Property in Philosophy

In the medieval and Renaissance Europe, the term "property" focused on the earth. Many rethink was necessary for the land to come to be seen as a particular case of the property genre. This overhaul was inspired by at least three key characteristics of early modern Europe: expansion of trade, the distribution of efforts to ban interest (then called "usury"), and the development of centralized national monarchies.

[Edit] ancient philosophy

Urukagina, the king of the Sumerian city-state Lagash, established the first laws requiring that banned the sale of goods. The cylinder of Cyrus Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire Achaemenid documents of the property rights protection [3].

The Ten Commandments shown in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21 says that the Israelites were not to steal. These texts, written in about 1400 BC, were at the beginning of a blanket protection of private property.

Aristotle, in politics, called "private property". In one of the first exhibitions experienced the tragedy of the commons he says, "what is common to the greatest number has the least care of him. Each think to him, just in the common interest, and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. "In addition, he says the property is when there are common problems that arise naturally due to differences in the job:" If they do not share the same joys and penalties, those who have lots of work and earn little necessarily those who complain of little work and receive much or Consomment. But in fact there's always a difficulty to live together and men with human relations in all municipalities, but especially with their joint ownership. " (Politics, 1261b34)

[Edit] pre-industrial English philosophy

[Edit] Thomas Hobbes (1600)

The main writings of Thomas Hobbes appeared between 1640 and 1651-during and immediately after the war between the forces loyal to King Charles I and those loyal to Parliament. In his own words, Hobbes reflection began with the idea of "giving everyone his own," a phrase he drew from the writings of Cicero. But he wondered: How can we call her own anything? A this place unstable time, and perhaps it was natural that he would conclude: My own can really be mine if any stronger, unambiguously, in the field, and that the authority considers the mine, the protection of its status as such.

[Edit] James Harrington (1600)

A contemporary of Hobbes, James Harrington, reacted differently to the same turmoil, it considers natural, but not inevitable. The author of Oceana, it was perhaps the first political theorist to apply that political power is a consequence, not a cause, of the distribution of goods. He said that the worst situation was one in which the commoners, more than half of the property of the nation, with the crown and the nobility holding the other half, a circumstance fraught with instability and violence. A much better situation (a republic stable) will exist once the most commoners own property, he suggested.

Later, the ranks of his admirers Harrington include American revolutionary and founder John Adams.

[Edit] Robert Filmer (1600)

Another member of the Hobbes / Harrington generation, Sir Robert Filmer, reached conclusions as Hobbes, but through the biblical exegesis. Filmer said that the institution of kingship is similar to that of fatherhood, that the subjects are only children, whether or unruly obedient, and that property rights are similar to the household a father can dole out to her children, her back and take Arrange according to his pleasure.

[Edit] John Locke (1600)

In the next generation, John Locke sought to respond Filmer, the creation of a logical balance of a constitution in which the monarch would have a role to play, but not an overwhelming part. Since Filming the viewpoint essentially require that the family be solely Stuart descendants of the patriarchs of the Bible, and since even in the late seventeenth century, which was difficult and took to defend, Locke challenged the view Filmer in the First Treaty of civilian government, freeing him Expressed his views in the second Treaty of civilian Government. There, Locke imagined a pre-World Social residents of the unfortunate that create a social contract. They will be, it has helped to create a monarchy, but his task is to execute the will of an elected legislature.

"To this end," he wrote, meaning the end of their service life and peace, "is that men give up all their natural power of the society in which they come in, and the community put the legislative power in these hands as they think Well, with that confidence, they will be governed by the laws declared, or their peace, calm, and the property will remain with the same uncertainty as it was in the state of nature " .

Even when he is good legislative form, though, Locke held that there are limits to what a government put in place by such a contract might rightly do.

"We can not assume that [the hypothetical contractors] they should intend, they had the power to do so, to give one or more absolute arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force in the Hands with the magistrate to carry out its Unlimited will arbitrarily on them, which was to put in a state worse than the state of nature, in which they had freedom to defend their right to protection against injuries of the other , and are on equal terms to force to maintain it, whether invaded by a single person or a large number of combinations. Considering that, assuming that they themselves have renounced the absolute arbitrary, power and the will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and the military to make a prey of them when he pleases ... "

Note that the two "persons and property" must be protected against the arbitrary power of any court, including the "power and the will of a legislator." In terms Lockean, depredations against a succession are equally plausible justification for the resistance and the revolution as are those against persons. In both cases, the subjects are obliged to afford to become prey.

To explain the ownership of property Locke advanced a theory of property work.

[Edit] William Blackstone (1700)

In the years 1760, William Blackstone has sought to codify English common law. In his famous Comments on the laws of England, he wrote that "any restraint causeless blind and the will of the subject, whether produced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly is a degree of tyranny. "

How do we prevent such tyranny or resist? Through property rights, Blackstone thought, which is why he stressed that compensation should be paid not consenting owner whose property is taken by eminent domain, and that a property owner is protected Against physical penetration of its property by the laws of trespass and nuisance. Indeed, he writes that the owner is free to kill a stranger on his property between dusk and dawn, even an officer of the king, because it is unreasonable to expect him to recognize the agents of the king in darkness. [Edit]

[Edit] David Hume (1700)

In contrast to the figures discussed in this section so far, David Hume lived a relatively quiet life who settled in relatively stable social and political structure. He lived the life of a solitary writer until 1763 when, at age 52, he left for Paris to work at the British embassy.

