Private Property.

Is private property a natural right?

Well, classically the western world has held that their are 4 natural rights reserved to every human regardless of conditions. These are liberty, property, security, and equality. Upon examination of the nature of these rights, one finds something peculiar, property is not like the others. That is, private property is the only “right” among the 4 that is both subject to modification and transaction, and is only a matter of potentiality. Furthermore, it is the only one that threatens itself and all others. What is meant by this is that private property alone has the ability to be given up, “lent out”, expanded and contracted ect., and private property alone is considered to be present when it’s obtainment is only a potentiality. And that private property alone, out of the 4 so called natural rights, creates war over and against itself. The poor want what the rich have, and the rich want to maintain against the poor what they have, the two sides collide.

Consider, for a moment, security, liberty, and equality. What these rights have in common is the fact that they are universal and seemingly absolute. One may not give up one’s liberty, equality, or security even if one wanted to. Contracts between individuals that negate any of these rights are not valid, nor do they hold any real meaning. One can conceivably draw up a contract that declares one the slave of another, or that declares that one is to be considered less than another based on some phenotypic characteristic, but such a contract would be considered ridiculous by all and be enforceable by none. Furthermore, if one were to find oneself in a position in which one’s right to liberty and equality had been forcibly removed, all would consider that condition an abomination. One would feel that one had not only the right but the obligation to fight against such circumstances, and that such conditions do not negate one’s right, but deprive one of the right. As soon as the conditions were overturned, or one escaped them and set foot on free soil, one would instantly be considered both equal and free. The rights do not exist merely as potentialities, one is not said to have liberty when one is repressed simply because at some future date liberty could be obtained. Quite the contrary is the case, one has the absolute right to liberty even when one is being oppressed. One is being harmed and infringed upon by the oppression, it is illegitimate and abhorrent to all.

All 3 of these rights are such that when they are realized by one in a society, that realization reinforces the same realization in others. The security of the rich and the poor against foreign nations reinforce each other and are indistinguisable. The same goes with liberty and equality. The equality of any depends on the equality of all; if one is unequal then all are unequal. Likewise, the right to liberty is not easily infringed on by a government or ruler that is barred from infringing on others. However, when that government is allowed to infringe on some, then it sets up the mechanisms and means to infringe on all.

Against this, let us elucidate the “right” of private property. It is such that one can contract or undermine this “right”. One may sell one’s property, or lease one’s property, or destroy one’s property, or abandon one’s property freely. Such actions are recognized by all governments and all societies. Furthermore, all societies and government allow that one can be forcibly removed from private property, and thus forcibly separated from one’s “right”, without infringing on this “right”. If one’s house is in disrepair and becomes dangerous the government has the right to condemn it. If one violates an obligation to pay a contract one can be forcibly removed from one’s property. If the society at large demands the land or property for the social good, one can be forcibly removed from it. In elucidating the “right” further we see that unlike the others, it is considered a mere potentiality. The man who owns nothing is said to have the right to property because he can hypothetically obtain property at a future time, even if this is an impossibility for that man. It is enough that the society itself allows from certain select individuals to own property. In fact, it doesn’t even make sense to talk of repression in terms of private property in the terms it is generally understood through. One final point, private property exists in opposition to itself. Unlike the 3 other natural rights it creates strife by its very existence, and it not only doesn’t reinforce itself, but the private property of one negates that of another. One owns at the deference of the other in western societies.

All this is to say that what makes something a natural right is precisely what private property lacks. It doesn’t possess a single quality that makes a natural right. Moreover it makes the other rights impossible. The strife between the rich and the poor prevents security, the property based stratification of society prevents equality, and the gobbling up of more property than one can use prevents liberty. The liberty to live. Yes, it is opposed to human life by its very nature. Insofar as we hold one’s right live as a right, then we cannot hold private property as a right in the terms of western society. To live one must eat, and to eat one must labor the land, and to labor the land one must possess land. Yet, private property allows for it to occur that a man may not possess land, thus it allows for a man to be unable to labor, thus it allows for a man to not be able to live by virtue of itself. Note, the fact that one doesn’t have to labor the land to live is not a refutation or objection to this argument, as it is the result of thinking that already assumes private property.

