The Philosophy of Ownership

Chapter VI Sovereign Ownership

The act of ownership is the assumption of sovereign control over property, to the exclusion of the rest of the world. Total control is vested in the rightful owner.

By total control, I do not mean that an owner may contravene the nature of the property he owns merely because he is the owner. A man who owns a plate of food may not be able to control the food in such a fashion that the food can bark like a dog, emit music like a symphony orchestra, or otherwise violate its own character. When total control is claimed, what is meant is the rightful exclusion of all other persons. The rightful owner may do as he pleases with what is his and whatever he does, his procedure is a correct one, since all the world is already excluded by the condition of ownership. He may be wise or foolish with his own property. He may be profligate or thrifty. Since it is his, he has all rights over it to the exclusion of any possible right in another.

Rightful authority, the power of control vested in each and every owner over what he owns, arises from property ownership and from no other condition. Improper authority is a usurpation, wherein one man presumes to exercise authority over properties not his own, or persons other than himself, and contrary to the will of the others.

There are three characteristics of all owned property. It must be valued by the owner. It must have a boundary that is recognizable to others, so that the sovereignty exercised by the owner can be located with precision. Each property must be subject to the will of the owner in the sense of control already stated. An item that has no value to an owner will not be owned. An item that cannot be bounded, and hence cannot be precisely identified, cannot be owned. An item that is not susceptible to the control of the owner will not be owned. Thus, items failing in these characteristics are not properties.

The condition of ownership, in which rightful authority is born, also creates responsibility. Each owner is responsible for his own property. He has no rights, authority, or responsibility over any other owner or over any property owned by another.

An item need not be three-dimensional and sensible to touch to be a property. To be sure, most properties are recognized as physical objects, such as land and its appurtenances. But properties can also exist in abstract or metaphysical areas. Contracts, both written and oral, can be properties. So can ideas, sounds, odors, gases, and fluids. Additionally, property can consist of other living things such as birds, fish, and animals, which we do not recognize as property owners and hence which a person may rightfully view as items subject to his ownership.

To become an owner of anything, requires an act of will. The individual seeking to own, determines to extend his control beyond his person. His primary property is the property of his will and the property of his person. When he extends his will beyond the ownership of himself, he establishes a claim over some object, physical or abstract.

Claim can be established either as an original claim (no other claim has been made) or as a secondary claim, wherein the claimant, in order to rightfully possess himself of the property, must deal peacefully with the earlier claimant.

To establish an original claim, the would-be owner first ascertains that the property he seeks to possess is unowned. If it is unowned, he may rightfully lay claim to it. He does this when he values the item, when he establishes recognizable boundaries for it to the place where precise limits of his intended sovereignty are located, and when he assumes total control over it. That is, he excludes the world.

If the property he seeks to own already has an owner, the would-be owner must deal with the existing owner. There are two rightful methods and one wrongful one he can pursue. He may seek to convince the owner that the property owned should be given to him. If he succeeds in this effort, the owner merely relinquishes his established claim in favor of the new owner. Or the would-be owner may exchange some property over which he is the rightful owner with the owner of the item he wishes to own. This is a trade, an exchange. It is completed when both parties to the exchange voluntarily relinquish their respective claims in favor of each other.

If the would-be owner neglects either of these two methods, the only other avenue open to him is an improper one which, if followed, will result in incorrect ownership. He may fail to search for the rightful owner (in the event he is seeking to make an original claim), or he may fail to deal with the rightful owner and simply appropriate the property for himself.

This act of appropriation is a violation of the rights of the true owner and constitutes an act of theft. Whether he obtains possession of the property by means of misrepresentation, fraud, threat, actual force, or stealth, his ownership is a violation of the rights of the real owner. Although ownership may, in fact, result from this procedure, it is improper for it rests upon an immoral relationship with another owner.

