Property is a right?

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Orthogonal Posted: Fri, Sep 9 2011 12:36 PM

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I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and am trying to come to terms with what is really meant when proclaiming property is a "Right". Libertarian theory usually boils it down to Life, Liberty and Property in the simplest of terms and the first two are evident enough. I am ME and my Life is inaliable, there for I have a right to my Life. I own my thoughts and actions and they are therefore inaliable, my Liberty is a Right. Property on the other hand is different. We have the Lockean and Rothbardian ideas of mixing your labor with the earth or homesteading in the creation or acuisition of property, but this doesn't seem to fully qualify it as a right. Property seems to be more of a concept, there is nothing that inexoribly tethers you to an object as its sole proprieter and owner. What you have is claim to an object. This claim to an object is really what Property is.

Am I correct in defining Property Rights, as a Right to a claim to an object? Am I missing somthing? Are there any good texts on the subject to further clarify?

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gotlucky replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 3:53 PM

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I suggest you read this thread.  Clayton has a lot of good posts about this stuff in general.

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Aristophanes replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 4:30 PM

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inalienable is the word you are looking for.

Read Federalist #10; Madison on why property rights are an extension of faculties.  Equal under the law, but equally unequal in faculty perception.

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MaikU replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 5:12 PM

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rights do not exist (so many libertarians religiously believe in them...makes me sad). It is just useful concept for making "a point". Meaning that you have a right (a legitimate action involving use of your body that you can control and no one else does, that's self-evident) to act according certain universal principles without violating same principles of the other human beings... Hope that makes some sense...If I said nonsense, please excuse me, I am going to bed now to avoid being debunked.. Bye.

p.s. right to life? Liberty? That's moronic statements (no offense to OP). What I mean is that if one can make a leap of faith to believe one has a right to life, then one clearly can believe one has a right to property too. To me it's equally moronic. Again, no offense, nothing personal :D Yes, I am more like a believer in negative rights, which are too... just useful for making a point (a universal moral rule) that debunks other inconsistent double think garbage by various idealogies (religious/political/philosophical)

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Orthogonal replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 5:39 PM

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"p.s. right to life? Liberty? That's moronic statements (no offense to OP). What I mean is that if one can make a leap of faith to believe one has a right to life, then one clearly can believe one has a right to property too. To me it's equally moronic. Again, no offense, nothing personal :D Yes, I am more like a believer in negative rights, which are too..."

No offense taken. I wasn't trying to imply a positive right to anything. I was referring to it as a negative right, which seems to be a little bit more cohesive as a concept, but Property is still a little fuzzy.

Thanks for the link gotlucky, I'll give that thread a look.

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Stephen replied on Fri, Sep 9 2011 10:11 PM

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@ the OP

Property can mean two things depending on context. It can refer to economic goods under some actors control, that is, in the economic sense. It can also refer to a legal title to an economic good. See relevent chapters of Mises' Liberalism or Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty on this.

All property titles (claims) must be titles to economic goods since it is only economic goods which it is possible to come into conflict over. Titles can not be to mere objects, but must be over economic goods. It is impossible for the two of us to come into conflict over the moon, for example, because neither of us can bring it under our causal control, thus it fails th meet criterion necessary for it to be an economic good, and we cannot aim at alternative ends with respect to our use of the moon.

To claim that property is a right is just logical redundancy. All rights (justified claims), ot more generally, claims, must be claims over economic goods (property in the economic sense).  What else could one have a right to but specific property? Or if we mean property in the legal sense, what we are saying that we have a right to a right, which is unecessary redundancy. 

The right to life and liberty are also similar redundancies. All rights are rights in property. The right to life is just an extension of our right in our own bodies, not to have them violated. Liberty consists of having ones property rights respected, so again right to a right.

Thoughts and actions are not economic goods and cannot be owned. Both involve the use of economic goods which are owned, but they themselves are distinct from objects which can be brought under causal control.

I highly recommend Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty as a primer on Law and Property rights, as well as his various papers on the subject.