In Defense of Private Property
At first glance the right to private property seems inseparable from the right to life, but is it? Human beings are first and foremost individuals who determine much of what they do. Human consciousness is the free will property which distinguishes man from the remainder of the animal kingdom and it is our free will which enables choice. Our actions flow from our thinking and our thinking is the sphere in which we are free and self-determined. Are we not slaves by default then if the fruit of our labor is not credited to our own personal being? John Locke described in his “Two Treatises of Government” that one’s work effort is bound to one’s person and by extension to the improvements one makes to common property, thus establishing the unique entity of personal property. As a consequence, the right to private property is really just an extension, within the framework of a naturalist world view, of the right to one’s own actions, one’s life. Adam Smith described this concept exactly in “The Wealth of Nations”, when he wrote, "The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable. The patrimony of a poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his hands; and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbour, is a plain violation of this most sacred property.”
Objections to free will, individualism and private property generally stem from the political realm, and more ardently from the proponents of socialism. Despite what appears to be compelling rationale, philosophy has established only a modest foothold in the argument defining one’s right to private property. From Thomas Hobbes, who considered private property a prudential matter, that “Citizens are only permitted to own so long as the State permits it or finds it useful. The State is the real, ultimate owner of everything in the country, and ordinary people only enjoy ownership so long as the State finds it expedient that they should do so”, to Pierre Proudhon, who declared, “Property is theft “, to Karl Marx, who relegated property, as well as its creators, exclusively with the state, when he asserted that, “The right of man to private property is the right of man to selfishness”, there has been a steady attack against man’s “absolute Propriety in his Goods”.
One prescient theory proposed by Frederick Bastiat viewed property as a continuum, a dynamic value, not inconsistent with Darwin’s theory of evolution. His main treatise was a radical departure from traditional property theory, he defined property not as a physical object, but rather as a relationship between people with respect to an object. "In our relations with one another, we are not owners of the utility of things, but of their value, and value is the appraisal made of reciprocal services." Defining property in terms of society as a whole was an idea Marx borrowed from liberally in developing his concept of value. Furthermore, Bastiat theorized that, as a result of technological progress and the division of labor, the stock of communal wealth increases over time, that the hours of work an unskilled laborer expends to buy material goods decreases over time, thus amounting to a commonly shared surplus. The result is that private property continually destroys itself, becoming transformed into communal wealth. This increasing proportion of communal wealth to private property results in a tendency toward equality of mankind. In other words, the productive surplus of one man is eventually appreciated by another. This transformation of private property into the communal domain does not imply that private property will ever totally disappear though.This is because as society progresses, it continually invents new and more sophisticated needs and desires. Every new human being brings into this world a unique and original lifetime manifesting itself through novel property. It is these physical manifestations of self-determination, these properties conceived by independent men which ultimately reflect the creative growth of society. The productive efficiencies dictated by natural selection and protected by the right to private property are finally realized as assets to society.
If we carry this examination further, to include natural philosophy, an interesting ally emerges. The Darwinian principle of evolution through “survival of the fittest” is the transformative biological foundation for several critical concepts that not only establish “self”, but prioritize self over community in all circumstances. Firstly, as each individual is naturally programmed to preserve, protect and procreate one’s genes consistent with the laws of natural selection, so also is any society which emerges through the shared needs of man. Paradoxically, perhaps this sin of “selfishness” is not such a sin. The will to live after all is merely the instinct, the biological necessity, to convey one’s genetic imprint onto future generations. Man is pre-programmed to act “selfishly” both as guardian of his genes as well as a supportive functionary in society. Ironically though, all human beings are born helpless and grow up dependent on others for survival, and therefore the inevitable reality of being an individual is that everyone must consent to being used by others. However, this relationship reflects the belief that each individual is valuable in his or her own right, and if an individual is important as such, then there is a sphere that constitutes the individual’s realm of sovereignty and others must consent to respect it. The genetically-mandated “selfish” basis for both the individual as well as societal recognition of the individual is that each of us possesses a unique and irreplaceable gene set that is essential to the evolutionary development of the human species. To select out, to eradicate, or to otherwise negate the contribution of any one individual or groups of individuals to the overall gene pool would serve only to restrict and diminish the ultimate possibilities which might otherwise have been realized by the species as a whole. The dramatic growth of the human species has been made possible only through this large and diverse pool, and it is especially crucial that during periods of rapid evolution, such as we have seen in human development over the past 50,000 or so years, that diversity be coveted.