On the other hand, one might think, to his indignation generating books on religion and his views skepticism in epistemology, the views of Hume on the right and property were quite conservative.

He does not believe in hypothetical contracts, or in the love of mankind in general, and has sought to political reality on the ground on human beings we know. "In general, he writes," it may be argued that the absence of such a passion in the human spirit, like love of humanity, just as such, regardless of his personal qualities, or services or relationship to ourselves. "existing Customs should not be ignored lightly since they came to be what they are because of human nature. With the approval of this custom is an endorsement of the governments, because he designed the two are complementary: "With regard to freedom, while commendable passion, as should be subject to a reverence for the government established".

These views have led to a view on property rights that could now be classified as legal positivism. It exists because of property rights and to the extent that the law in force, supported by social customs, secure. He offered a bit of practice at home spun advice on the general subject, however, as when he spoke about greed as "the spur of the industry", and expressed concern at the excessive levels of taxation, which "destroy the industry, to create despair."

[Edit] and Critical reaction

By the mid-19th century, the Industrial Revolution had transformed England and began in France. The design of the sets out what constitutes ownership of the lands beyond broadened to encompass the scarce goods in general. In France, the Revolution of 1790 years had led to the large-scale confiscation of land formerly owned by the church and king. The restoration of the monarchy led to the claims of those who have been dispossessed of their ancient lands returned. In addition, the theory of value work popularized by classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo have been used by a new ideology of socialism called to criticize the relationship property to other economic issues, such as benefits, Rents, interest, wages and labor. Thus, the property was no longer a question of esoteric philosophy, but an important political issue of concern.

[Edit] Charles Comte - legitimate origin of goods

Charles Comte, in the Treaty of property (1834), tried to justify the legitimacy of private property in response to the restoration of the Bourbons. According to David Hart, Earl had three main points: first, that government interference over the centuries in the property has had disastrous consequences for justice as well as economic productivity, secondly, that the property is legitimate when she emerges in such a manner as not to interfere with someone and thirdly, that historically some, but not all, property that has evolved has done legitimately, implying that the current distribution of property is a complex mix of legitimate and illegitimate securities. "(Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte, Charles Dunoyer

Comte, as Proudhon would later be rejected Roman legal tradition with its tolerance of slavery. He postulated community "national" ownership consists of non-scarcity of property, such as land in ancient hunter-gatherer societies. As agriculture is so much more effective than hunting and gathering, private property ownership for agriculture by a left remaining hunter-gatherers with more land per person, and therefore not harm them. Thus, this type of land ownership did not violate the clause Lockean - there was "still enough and as good left." Comte, the analysis will be later used by theorists in response to the criticism of socialist property .

[Edit] Pierre Proudhon - Property is theft

In his treatise What property? (1849), Pierre Proudhon answers with "property is theft!" In natural resources, it is conceivable two types of property, de jure and de facto title to the property, and argued that the former is illegitimate. Proudhon is that equal conditions is the essence of justice. "Through this investigation method, we soon see that any argument that was invented in the name of property, whatever it is, always and inevitably leads to equality, that is the denial of the property. "[3] But unlike statist Socialists of his time, Proudhon, the solution is not to give everyone an equal amount of property, but to deny the legal validity of the property natural resources in total.

His analysis of the product of work on natural resources as property (usufruct) is more subtle. He claims that the land itself can not be owned, but should be carried out by individual owners as guardians of humanity with the proceeds of the workforce is owned by the producer. Like most theorists of his time, both capitalist and socialist, he was working theory of value is correct. Thus, reasoned Proudhon, the wealth acquired without work has been stolen from those who worked to create this wealth. Even a contract to surrender voluntarily on the work product of the employer was stolen, according Proudhon, insofar as the controller of Natural Resources had no moral right to charge others for using what it does not have the manpower to set up and therefore did not own.

Proudhon theory of property greatly influenced the budding socialist movement, inspiring theorists such as anarchist Mikhail Bakunin that have changed the ideas of Proudhon, as well as to oppose theorists as Karl Marx.

[Edit] Frederic Bastiat - value of the property is

Frederic Bastiat the main treaty on the property is located in Chapter 8 of his book Economic Harmonies (1850). [4] In a major break with the traditional theory of property, it does not define property as a physical object, but rather as a relationship between people with regard to the subject. Thus, saying owns a glass of water is simply a shortcut to verbal may justly I gift or trade of this water to another person. In essence, what we own is not the object but the value of the object. By "value", Bastiat apparently means market value, he pointed out that this is quite different from the utility. "In our relations with each other, we are not owners of the value of things, but their value, and value is the assessment made of reciprocal services."

