Civil Discourse: Property Rights
 

Civil Discourse: Property Rights

This is an appeal to the better angels of our nature. I believe that The Cellar is capable of reasoned, meaningful discussion on important topics. Here's your chance to prove it.

The topic for this Civil Discourse is "Property Rights".

"Property" consists of a set of rights, or prerogatives, over a thing. These include the right of use, right of refusal (preventing others from use), right of modification, right of destruction. Those rights can be transferred to others for a limited time (lending/leasing) or permanently (giving/selling).

So here is the question: are property rights natural rights or social convention?

Natural rights are universal, inalienable, and usually self-evident. Examples might be the right of free speech, or the right to be free from physical violence.

Social conventions exist only because we all agree that they should exist, usually because they are useful and efficient ways of managing complex systems. Examples might be driving on the right or left side of the road, the value of money, or social manners.

So which kind of thing are property rights?

Oh, you're funny. sm, you're an oldtimer. you should know when you ask to have your homework done for you what you get is abuse and mockery instead.


...

I will return when I have some abuse for you.

Son, I don't DO homework, I GIVE it!

I believe that property rights are a natural right because it aligns with human nature. Sot it's intrinsic.

But I also think property rights are a necessary foundation for capitalism. And capitalism (in general) also aligns with human nature.

PZ, what do you mean when you say "aligns with human nature"?

Social. There are many aboriginal native peoples who do not recognize "things" as belonging to a person.

Are we including intellectual property in this? Such as the right to sing a song?

No, the question of what kind of things should count as property only makes sense if we determine what kind of right property is.

If it's social convention, then the only standard for modifying our understanding of property is "is this change useful". If so, then we're free to adapt the principle.

If it's a natural right, then we are significantly more limited in how we can change property rights.

These are my thoughts while driving home from a shopping trip...
subject to revision upon exposure to better ideas.

There is but one "natural" law... the animalistic survival of the fittest.
Whoever or whatever has the most lethal force overcomes whoever or whatever does not.

But that is not to say that this natural law is ultimately the superior.
Multiple inferior beings can and do overcome the superior individual.
Put simply, "majority rules".

Sometimes the mechanism used by the majority is by simple force,
but more often it is by developing social rules, laws, customs, religions, taboos, etc.
Sometimes it is by developing superior physical mechanisms, clubs,
guns, bombs, etc.
But even these are usually via mechanisms of social industry.
The physically inferior individuals of a group often use influence to obtain a superior position.

To speak of property rights as being ownership is entirely a social convention.
For example, real estate is commonly considered belonging to some owner,
and at first might seem to belong to the superior individual(s).

But this is purely cultural, as seen in the traditions of Native Americans
where land and all that it contains (including the people) is considered to be one, and can not "owned" by any person.

Intellectual property (copy rights, patents, etc) are still derived from social behaviors,
and ownership eventually depends upon the ability to enforce the social rules
that have been establised such as licensing, franchising, leasing, renting, etc.

P.S. Some people believe whoever has the most toys when they die, wins :rolleyes:

It would seem to align with animal nature in general as many animals mark and defend their territories, the space needed to maintain the quantity of renewable natural resources necessary to sustain them and enable successful reproduction. That humans would retain control over their man made resources would seem to be a natural extension of this. Once taken beyond meeting basic human requirements though, it becomes more of a social convention. At this time, whether property rights are a natural right; or, social convention varies with the type of property.

I disagree. That might be true of your feelings on the matter, but it doesn't necessarily hold that it's true for everyone.

I asked because my initial reaction was that physical property rights are a natural right -if I have food, it's mine. You are violating my rights if you take it from me. But not "intellectual property" -if I write a poem, am I not infringing on your right to freedom of speech if I prevent you from reciting it?

Regarding the aboriginal point, young children are naturally possesive, so wouldn't that suggest that the lack of property rights is more of a social convention and that property rights are natural rights?

Having not spent any time whatever with aboriginal children I can't speak to that point. Perhaps in a society where possession is not considered, the children don't exhibit that behavior. I'd be curious to read what an anthropologist would say.

fair point.

Inherently, property rights are a natural right--this is my food that I hunted, this is my chair that I made. Taking those from me is morally wrong; it is a natural right for me to possess things that I crafted/accomplished with my own hands, alone.