“One can work at mccdonalds without owning anything and still survive, you might say”. No, one is forced to work at mccdonalds to survive, one is stripped of liberty. One is repressed.

Not only is private property opposed to natural rights, it creates implicit contradictions. Consider, if you will, the basic economics of Capitalism. Capitalism by its very nature requires that there be a certain number of unemployed workers. Anyone that has bothered to study economics at any level will understand this…to keep the so called “unskilled” jobs at a low rate of wages, there has to be more workers trying to obtain them than their are jobs. If this does not happen then employers creating “unskilled” jobs will be forced to raise wages or be un-able to run. This has a domino effect on the economy as the wages of unskilled jobs approach the wages of skilled workers…Lets just say that Capitalism cannot survive without an army of unemployed. The question that any good Capitalist knows is at the heart of the issue, is how do we ensure that their is an army of unskilled workers? Well, that is easy, you tax people that have jobs in order to support those that don’t, in order to maintain the system. Which is to say, you extract the private property of people who have it and give it to people that don’t. Which is to say that you negate private property itself, and end up in an insufferable contradiction. Even if you don’t consider private property a natural right, it does not change the fact that the owner of private property is going to decry any attempt by anyone to take his “property” as theft. Yet, in maintaining this he contradicts himself. Because private property generates the need for unskilled workers. Thus, he must be stolen from or lose everything. The good hypocrite that he is, the Capitalist chooses to be stolen from to maintain the unskilled workers. What he doesn’t realize, is that once he does this he loses the ability to ever claim again that if someone takes his property it is theft. He has, once and for all, shown that his claim that taking his property is theft is a spurious argument.

I further want to consider what an individual in a society might do about the abomination of private property. This question is best answered by understanding why it is that we form societies. The answer to anyone familiar with the great hero’s of Capitalists and believers of natural rights alike, is that we form societies for mutual benefits. Which include equality, security, and liberty. The question becomes, if I contract into a society by my free will, why would I accept one where I have an unequal share. That is, if I contract into society in order to get out of the sate of nature where anything goes, where any man can take and enslave and kill, why on earth would I willingly participate in a society where I am still at a disadvantage to others? The answer ought to be that I won’t, and I will fight to the death to overturn it. If I give up the right to be absolutely free from social obligation in order to protect the weak from the strong, and to ensure equality, liberty, and security, then it stands to reason that a society that does not protect the weak from the strong or does not ensure equality, is not the society that I contracted into. This is exactly what the institution of private property does, and it is exactly why it negates the very reasons why society was set up. No society can survive with private property.

I used to think that the right to own private property was natural but now, I realize that there is no objective logic behind it. Despite what any philosopher may have attempted to argue, discussing the “natural” right to private property is as valuable as discussing whether cats have a right to chase mice. I still believe everybody has a right to private property but I make no apologies about why: I just assume it is morally correct and I try to convince others to accept such morality.

Whether you believe in the right to own private property is not the most important thing. It is important to understand that if you do not respect somebody’s right to own private property, you are creating conflict and you had better expect somebody to fight back.

It would be wise to treat people who do not respect the right to own private property as you would treat a wild animal: with caution.

There are so many things to say against that, yet you hardly said anything at all. As a preliminary, you obviously put the cart before the horse, and you know you put the cart before the horse. As such, the question of weather you are going to defend what you have said seems like it will be answered in the negative, but that doesn’t really matter at this point.

Let’s just begin with the fact that no one “respects” private property in general or in practice, they just claim they do so they can defend it when it is convenient. I’m unsure if you read my post, but look at the part about unemployment for one example of why this is true. Or consider societies tendency to levy higher taxes on the rich. Obviously an affront on private property. Or consider any number of socially/governmentally endorsed public works programs that have displaced people in order to build bridges or malls, or whatever. The list of examples is long, yet you tacitly assume that it is the status quo to respect private property. Clearly, that is not the case. Clearly, “respect” for private property is an ambiguous term employed purely as rhetoric, for various personal reasons.

Against your claim that not “respecting” private property creates conflict, it is the case that conflict is embedded within the institution itself. Those who don’t have PP will always want to obtain from those who do have PP, and those that do have PP will always want to deter those that don’t. Private property is itself what generates the conflict, weather it is generally respected or not does not change this fact. Putting the cart before the horse has made you make mistakes.