It is implicit in ownership that all would-be owners recognize the established claim of the existing owner. A person who obtains property by theft may experience constant challenges to his ownership since it is an incorrect relationship. To make certain that his ownership remains unchallenged, he must make known his claim in such a way that others will recognize it. The ownership of property is possible only in a societal structure wherein valid claims are recognized.

Since the process of ownership begins with an act of will, it follows that it takes an act of will to begin the process of disowning. As in the case of acquiring property the process is sometimes long and tedious, so in the process of disowning, it is not always possible to dispose of one’s property by merely “willing” it away.

The essential ingredients of property, as will be recalled, consist of value, identification by means of a discernible boundary, and the element of control. All property ownership entails authority by the owner over the property and responsibility for the property, its use, maintenance, and so on. When an individual decides that he no longer values a property, then that essential characteristic of property is not present and the process of disowning begins. But the mere act of devaluing a property does not totally remove ownership. Authority and control as well as responsibility must all be severed before total non-ownership again emerges.

To acquire ownership requires a positive action, and to disown requires an equally positive action. Let us suppose that a householder breaks a number of bottles over a year’s time and carefully collects the pieces in a bushel basket preparatory to taking them to a place of positive disposal. The bushel basket is kept in the garage. Obviously, these bits of broken glass are not valued by the householder and he is in process of disposing of them. If he is careless in the process of disposal so that a friend driving into his driveway runs over a shard of this glass, the householder is involved in the resulting flat tire on his neighbor’s car and shares a bit of the responsibility entailed. This responsibility is heightened if the neighbor puts his car in the driveway by express invitation. Although the householder has, in his own will, already dispossessed himself of the broken glass, his authority and his responsibility continue until such time as total disownership ensues.

Assume that a man buys some dynamite and stores it in his garage for a commercial purpose. When his purpose is completed, he has several sticks of dynamite in excess of his requirement. At this point, his value of the dynamite, one of the requirements of property in ownership, either disappears or is discounted to the place where he no longer wants to own the dynamite. Still, the dynamite remains on his premises. A small boy comes into the garage, plays with the dynamite, and causes an explosion. Even though the man who owned the dynamite wishes not to own it, and in this sense has already lost his “interest” in owning it, it would rightfully be presumed that he is the owner and hence the authority and the responsible party in conjunction with it. Obviously, if the child is a trespasser, the responsibility of the owner is reduced. Nonetheless, the owner of the dynamite is still the owner, and the child is not. The owner would be morally involved with the explosion, even though he doesn’t value the dynamite and was in process of getting rid of it. He is the last true owner and, as such, is still responsible, at least to a degree.

Another example: A man is flying his private plane above a city and the engine stalls. He cannot start the engine no matter how hard he tries. Obviously, his value judgment respecting this expensive plane now undergoes a virtually instantaneous revision.

But no act of will can cause his authority over the plane or his responsibility for the plane to cease to exist. He cannot flick on his radio and state to the nearest control tower: “I hereby serve notice that I no longer am the owner of this plane, and hence have no responsibility for whatever happens when it crashes.” Regardless of his wishes in the matter, he is the responsible owner and fully in authority, even though his value and his control have both terminated. The boundaries of the plane are still clearly discernible and the owner-pilot is still the owner, in spite of his mounting reluctance to have anything to do with the plane as it falls. Terminating ownership is as total a condition as acquiring ownership. When ownership truly ceases, it ceases as totally as when ownership become total when fully established.

A very interesting development occurs in this area of disownership which has had a rather baneful effect upon the private ownership of land and improvements. This is the effort indulged in by many, to dispose of property in a total fashion and yet to retain some degree of authority over the property after it has been transferred to another. A man sells a lot and places a restriction in the deed that the lot can be used only for purposes of recreation and never for building. Clearly, no one has to purchase the lot with such a restriction, but let us suppose someone does. Since this is a contract voluntarily assumed, the restriction is binding. But let us suppose, after a number of transfers of this lot, all for recreational purposes, no new buyer appears who wants to use the lot for this purpose. The ultimate result, assuming a free market, would be the disownership of the lot, either by published notice and the removal of control, or possibly by the death of the last owner with no heir willing to accept the lot by virtue of the restriction placed upon it. In such a case, the lot would have reverted to its original state and would at that moment be open to first claim, since there is no existing claimant.