But beyond that it gets gray: land property is not a natural right unless maybe it manages to fit into the above category; that is, if I have farmed that land, or cleared the forest for my animals. My owning a house that some construction company built is a social convention. And once I start adding transactions into the mix, it is also no longer a natural right: if I hunt extra food, and exchange it with the guy who built an extra chair, that gets outside the realm of natural rights and into the realm of social convention. I don't have the natural right to trade my items with others, whether the balance of the exchange be favorable to one, both, or neither of us--I only have the natural right to take care of myself without interference.

I'd argue your first point as being social constructs. Your sense of 'self' and 'I' are completely informed by your upbringing. Even the concept of 'self' and 'other' is learned. Consider that infants do not distinguish the world as separate from themselves until something like a year old, IIRC. It is just as easy for me to consider a world view where there is 'food' not 'my food'. Heck, I know people who are like that that aren't even Buddhist monks.

[S]moothmoniker defined natural rights as "... universal, inalienable, and usually self-evident." The last criteria of self evidence is the purview of sufficiently developed (i.e. self sufficient) humans, not infants and children.

Your world view consideration works when there's enough food to go around. When there isn't and it becomes a matter of life or death, the instinct for survival kicks in and the concept of "mine" develops as one of many coping mechanisms organic to the human organism right along with the fight or flight response.

Imma add this to my reasons for owner-building.

One could continue that logic to eliminate all natural rights:

There are plenty of world views that include the absolute right of some to do violence on others, and see subservience in speech to be a natural and good thing. They are, however, wrong. IMHO and all that.

The Library of Economics and Liberty agrees with you.


If it is a human right then owning property is best under a capitalist society.
(In general) You have more human rights under a capitalist society and therefore, have more THINGS or the potential to have more things, and the control in selling, bequeathing, renting, and to gain profits from property rights, or ownership of THINGS. or ( property )

I believe that all natural rights are a social convention. I would not want to live in a society where these convention were inactive as it would be destructive of human progress. We adhere to these conventions because of self-interest, the threat of state or individual violence, belief in the divine, or a rational belief that it makes for a predictable orderly society. Mankind does not walk its path hand in hand with any inherent "rights" one has only to look at the rise of totalitarianism in the 20th Century to realize that the threat of violence is superior to any rights. The best we can hope for is that superior power stay in the hands of those who support human rights.

I do not believe in any "natural rights". IMHO, all rights are derived from social conventions and an implicit social contract. Rights are human inventions.

So given current exchange rates, there is my 1.98 cent's worth.

I have no idea what these two statements mean when placed side by side. If all rights are convention, then what are "human rights"? The conventions a society ought to have? Where does that ought derive from?

The bottom-line conventions of our society as enumerated in the document separating us from the British Empire. Even though labeled by Locke as natural rights, these rights only belonged to the colonists after they used force to attain them. The imagination of John Locke and the business end of a rifle.

I loved that part.

And this is one of the most wonderful, amazing things about human history - that at least sometimes, those with superior force have used their force to establish a system that accords rights to all, not just themselves. Justice, rather than bullying.

Some consider natural law and natural rights to be that which corresponds to the spontaneous order that develops in the absence of social conventions and what individuals would do independently of each other, still being rational people, through the use of individual unorganized force to protect their property. Use of individual unorganized force in consonance with the nature of humans and their world would not indicate that the person using such force is a danger to a reasonable man. Natural law and natural rights are discovered whereas social conventions are invented. Natural law and natural rights derive from the nature of humans and their world just as physical law and properties derive from the nature of matter, space, and time. They follow from the kind of animal that we are and all animals know or can discover what they need to do in order to lead the life that they are physically suited to live. Some see natural law and natural rights as still being a real force that constrains the lawless arrogance of sociopaths as well as some government officials.

Consider that humans, while they can be individualistic, generally grow up in or along side familial groups, like Stewarts, Hapsburgs, or Hanovers, which can bring organization to force. Discovered rights are discovered in the context of there discovery, in other words, they are social conventions. [imho]

The discovery of natural rights can be accomplished by directly observing the behaviors of other animal species in nature with which we have no social conventions. Even today, a no-tech individual in an isolated area could glean whether or not an indigenous water/food source is likely to be potable/edible and that it is something to be protected (scarce) by observing the behaviors of other animals around it. If other human contact occurs and the resources are sufficient, then that protection can be extended through social conventions which may even include conservation. Consider that contemporary conservation is not just about maintenance; but, the expectation of new discoveries in nature that may in turn cause a single individual to discover another natural right, individually act to protect it, then seek further protection through social conventions. The cycle continues. While the knowledge and assertion of rights today is predominantly learned indirectly by passing original discoveries down through the generations and social interaction with others, it doesn't refute the continuing existence of natural rights as they are renewable to each person as circumstances require.