Mr. S. Keit,
I believe it is YOU who has the cart ahead of the horse.

Can you provide a definition of property?
After that, can you provide a definition of private property – to distinguish it from any other form of property?
Also, can you say what constitutes non-private property?

I believe your posts contain several contradiction. However, without defining your terms, there is no way to intelligently address the issues you raised.

That is just silly, the definition of PP really doesn’t matter the purposes of this discussion, nor do I want to play definition games. Your last post is out of place in this thread, it is nothing but a distraction. One need only understand that property is not equal to possession, other than that there is no immediate reason to define it precisely. We are not lawyers arguing over who owns what, we are philosophers arguing over the institution of private property in general. The arguments put forward do not hinge on any one pigeon holed definition of private property. A general definition will suffice, and a general definition is known by everybody. In fact, it doesn’t even seem that a precise definition exists, as property is chimerical. MY OP more than sufficed to set the terms of the discussion.

The only distinction that needs to be made is that of possession and that of property. Possession is a matter of fact, the fact of occupancy. Property is a right, a legal power if you wish. This distinction is immediately clear and may have gone unspoken throughout the entire thread without a problem.

The cart has not been put before the horse, the horse is unbridled, but the onlooker is randomly searching.

You know, Mr. Keit, I have had numerous discussions with confused socialists who try to hide behind the anarchist label and the discussions ALWAYS boil down to a disagreement of what actually constitutes property – let alone private property. These confused socialists ALWAYS throw out this ridiculously ambiguous dichotomy between property and possession to further obfuscate any responsible discussion – you are not original.

The definition of private property DOES matter because once YOU define it – I agree, it does not matter how you do so but you need to do so – I can demonstrate logical inconsistencies with your previous posts. It is no wonder that you run away from defining your terms. You probably know you are just spewing out nonsense.

I have no doubt that you think you have said something important, that labeling somebody has significance. But you have not. Nor does calling someone unoriginal mean a thing. There has never been and never will be an original word spoken on this forum or any other, that is simply not how it works.

Do what you wish, I have defined private property as precisely as is needed, any further elucidation is superfluous and will function to impeded the discussion and obfuscate the issue at hands, while adding nothing but cultural biases. Take it or leave it, as presently I am not interested in the brand of discourse you are trying to wield, nor interested in fulfilling some wetdream you have about the need to define a term when you admit the definition really doesn’t matter.

I will reply as need be, but this line of argumentation has no further use and will not be responded because it is pure nonsense.

Liberty, property, security, and equality are all elements of democracy and are essential to democracy. Nor can we have democracy without those elements. But it is property, the most tangible of the four, that really insures and entrenches democracy. Without it it is unlikely that the other three can be met or assured.

As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote, " Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom". Well, it is behind that wedge that liberty, security and equality have a chance of being realized. It is through private property, which also includes our labor, that we are ultimately accorded the respect and recognition from the state that secures and delivers the liberty, security and equality we deserve.

Mr. Davids-O-4,
I do not believe that liberty, property, security and equality are essential to democracy any more than peace and harmony may be essential. They do certainly make a community attractive, though.

Democracy is just a catch-all label we use to describe a process whereby decisions and actions are imposed upon or justified on behalf of a collective. The various stock markets can be identified as forms of democracy, if you want.

From that quote, I believe Schlesinger is sadly naive. Modern democracies routinely thrive on violating property rights. Also, there really are no resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state. Therefore, it seems like he is talking about something that does not exist or exists along a continuum, at best. By way of analogy, he is saying: “Warm” as opposed to “Tepid” in a discussion of What is the best temperature For Water.


Ultimately, if you are going to make a policy prescription, you are making a moral argument whether you recognize it or not. At their very core, moral arguments devolve into making an axiomatic assumption. The socialists deny accurate definitions of property rights because it leads to logical inconsistencies in the rest of their demands and can apologize for violations of life.

The beauty of the right to private property is that it forces people to be concrete with their policy prescriptions. All human rights can logically be expressed in the form of a property right if you define your terms concisely.

Property is just a synonym for physical matter. Private property actually is a confusing label because non-private property is pragmatically a non-concept. Matter can only be controlled by people – either individually, in a partnership or collectively. Ultimately, the distinction between “private” or “non-private” is just a question of consent and rightful ownership.