Similarly, property other than land is often disposed of by carting it to some disposal area, a dump or other place of abandonment of property, where the last owner simply throws away the property he no longer wishes to own. Any and all of this property is now available for the establishment of claim on a first-claim basis. Scavengers invariably appear who search through such property in an effort to find something they can value. When they find it, they simply establish a claim over it by possessing it and taking it away with them. Such an act of repossession and reclaim is entirely moral and proper for there is no owner, and any kind of property is subject to ownership.

It is important to emphasize that our ability to get rid of property is as essential to our well-being and happiness as our ability to acquire it in the first place. This is the reason for waste baskets and garbage pails and garbage disposal units. Such organizations as the Salvation Army traditionally receive castoffs, items of property the rightful owners no longer wish to own. The Salvation Army serves as a kind of second-hand market in such properties and either sells these castoffs at very low prices to persons who wish to own them, or possibly gives them away to some who appear to be in a state of need.

Many auction houses, churches, and second-hand dealers in various commodities serve in this area, too, paying small prices for goods they buy from those who have devalued their properties, but who have not totally devalued them, and then selling them to others who value them more highly and now wish to become owners.

A person’s right to dispose of what he owns is as total a right as his right to acquire a property in the first place. Nor is there any moral prohibition against a person giving away an item he still values. If he values the act of giving at a higher level than he values the item he is to give, he must be free to dispose of it. However, the recipient of any gift must establish a claim. No one is constrained by nature or by any moral involvement to accept automatically anything proffered. If the recipient refuses to establish a claim, even though something is given to him, the item does not become his property but is merely rejected, or temporarily possessed so that it can be passed to another who may establish a claim.

All acts of ownership and all acts of disownership begin with an act of will and terminate, in the first instance, when authority, responsibility, and control are fully established and, in the second case, when authority, responsibility, and control are fully abolished.

Until a property has been transferred totally to the new purchaser, the prior owner, the seller, retains authority and responsibility over the property in transfer. For example, in the sale of an apartment building requiring many months in escrow before all demands of buyer and seller are satisfied, the control, authority, and responsibility do not shift to the purchaser until the final moment. In the event a fire wiped out the building only a few hours before the exchange was to be consummated, the loss would be presumed to be that of the seller, even though the buyer might have had all the money necessary to make the purchase on deposit with the escrow officer for months in advance. Responsibility and authority over a property are presumed to reside with the last owner until a new owner is fully established as the controller of the property.

Sometimes a property that someone values very much escapes his control. When this occurs, he is no longer the owner, however much he wishes to be. Nor can he hold others responsible for his loss or failure to retain his control.

A man owns a cylinder filled with a rare gas. He values it highly. The valve jams open and the gas escapes. He no longers owns the gas. Nor has he a claim against others to return his gas.

A man has a watch which he values. He loses it. If he cannot find it and cannot re-establish his claim over it, he is no longer the owner. This is why many people mark properties such as watches with identification symbols, serving notice to any possible finder that the owner of the watch has not disclaimed it, even though he may have lost it. This practice also serves to discourage theft, for the thief is a person dealing in properties which are incorrectly or improperly owned.

Similarly, a man may have some ideas. He discloses his ideas to to others without placing them under any contractual obligation to respect his ownership. Later, he regrets that he has done this and tries to re-establish his ownership. However he tries, the ideas have left his control. Further, the ideas are dispersed and he cannot possibly determine what stimulation they may have caused or the persons who make use of them without acknowledging him as the owner or originator.