Looks like the New York Times wants to join the argument.

There are two avenues by which to address the truth of the natural basis of human rights: (a) whether authors argued for human rights before the European Enlightenment, and (b) whether there is a logical basis for human rights that would demonstrate its applicability to all people regardless of when it was recognized to be correct.

I've been having this vague, slightly incomplete thought about rights for a long time. In a nutshell it's something like; is a right yours if you don't recognize it as such. ie if you live in a culture that doesn't teach you to expect certain things, then is what you're missing out on a right or just something you'd like.

I guess it comes down to whether rights are a social construct or not, but people seem to have different ideas about what they have a 'right' to.

I think that is a big part of why I think of Rights as social constructs. Someone in China might be focused on a Right to eat every day, while in the West we might focus on a Right to breathe air without coal particulate to have babies willy nilly.

I have a thought experiment that might help the reader decide what he or she thinks is the correct position: imagine living in a society in which the majority hurts some minority group (here called “the other”). The reason for this oppression is that “the other” are thought to be bothersome and irritating or that they can be used for social profit. Are you fine with that? Now imagine that you are the bothersome irritant and the society wants to squash you for speaking your mind in trying to improve the community. Are you fine with that? These are really the same case. Write down your reasons. If your reasons are situational and rooted in a particular cultural context (such as adhering to socially accepted conventions, like female foot binding or denying women the right to drive), then you may cast your vote with Hart, Austin and Confucius. In this case there are no natural human rights. If your reasons refer to higher principles (such as the Golden Rule), then you cast your vote with the universalists: natural human rights exist. This is an important exercise. Perform this exercise with everyone you are close to — today — and tell me what you think.

The author gets badly mixed up in his closing paragraph, attempting to herd the people who deny that rights are universal into an anti-rights stance. The Arab peoples have only the rights they take or we assist them in getting. If they stand in the street to assert their rights without some kind of force behind it, moral, economic, or physical they will die and have only the right to moulder.

Having a right to something doesn't guarantee you'll get it. It just means that when you are denied it, the perpetrator is wrong, in a universally moral sense.

What if stability is the right most cherished by Syrians, is the regime wrong to crush the protests? Self determination doesn't necessarily put food on the table. <shrug> Are we fiddling with the idea that democracy is a human right? It may seem less so after another 10 years of deficit spending and resultant economic collapse and hunger.

Can I put your prediction on the Cellar calendar?

Um, have you met us?

That's an interesting way to look at it, I never really thought of it. I think I would say that it depends on the definition of stability. The South was more stable before the civil war, but the slaves nonetheless had a superseding right to be free. I wouldn't say the Syrians have a right to any specific form of government, but whatever government they have can't be trampling on any individual citizen's inherent rights.

Irregardless* of coal particulates, should the air be allowed to have babies willy nilly?
I think not. What would happen to the earth if there were that much air?
Where would we put it?

No, no. strict limits on air reproduction.

(and now I will get back to fixing my computer.

Make it so, but I do reserve the right to vote for centrist candidates who may find a way to grow out of this hole.

Wouldn't you say that racial equality is a social construct since slavery was humanities SOP from the mid 19th century back?

Ha! Where is your Golden Rule now?

In the year 2021, if man is still the one
if woman still likes fun
In the year 2121

Not I, because I don't buy the idea that rights are a social construct. I think the basics (life, freedom, independence to make choices that don't infringe on anyone else) are natural rights that apply to all people and all cultures. Not saying there aren't places where reality squashes those rights--including a few here in our own country, like recreational marijuana use--but I believe it is fundamentally, morally wrong when that happens.

They are an offense to my moral outlook as well, but there are people who see those infringements as justified for their construct of the greater good, doesn't that challenge universality?

Not if they're wrong. :)

:)

When we talk about rights, it's only valid if we assume humans are superior to all other life forms on this planet. That we have more rights than other creatures. Some people will say that clearly we are superior, but when it all comes down to it, what do we give this planet that other creatures don't that isn't negative?

Using this as a base, and assuming we're another organic form that will simply return to dust in the end, it's possible to argue that human beings infringe upon the rights of practically all other living creatures by their very existence. Or don't other creatures have rights?

My weedkiller infringes on the rights of the dandelions in my yard. And I like it that way. :)