If you recognize your body as physical matter of which you and only you are the rightful owner, transgressions upon you can be expressed as a violation of your property. For example, if somebody denies you the right to free speech that means that person is denying you the right to use your own body as you see fit. If somebody kills you, that person is touching your property without your permission. However, you can not objectively prove that you are the rightful owner of your body – this MUST be accepted axiomatically.

This form of definition makes it very difficult for socialists to hide their politics. When they claim a “right to an education” or a “right not to starve” or a “reproductive rights” or whatever positive obligations upon people, they are simultaneously claiming a right to controlling other people’s property or life because none of those things occur on their own.

Samuel, I understand your contortionist view. It is easy to think that way about democracy when someone hasn’t even attempted to comprehend how it metaphysically works. I suggest it is you who is naive about democracy and its link to private ownership.

You equivocate two definitions of property. Property as in a distinctive attribute, as in the usage “Iron is Hard”, and property in which we want to use it. As in “I own property”. The claim that man is the “rightful owner” of himself is the result of this equivocation, the result of applying the second definition when the first one is what actually makes sense. A simple confusion. Man is nor proprietor of himself. He can no more decide to change his faculties by selling, leaseing, or modifying them, anymore than one can do the same to the hardness of Iron(at a given temp.). He is not master of the faculties as if he were above and outside of them, but he is precisely the sum total of these faculties(body included). One may use the fact of nature regarding Iron to one’s advantage, just as a man may use his rationality to his advantage, but neither are property in the sense of “own”. You speak nonsense when you separate the man from his body and from his natural properties qua man, and put him in a position over and above his natural properties. Just as you would speak nonsense if you tried to separate iron from it’s hardness, and claim that Iron owns hardness. It is nonsense.

No one has ever exclaimed “don’t damage my property” when someone physically harms them. Well, schizophrenics have been known to, but no “normal” person.

The rest of your post is rhetoric.

Finally, Mr. Keit, you provided a definition of the word “property” to accompany your political views. Your definition is different from mine but at least I was able to pull it out of you. Was it really that hard to do???
I guess challenging you to logical inconsistencies is what it takes. It is no wonder that you finally came up with SOMETHING as a definition and it does not surprise me in the least that you chose a definition which was nothing more than a different synonym of the word – your definition had to be different from mine.

Now, on to your worthless definition. You chose a definition of “property” which makes it synonymous to physical features. So, in summation, the Right To Physical Features is pretty meaningless. I agree. However, it is meaningless because you chose a concept that really has no application. For example:
the Right To The Color Blue
the Right To Temperature
the Right To Photosynthesis
the Right To Magnetism
the Right To Music
the Right To Left
the Right To Wrong
etc. etc.

You chose a definition which can not describe human action. You did worse than an inconsistency. You defined nonsense.

You get these confused socialists to define the simple word “property” and their whole attack against “private property” falls apart.

So, we have a choice. We have:

  1. the Right To Physical Features
    or
  2. the Right To Physical Matter
    Which one seems to be a useful concept for discussion??? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Let us look at The Right To Physical Features as it relates to the OP:

Yeaaaahhhh… riiiiiiiight… …removed from one’s Physical Features. How does that work???
You call me equivocating on the definition. Sheesh.

It does not matter what they say, what they DO is a logical expression of a right to own property – their rightful property being their own body.
Nobody says: “Here is $999,999 subtracted from $1,000,000 for that can of soda, please.” They say “Here is $1 for that can of soda.” either.

I challenge you to give me an example of " - resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state - " mentioned by Schlessinger. Since he insists that “Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property” you should not have any trouble finding at least one example.
Before you get too carried away, can YOU provide a definition of “The Arbitrary Reach Of The State” which – unlike Mr.Keit pathetic attempt at weaseling out a definition just for the sake of it – might remotely be consistent with the definition of “property” private or otherwise?
I will give you mine. The Arbitrary Reach Of The State is a physical contact upon matter without the consent of the rightful owner of said matter.

Honestly, I have no idea what you are going on about. It’s quite jumbled, but I get the sense that you haven’t understood why I said you equivocated. Anyway, there’s nothing I can pull out of that post that really makes sense by itself, or makes sense in reaction to my last post.