A second consideration that is consistent with the law of natural selection concerns the paradox of societal justification. Does the “selfish” individual contribute to or detract from the society as a whole? Is it morally just for an individual to have exclusive rights to either his labor or his property at the potential expense of society? Given, that as an integral member of a society one’s actions must reflect the needs of that society, it follows that the rule of survival of the fittest dictates each individual is not only genetically but morally bound to preserve and protect his or her genetic contribution for society. It is therefore morally justifiable for one to protect his life and by extension his property. One’s unique and irreplaceable genes are, after all, the only personal property that each of us begin life with and ultimately have to commit to society. This condition does not demand altruism over individualism for inevitably the self predates the state and must survive in order to establish the state. Therefore, regardless of the ideology of the state, the individual possesses by virtue of his unique genetic make-up an unalienable property, established in natural law and answerable solely to one’s free will. The life and unique genetic compilation of the individual has priority over the state and the state exists only to protect and nurture this individual. The individual in turn is indebted to society for his security, thus assuring a mutually compatible relationship. Perhaps Thomas Paine put it best, “All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.”
The law of natural selection plays a pivotal role when considering the “tragedy of commons”, another insurmountable weakness that socialist economies encounter. Consider an ideal state where the right to private property does not exist, where all property is common to the society. Now ask the question, “Who is responsible for maintaining the integrity of the property, the upkeep, the sustainability?” When there are no defined boundaries to property rights the inevitable result is a bureaucratic disregard and total destruction through neglect. When allowed to act without artificial constraints Darwinian selection conforms human society to natural law and where one individual might not prosper under a given set of circumstances another will. The job that one disdains for his own personal reasons becomes the job that another relishes. Therefore, societal protection of the right to private property facilitates productivity. With private property comes accountability and personal responsibility, both values essential to an efficient economy. This is a tenet practiced by all modern political economies, even market-based socialist economies.
For every justification there exists an opposite view and the natural antagonist to the “individualist” is the statist or socialist. Modern proponents of statism frequently cite the political philosophy of Karl Marx which was heavily influenced by the labor environment of the Industrial Revolution under which he lived. Marxists and many others, some whom follow them without knowing it, claim that in the 16th century the “individual” was invented, not merely discovered, for the sake of sustaining economic productivity. In order to inspire motivation for wealth-creation, the individual had to be made to seem significant, a counterintuitive concept given that labor under a socialist system is entirely devoid of personal motivation. One of the foundational tenets of socialism is that there are no individuals. Marx said it bluntly, “The human essence is the true collectivity of man.” He also noted that human beings constitute “specie-beings” and comprise “an organic whole” in the collectivity we call humanity. What constitutes a true socialist is that men belong to the human race, somewhat analogously to the way a bee belongs to its hive or an ant to its colony, only in this case the integral parts are intelligent persons, albeit persons without right to personal property or self-determination. Marx imagined that humanity was a type of complex organism, a being of which individuals are the parts, and that the growth of humanity could be seen to progress through stages of organic development. Primative tribalism was its beginning and communism would be its fully developed end state. All this begs the question, “What role does the human consciousness and free will play when each of us are destined to become an impersonal element of an impersonal organism?” Specifically, how does one reconcile the unique traits of human consciousness and self-determination to a political philosophy which refutes and suppresses both. It is unfortunate that Marx was never influenced by the genius of Charles Darwin, nor of his seminal work on evolution, or perhaps he would have considered the total supremacy that the laws of nature impose upon the laws of man. Perhaps he would have arrived at a different position regarding the right to private property and its proper role in society. Modern science has advanced this debate into areas unforeseeable even twenty years ago and perhaps today we have finally reached the real crux of the matter, the moment of creation.
