I have often been in a debate where my opponent mistakenly views property rights as the right to own tangible property. It is not uncommon for them to restrict property rights to only include real estate, automobiles, and other tangible items. Statists who accuse us of presenting a Utopian System make this mistake often. They also do not seem to realize just how big a can of worms the property rights debate is. As with many articles in this series, there are two main reasons for writing it. The first is to use it as a reference and the second is to relieve some of my frustration. I get frustrated when I see articles in the news which make little sense when viewed skeptically. Today I saw an article where Hillary Clinton uses the trade deficit as if it were not a make believe statistic. Too often debates breakdown because we define terms differently. I once argued with a man, by email, about free markets and only learned some months later that one problem we had was that we defined free markets differently. He stated that everybody knew that free markets could not exist for very long so it was perfectly valid to refer to almost free markets as free markets. He actually used the phrase almost free markets. Every time he wrote it I could only hear almost freed slaves. I’m not going to define what a right is. I get sleepy when I read about the definition of rights. I will say that rights are inalienable. It is not possible to separate a right from a person. They are so intertwined that separating them results in something other than a person and a right. Perhaps the sum is greater than the parts applies. I do not possess the vocabulary needed to present my definition of rights. Property rights are born out of just one right. The right to own property. Other rights which we bundle with ownership may include:
  • the right to dispose what you own,
  • the right to defend what you own, and
  • the right to keep what you own,
So that’s enough about not defining what rights are. Let’s move on to what types of property are generally included when we (free market advocates) think of property. I write generally because there is no list which is set in stone. There is a great debate over what exactly is and is not property. Anyone accusing us of presenting Utopian solutions doesn’t understand just how volatile this list is. For example, do we own our future selves? If we do not, then we are unable to dispose of our future selves. That may make many contracts illegal. I cannot enter into a contract which indentures my future self unless own my future self. Anything else would be fraud. Here is a minor list of the things we (free market advocates) might think of as property. It is not an all inclusive list and it is not a static list. Many items fall under another category, but I wanted to specify them individually.
  • real property (land),
  • tangible property (trains, planes, automobiles, homes, clothes, toys, etc.),
  • intellectual property (thoughts, ideas, recipes, etc.),
  • our own bodies (past, present, and future), and
  • our actions (labor, deeds, etc.),
If you are in a debate with me right now and you are tempted to put up some lame argument about property rights are only for the rich, please don’t. I don’t know one single living bodiless person. I know at least one who may not have thoughts or ideas, but she is a tiny exception to a vast majority. That means property rights cover every person, not just the rich. I will not prolong the agony of your attention much longer. There are many more things to say about property rights, but they are for other articles.
Digg!