That’s not to say that I don’t think you have something important to say, just that the last post was jumbled and didn’t convey an argument or significant point to me.

Rephrase if you like, I will read it and respond. If not, the discussion will end.

-edit-

I reread my last post and noticed a mistake

Should read: “The result of applying the first definition when the second one is what actually makes sense”

In accordance with the claim directly before it which states that "property in which we want to use it. As in “I own property”, and in accordance with me attacking the the first definition throughout that entire post. I doubt this mistake would lead one to the conclusion that I wish to use the definition of property as in “hardness is a property of iron”, as the rest of the post directly contradicts this. A careful reading would have shown this to be a silly mistake of forgetting the order in which i presented the definitions, but I suspect this may be why you post didn’t make sense to me.

If it was not recognized as a simple mistake in referencing the wrong order of definitions, then the mistake renders my last post internally inconsistent and pure garbage. My apologies.

Mr. Keit,
I followed your logic – we can agree that you mistakenly switched the two definitions initially. I am not going to take back anything I wrote but we can move forward as we are on the same page.

Now, all that I ask is that you define explain what constitutes “ownership” because I would like to remind you of some of the nonsense you previously wrote:

You see: you are caught.

Note to the non-socialists:
Force these confused-socialists-who-hide-behind-the-anarchist-label to define the word “property” and you will easily expose their nonsense. Their attack against any right to own “private property” falls apart.

You employed the word ownership before that post, yet you did not bother to define it, and I did not have any problem interpreting your post. Infact I was quoting you when I said “rightful owner”, and it led you into an equivocation of property and 'property.

I told you once I am not going to play these kind of games, it’s not the kind of philosophy I want to do on a forum. Your insistence on stopping the discussion to ask me to define a term that we are both employing is silly and quite juvenile. It becomes worse when you are freely employing the term yourself without giving a concise definition. The simple fact is that brand of discourse you are attempting to wield, with little effect, is not something I find interesting or productive.

And my mistake in the previous post does not change the fact that you equivocated.

Sammy - why not lose the passive-agressive stance and make a point?

The Wiki definition certainly suffices.

And yes, it’s a social convention.

What on earth is the big deal?

Mr. Faust,
The social convention is frequently violated. Sometimes those violations are concealed in political theory and sometimes they are just simply unapologetic crime. The big deal is that philosophically they are not very different in their justification. Go back and read my first post in this thread – the post that set Mr. Keit off. All I said was that the right to own private property is an axiom: i.e., it can not be proven – it is just a choice.
Now, I have a question for you: why would that set anybody off? My answer is that I believe I ticked him off because I presented it in terms of morality and made a logical analogy to animal behavior. I believe that is an accurate analogy. I believe that violations in the right to own private property reduce humans to nothing more than animals.

Mr. Keit,
You have an easy way out: you too can accept your beliefs to simply be axioms. I never insisted that you prove your position to be true. All you have to do is be clear about them. I just insisted that you be clear because any social policy that you deduce can conceal the concrete actions committed.

Anybody else,
Does the cat have the right to eat a mouse?

The OP was about private property as a natural right, the whole thing is about morality and value for fucks sake.

As for being clear, my positions is abundantly clear, clear enough that you felt you could instantly label me this and that. Your actions betray your words, and your entire post is rhetoric attempting to bait me into making this a personal argument. You have said nothing in this thread, you have not made one point, you have not rationally argued one position. You have been completely worthless from your first post to your last.

That statement by Sittlichkeit touches on the nature of the world, that it is and functions on contradictions. If anything is natural about humans, it is contradiction. Contradiction in human behavior and relations means that humans have not been or can not be logical or reasonable from the get-go. If we were logical from the get-go we would have understood the natural rights of liberty, security and equality and bestow them on everybody without question. But we have not done that because as humans we are messed up, perverse and get things backwards or not at all. So in order that we do bestow and entrench those natural rights on each other we’ve created another natural right, the right of property. In a sense, property is the carrot that has led us to and given us those real natural rights we deserve.

With the ownership of property and material things the rule of law came into being. It is our rule of law that in turn has championed and furnished our natural, natural rights. It is materialism that has guaranteed our liberty, security and equality, not the idealism of logic and reason.