No property, unless clearly marked by some identification symbol, ever reveals the name of the owner. Let us suppose that a man has a chair in his home which he has borrowed from a friend. It will be assumed by visitors that the chair belongs to the householder. But there is nothing about the chair that announces this fact. In our dealings with property and with owners, most of us know fairly well what we own. Thus, although we may not know who owns a given property, and we cannot tell by examining it who the owner is, we know full well that we are not the owners. Thus, unless we are thieves, we refrain from seeking to establish claims on property not belonging to us, until we have diligently conducted a search to determine who the rightful owner is. Then, if we really want the property, we will deal with the owner in an effort to cause him to relinquish his claim in our favor. If we find that the property we desire is not owned, then the first-claim custom emerges and we establish our ownership without having to deal with the prior owner, since there is no owner.

It is important that we do this with all properties, whether tangible or intangible. Probably one of the greatest areas of trespass occurs in the realm of ideas. If a person obtains an idea from another, and if he presumes that the idea is valued by the originator of the idea, it is incumbent upon him to offer acknowledgment. But there is no known way in which he can restore the idea to its original owner in such a way that he no longer has it.

Each person, to be undisturbed in the rightful possession of what he claims, must make certain that he establishes his claim without in any way violating any prior claims.

The certainty and safety of possession of anything does not, in the final analysis, relate to the employment of force. Force is usually relied upon by those who do not propose to establish a claim rightfully. Since all men (even thieves) wish their own claims to be recognized, it is imperative that they earn this recognition by establishing only rightful and valid claims.

Dr. F. A. Harper in his book, Liberty—A Path to Its Recovery, shows that there are only three societal conditions possible in respect to property. “(1) Each person may have whatever he can grab. (2) Some person other than the one who produces the goods and services may decide who shall have the right of possession or use. (3) Each person may be allowed to have whatever he produces. These three methods cover all the possibilities; there are no others.”1

In system number one, wherein everyone steals from everyone, no property claims would be recognized by anyone. Thus, even the thief would always be subject to further acts of theft.

In system number two, wherein some persons steal (jump claims) from other persons, this would be a system of license, in which it would be advantageous to be a thief and disadvantageous to be a rightful owner of anything.

In system number three, wherein no one steals from anyone, such a system is only possible when the established rightful claims of others are generally recognized and respected. This last system, obviously the only desirable one, depends entirely upon the understanding and educational level of the persons in the society. Since any property relationship can always be trespassed by force, peaceful possession of property relies fundamentally upon peaceful recognition of the claims of others. Only in such a societal structure is it likely that one’s own claims would be recognized and respected.

It is at this juncture that many persons, desiring to be owners, become confused about property. Since the desire to own is, of necessity, universal, men are prone to view their property as justifiably owned, but they tend to believe that the property owned by others is possessed by them in some unworthy manner. It appears to them that the only way property ownership can exist is by an action of the state to protect ownership. In their minds, human beings are fundamentally evil and depraved, and would, unless prevented by force, constantly prey upon one another, seizing whatever property each could appropriate. It appears to many that the state has created the condition of ownership rather than that ownership arises from the nature of man.

Those who look at men as fundamentally good, view the state as harmful; some of them because the state appears to protect property owners who rightfully ought not to own all they do; others, because the state is an agency of expropriation and consistently deprives men of what they have honestly acquired.

These two views of the evil of the state in relation to property illustrate the contrary opinions expressed by anarchists and autarchists.

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2Harper, Liberty–A Path to Its Recovery (New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1949), p. 28.

• 1Harper, Liberty–A Path to Its Recovery (New York: Foundation for Economic Education, 1949), p. 28.
• 2Dr. F. A. Harper in his book, Liberty—A Path to Its Recovery, shows that there are only three societal conditions possible in respect to property. “(1) Each person may have whatever he can grab. (2) Some person other than the one who produces the goods and services may decide who shall have the right of possession or use. (3) Each person may be allowed to have whatever he produces. These three methods cover all the possibilities; there are no others.”