Proudhon strongly denies the equality based arguments, Bastiat theorizes that because of technological progress and the division of labour, the stock of communal wealth increases over time, the working hours unskilled spends on buying by example 100 litres of wheat decreases over time, the amount of "gratis" satisfaction. Thus, private ownership steadily destroyed itself, becomes transformed into communal wealth. The growing proportion of collective wealth of private ownership leads to a trend towards equality of mankind. "Since the human race began from the point of greatest poverty is from the time when there were more obstacles to overcome, it is clear that everything that has been gained from one era to the the other was due to the spirit of the property. "

This transformation of private property in the area communal Bastiat points out, does not mean that private property would never totally disappear. That's because the man, as he advances, constantly inventing new and more sophisticated needs and desires.

[Edit] contemporary views

Among the contemporary thinkers policy of a man who believed that individuals have the right to own property and to enter into contracts, there are two opinions about John Locke. On the one hand there are fans of Locke, as WH Hutt (1956), which praised Locke, fixing the "epitome of individualism." On the other hand, there are people like Richard Pipes who think that Locke's arguments are weak, and that there undue reliance has weakened the cause of individualism in recent times. Pipes wrote that the work of Locke "marked a regression because it was based on the concept of natural law" rather than Harrington's sociological context.

Hernando de Soto has argued that an important feature of the capitalist market economy is the operation of the state protection of property rights in a formal system of ownership, where ownership and transactions are clearly recorded. These property rights and the entire property system makes possible:

* A greater independence for individuals in the local community action to protect their property;
* Clear, provable, and protectable property;
* The integration and standardization of the rules of ownership and property information throughout the country;
* Increased trust resulting from a greater certainty of punishment for cheating in economic transactions;
* More complex formal and written statements of the property to facilitate home ownership and risk sharing in companies, and insurance against risk;
* Increased availability of loans for new projects, since more things could be used as collateral for loans;
* Easier access and more reliable information on such things as credit history and the value of the assets;
* Increase of fungibility, standardization and portability statements documenting the ownership of property, which paves the way for structures such as national markets for business and ease of transport of goods through complex networks of individuals and " other entities;
* Greater protection of biodiversity as a result of minimizing the practice of shifting cultivation.

What Can be Property ?

The two main reasons for the original estate, or homesteading, is the effort and scarcity. John Locke emphasized the effort, mixing your work "with a sharp object, or clearing and cultivating wilderness. Benjamin Tucker preferred to look at the telos of the property, ie What is the purpose of the property? His answer: to solve the problem of scarcity. It is only when the items are relatively rare in respect of persons desires they become the property. [6] For example, hunter-gatherers did not consider the land to property, because there was no shortage of land. Companies agrarian later made the ownership of arable land, as it was rare. For something unusual to be economically, it must have the exclusive property - which are used by a person exclude others from using it. These two reasons lead to different conclusions about what can be good. Intellectual property - non-tangible things like ideas, plans, rankings and arrangements (musical compositions, novels and computer programs) - are generally considered valid property to those who support an effort justification, not valid, but to those who support the lack of justification (since May not the exclusive property.) Thus, even ardent propertarians can disagree about intellectual property [7]. By default, his body is his property.

From some points of view anarchist, the validity of the property depends on whether the "property right" requires the application by the State. Various forms of "property" require different amounts of enforcement: IP requires a great deal of state intervention to enforce, ownership of property is very distant, ownership of objects carried requires very little , while the property of her own body requires absolutely no government intervention.

Many things have occurred which have no owner, sometimes called the commons. The term "pooling", however, is also often used to mean something quite different: "General collective ownership" - ie the common property. Therefore, the same term is sometimes used by to signify the government statists property that the general public is permitted to access. law in all societies has tended to develop in order to reduce the number of things that the owners did not clear. Supporters of property rights supporters this allows better protection of scarce resources, because of the tragedy of the commons, while critics argue that it leads to the exploitation of natural resources for personal gain, and it prevents taking advantage of potential effects network. these arguments have validity different for the different types of "property" - which is not rare, for example, are not subject to the tragedy of the commons. some critics are actually apparent general advocating collective ownership rather than ownerlessness .

Today, things which have no owners are ideas (with the exception of intellectual property), sea water (which is, however, protected by anti-pollution laws), the parties from the ocean floor (see the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the restrictions), gas in the Earth's atmosphere, animals in nature (but there may be restrictions on hunting… - and in some legal systems, such as New York, they are indeed seen as the property of the State), celestial bodies and space, and the land in Antarctica.

The nature of children under the age of majority is another issue here. In ancient societies, children are generally regarded as the property of their parents. Children in most modern societies, in theory, own their own bodies - but are considered unable to exercise their rights and their parents or guardians are given most of the real rights of control over them.

Questions concerning the nature of ownership of the body also arise in the issue of abortion and drugs.

In many ancient legal systems (for example, the early Roman law), religious sites (temples) were regarded as the property of God, or gods, they were devoted to. However, religious pluralism, it is more convenient to places of religious worship belonging to the agency that manages them.

Intellectual property and the air (airspace, the no-fly zone, pollution laws, which may include emissions trading) may well be, in some sense of the word.