The question of the right to private property must begin at the moment of conception and perhaps nowhere else does the right to private property clash with the socialist view more clearly than on the question of the beginning of life. If we acknowledge that at the moment of conception both the male germ cell as well as the female germ cell are alive and vital then we can conclude that life has never actually begun, it has only been continued. But we must also concede that while life is a continuum, at the moment of conception a “new” life is created, a life with a unique and irreplaceable genetic code. The socialist might argue that life in the form of humanity has never ended, that conception is nothing more than an extension of the human organism and therefore any “new” permutation is really not special at all, and therefore borne of no unalienable rights. The socialist would contend that because this “new” life has arisen dependently from the mother organism it has no right to exclusivity or individuality, and therefore it is by definition a part of and the property of the state. The social and political positions which arise from this theory include abortion, selective sex abortion, state authority over early childhood development, and the denial of personal property to name just a few. These policies, whether they enhance the efficiency and productivity of the state or not, derive from the basic underlying assumption that puts the state before the man. After all, if a man has no right to his property, what right does he have to his life?
The individualist, be he liberal, or libertarian or conservative will view this matter in a completely different light. Grounded in the genetics of the Darwinian law of survival of the fittest, he will defend the uniqueness of this “new” life as the essential link between man’s present and his future, to be preserved and protected at all costs. The individualist would view his unique genetic code as an asset, as private property bound to be personally and selfishly managed throughout life. This unique, new life has been programmed for “selfishness”, not in a negative sense, but purely out of survival and of contributing to the human species, a species comprised of self-determined individuals not elements of a single, headless organism. To turn Marx’s words back, the right to private property is indeed the right to be selfish, the right to jealously guard the only true property that the human race has. The right to private property is a fundamental right, it distinguishes one man from another and one successful strategy from a failure. The right to private property enables and compells mankind to respond to the natural world of evolution, it is a dynamic right which encourages and insures that humanity cannot and will not squander it’s genetic equity satisfying a collective ideal, but rather invest it, one specific goal at a time, one man at a time.
The struggle for the physical soul of man, for his right to life, his right to personal property unfortunately is being fought not on moral or ethical grounds but instead in the political arena outside the ready appreciation of those who are directly impacted. And it is being carried out dishonestly for the sake of bureaucratic expedience. The political theatre that man has been trained to trust and become reliant on conceals the true war which is being waged for our very lives. The battle is focused on a single, simple concept - “In a democratic society what is the ideal ratio of production to consumption which will insure a captive voter base?” In other words, given the illusion of choice versus the show of force, which economic system is most efficient in maximizing both voter dependency and worker servitude in order to sustain a ruling class? The enticement, the carrot in the equation is, and always has been, man’s physical soul. If government once recognizes that each of us are gentically unique and therefore irreplaceable, indivisible basic units of society, and if individuals are granted access to the right to private property, to their right to life, then a capitalist system evolves. When the common man is entitled to his soul he selfishly guards and cherishes it to the benefit of himself for sure, but also to the advantage of those whom he incorporates into his productive sphere. If instead, the state claims ownership, effectively of his very DNA, then socialism emerges and men no longer enjoy self-determination nor the right to private property. Men are bound not to their dreams, not to their aspirations, but rather to the directives, the taxes, the quotas of a nameless, faceless, unyielding state. Therefore, in defense of private property all free men must commit themselves to a lifelong, personal devotion to their souls while rejecting the false security of a jealous state in exchange. Man’s selfish right to private property and by extension his very life, if carelessly relinquished, might well never be restored.