I explain some of the philosophical foundations to property rights in Voluntaryism.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Property Rights and Voluntaryism
Property rights are the vehicle for how Voluntaryist values of maximizing consent and minimizing the initiation of force can be effected. To understand how property rights operate under Voluntaryism, we must first define what “property” means.
Property is a bundle of concepts held in human psychology, including the concepts of:
Possession: the right of physical ownership.
Control: Use of the property to act or not act with it.
Destruction: that is, to make unusable.
Exclusion: to keep others from.
And disposition: to sell, trade, gift, or abandon.
These property rights come together out of a need to manage scarce resources. Scarcity is a critical element of property rights because it is the point of conflict most present when people consider how their body and physical possessions are treated. For example, imagine a 1000 foot by 1000 foot piece of land with a beautiful beachfront view. There are no two pieces of land like it because, from where it sits on Earth, there is no replication of that specific area – it is unique in space. Due to this limitation, people cannot all share that same spot at the same time without conflict over the space as it is too small to hold all people. In turn, there must be a shared psychology and management system to avoid physical conflict over this scarce resource.
Things that are not scarce cannot be considered property in the same manner. For example, if someone could replicate an apple you had without depriving you of your original apple, there would not be a concern because the apple possessed by you would be unchanged and you would still have your apple to use as you please. The duplication of this apple does not deprive the original owner of the original apple. While apple duplication may sound more like science fiction at the moment, a clearer example is that of intellectual property by the state, that is, the notion that someone can own an idea put into a fixed medium to the exclusion of others.
As an idea can be replicated without depriving the inventor of their physical design, ideas and design methods are not in-and-of-themselves candidates for property rights. A person could manufacture their own microwave with their own property by copying another’s design without depriving the inventor of their physical microwave invention. A person could copy an artist’s drawing without depriving the artist of the original physical drawing. A person could copy a digital file without removing the digital content from the digital creator’s storage device. How people could monetize their ideas and prevent fraud in the market is a topic to be saved for another video.
SELF-OWNERSHIP
With understanding of this backdrop, property rights arise in the human experience first with self-ownership. Self-ownership is the concept that each human being owns their body and has the highest claim to it. This ownership stems from brain impulses being placed on the body which act as a controlling agent. While some may try to claim that the concept of “self” is outside the body or that the brain and the impulses are a part of “self,” making self-ownership a kind of tautology, these notions can be disabused if one looks at alienation of body parts where one gives up blood, tissue, or an organ to another.
People can give up control of body parts by cutting off brain impulse activity. This takes place frequently with donation of blood and organs where people extract the tissue away from brain impulse and give it to another. Under this reasoning, the body cannot be given in whole until death, making the concept of slavery, that is, total living human ownership, a logical impossibility. As long as the brain is exerting impulses, a claim of ownership is being made on the body.
Trying to alienate the body in whole while living would be as much of a farce as trying to sell a car but refusing to get out of the driver’s seat. By not getting out, one is not truly giving up property rights and, thus, the alienation has not taken place.
If one accepts self-ownership stemming from brain activity, then it can also be readily understood by observation that people tend to both involuntarily and voluntarily act in defense of themselves. Their white blood cells fight off infecting bodies and people use their hands, arms, legs, and feet to repel objects, creatures, or persons they do not wish to touch their body.
REAL PROPERTY
Property norms for land are necessary as life itself demands it. Human beings take up space in time and require the conversion of natural resources for the body to survive. Thus, every human being must, at a bare minimum, both occupy some spot of land to the exclusion of others, and capture and convert physical resources to continue the process of replenishing cells.
The key to consistent property ownership in land is making claims specific and clear to the notice of others. Traditionally, this kind of property development came in the form of homesteading: clearing land from the state of nature and developing structures on top of it to exclude other humans and put them on notice as to the land’s use. To avoid generalized claims like those in the state make, claims to land should be specific and well-defined with some sort of visible fencing and clearance for building structures. Leaving land in the state of nature is antithetical to strong property norms as it makes it so that people could claim wide areas of land without ever having to perform any labor to capture and control it. By strictly adhering to a homesteading norm based on setting off land with physical markers and clearing it for construction, concerns about centralization of control and ambiguity of ownership can be largely avoided due to the construction required.
Ownership of spaces should not be extended above or below land without physical construction to avoid generalized claims, and to help make clear who owns what area by notice of development.
Abandonment of land-based property should be made clear by removing barriers and posting notice of intent to abandon to avoid confusion.
CAPTURE
Capture takes place when something from the state of nature is physically taken out of it by a human. This could be taking an apple from an unowned tree or excavating minerals. When someone captures something from the state of nature through physical means, they become the owner of the material, resource, or creature.
ANIMALS
As animals fall outside of the non-aggression principle’s general application, animals may be captured out of the state of nature or consensually traded for in the same manner as one would take any other resource out of the state of nature and privatize it. The discussion on animals and the N.A.P. is a topic to be saved for another video.
SALE AND TRADE
A person who captures or homesteads property can voluntarily trade with others for other rightfully owned property. This can come in the form of selling or trading land or selling or trading unfinished and finished goods. So long as the transaction is based on consent and is not fraudulent, that is, made by lying about an aspect of the deal to trick the other person into trading, then the property ownership changes status to the respective new owners.
CONCLUSION
I hope this presentation has given you a solid framework on the importance of property rights and their development. While this presentation is not exhaustive of all possible situations, it is a great starting point in thinking about how to consistently apply philosophical reasoning in property rights disputes.
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