely to see this as a violation of my property rights.  Notice that the other roommates are likely to find the behavior of my roommate to be wrong even though it benefits each of them personally and in fact benefits a majority of the people in the house.  Everyone in the house enjoys the benefits of a cleaner house.  It is only I who have to suffer the loss of a toothbrush.

This illustrates several points about the nature of property rights.  First they are moral rights that don't necessarily require coercive action in order to be implemented.  Even though I have no intention of responding violently to a violation of these rights, that doesn't change the fact that these are indeed my rights.  No act of government is required for me to have these rights.  The only thing that is needed is for people to recognize that the use of my property without my permission is wrong.

Next we see that property rights exist as claims against every other member of society and even a majority of such members.  The fact that this violation by my roommate benefits the majority is no defense of the action.

Now I will consider another case.  There is a libertarian who says that taxation is theft.  Is this individual opposing democratic values?  Suppose someone else retorts that property is theft.  That by claiming ownership in a thing this libertarian is preventing everyone else from using it.  That property rights are inherently violent.  What makes this property his?  Is it some piece of paper?  The libertarian's detractor can produce a piece of paper.  Are these arguments valid?

I don't think they are.  First, as I have pointed out in the first example property rights need not be backed up by force in order to exist.  As for being undemocratic, the house described above could be run as democratically as you please, but the roommates are still unlikely to vote in favor of the roommate who took my toothbrush because there is a widespread, commonly held belief that he was wrong to do so.

People are unlikely to support the libertarian's idea that taxation is theft, but they need not see this as a violation of any social contract.  Calling taxation theft is simply a way of expressing moral opposition to taxation.  If he were to fail to pay taxes or to violently resist, then his detractors might have a point.

As for property being theft, this is a complete contradiction.  Theft has no meaning other than a violation of property rights.  There are very few societies that are likely to organize themselves around the principle that anyone may use any object for any purpose whatsoever.  That would lead to complete chaos, and contrary to popular belief that is not something that libertarians want.  Even socialistic societies have personal property.  They only outlaw the private ownership of capital goods.  And even then, they have even more stringent regulations against taking or misusing public property.

The issues over property rights are whether they should be quite as absolute as the libertarians want and whether or not they should apply to capital goods.  I have argued that they should apply to capital goods.  As for the other dispute, that is one that requires quite a bit of thought.  The question is one of how much we should value property rights in comparison with other factors.

The chief source of argument involves compassion.  Libertarians are accused of not being compassionate enough.  In order to argue that property rights should be not apply to the state on the basis of compassion, you must believe that redistribution of income would be effective at helping the poor as a class.  This is not something that all libertarians believe.  So as a bit of advice to non-libertarians, if you want to persuade libertarians to support your point of view, you will need to deal with the argument that redistribution is counterproductive in the long term.  You can't carry on the discussion on the basis that both of you agree that the methods you propose for helping the poor will be effective.

The issue is not as cut and dried as you think.  Take the roommate situation as an example.  Suppose instead that my roommate had broken into my room to steal some money.  Suppose also that I asked him about this and he replied that hi had given the money to charity.  I contend that we would still regard this as a violation of my property rights.  Any point that he made about my not caring enough about the recipients of his charity would be irrelevant.  No matter what cause he intended to support, he would need to confine his charitable giving to his own budget.  Libertarians think that this principle should also apply to the state.

There are many reasons why people would favor a different approach.  My contention is that libertarian principles are the most humane and efficient when we apply principles that are both universal and general.