PROPERTY AND HUMAN WELL BEING
The power to control a portion of the material
objects is the very foundation of power and authority. Ownership of property is
therefore a source of power and the realization of the human will, human ego and
human desires. Human life involves the use of material resources and as such
some form of property relations is a necessity for life.
Given that all human beings at birth inherit the
physical basis of life, it could be argued that EASY ACCESS TO and CONTROL OF
material resources establishes the basis of inequality between people, men and
women, the rich and poor and the weak and strong.
Liberal Concept of
Property.
The liberal school of thought equates property
to private property and describes it as a natural right of every human being
that no government or state may interfere beyond what is necessary to maintain
the institution itself (Locke, Honore).
Private property is often described in terms of “the inalienable and exclusive right of
individuals to exclude others from the use or benefit of some material
resources”. Individual rights to property include the right to possess, use
and manage, derive income and capital, to security against appropriation and to
sell or bequest some material resource to another person or group of persons. It
is argued that private property is essential to the full development of the
individual.
Public
Interest Concepts Of Property.
The public interest theories separate a
property right (a person's right to rule over things) from a personal
right (an individual's right to liberty) and make attempts to achieve both
for the individual through the collective effort of society.
Common
property
systems are rights that guarantee that every individual cannot be excluded form
the use or benefit of a resource. Common property regimes consist of
well-defined groups of authorized users, rules and institutional arrangements
that define and establish the use of things. The authorized users have the
right to exclude non-members and exercise both rights and duties in regard to
the "common resources" No individual is specially privileged in terms
access to any resource.
Even though the right to use material resources
in a common property system lie in the public domain, the system fairly remains
a private property in that every individual member has an enforceable claim to
the use of some resources.
In a State
property system the state or its agency, creates and keeps the rights to
property in the interest of individual members of society. In a collective
property system, the problem of allocation is resolved by a social rule that
recognizes the use of material resources to be determined by the collective
interest of society as a whole
DEFINING PROPERTY: the
problems
In common usage property refers to
MATERIAL THINGS but in law, property refers to RIGHTS, rights in or to things.
When we offer a house for sale, we only offer the LEGAL TITLE, which is the
exclusive right to the house we are selling.
What distinguishes PROPERTY from mere physical
or material possessions is that property is a claim that is recognized by
all members of the society and enforced by the state. Private property is a
right which is vested in individuals, and as such it requires the recognition
and protection of all members of the society for its existence. Property as an
“enforceable claim” then implies that property is a political relation
between persons.
The claim by an individual without the consent
of the whole group of people alone is not enough to establish the private
ownership of a property.
Property is not a thing but the title to such a
thing; the enforceable right contained in the title that constitutes property.
As a right, property assumes a definition involving not only rights and
privileges, but also a complex bundle of relations, duties and obligations as
well. A right to some material object becomes a relationship between one or
more individuals whose consent is necessary for the establishment of that
right. Even though the right to property is an individual claim to material
objects, it is a claim enforced by society and as such property is created by
society.
This is because the
enforceability that makes resource a LEGAL right, itself depends upon a
society’s belief that it is a MORAL right. The legal right must therefore be
grounded in a public belief that it is morally right. The production of wealth
is co-operative but consumption of goods is necessarily separate and
individualistic. It is important to encourage individuals’ originality and
invention. Giving to certain individuals the power to direct and organize the
work of others is essential.
1) Economic Justification of Private Property
Rights.
The classical liberal view is that private
property is a necessary condition for the generation of wealth and therefore
essential for operation of the capitalist economy. Initiated by Hume and
expanded by Bentham, the economic justification
influenced the development of Neo-classical theories of economic development
and currently forms the basis of the Economic views of Conservative
Politicians.
The concept assumes that individual rational
members of society are prompted by self-interest and as such enter into
production to make profit. In a free market therefore, rational individuals
compete so that in the end productivity is maximized and resources are
allocated to where they would be utilized with maximum efficiency. If the
market is to operate fully and freely to locate labor and resources
efficiently, then all resources need to be Privately Owned and Managed by
individual self-seekers.
Misgivings:
Ø The expansion in
production and consumption of goods in parts of the world has not totally
resulted from the institution of private property regimes.
Ø The market system is not
efficient in either allocating resources or distributing the benefits of
production.
Ø A law that merely
protects people in their possessions but does nothing to regulate acquisition
and distribution of wealth could be of little use.
Ø Private ownership of
property does not always lead to higher productivity or efficient allocation of
resources.
Ø Private individuals,
motivated by self-interest are often eager to sacrifice social interest for
immediate profits. They generally refrain from investing in projects that bring
great benefits to the society as a whole.
Ø The elimination of an
unsuccessful competitor from the market, even though a gain for the business
community, represents a great loss to the society in terms of reduced output,
higher price and a waste of capital
Ø The growth of
corporations with huge capital has increased the chances of market monopoly
under which the individual (or a corporation) uses unfair means to own
property.
2) Labor Justification for Private Property
Rights
Private property is sometimes justified on the
grounds that an individual is entitled to what get produced under his
initiative, intelligence, and general effort. Locke was one of the early
writers who argued for the labour theory of
property acquisition. Locke was of the opinion that it is only when the
individual appropriates what nature has given in common that the raw stuff of
nature becomes useful. Accordingly, labor puts a distinction between what
exists in common for common use and what an individual comes to own so that by
using one's labor to remove bits of the common resources that nature provides
for all, one fixes his or her rights in those things.
Misgivings:
Ø Under the bonds of
social interdependence characteristic of modern society, no individual member
of society can justly claim that his or her wealth is entirely created by unaided
effort of other people.
Ø To argue that a person
has the right to all that his labor produces means that other people are under
a moral obligation to let him enjoy all that his labor produces even if it
brings disastrous consequences to society.
Ø Reliance on the market
system to induce the allocation of resources including the labor of others
deprives workers the right to alienate their labor
Ø People who do not have
access to capital or land loose the product of their labor. Even those who sell
their labor to others for a wage in a modern industry loose a substantial part
of the product of their labor and the possibility of owning what they have
mixed their labor with.
Ø A person’s right to the
fruits of his labor involves the negation of that right in the non-inheritors
of the property.
Ø The practise
of bequeathing property to heirs who have done little about the property cannot
be justified under the labor theory of property.
Ø Locke’s theory of labor
only worked out for Americans as typical instances of people who live under
conditions where land is abundant. In a modern day society, people have to
agree to a disproportionate and unequal possession of the earth under this
labor theory
3) First Occupancy as a Basis for Private
Property.
The first occupant of the property acquires a
sacred right to the ownership of it for all eternity. Kant believed that a first occupant brings
out distinctiveness that introduces value into the property. The first
occupancy defence was cited by the Greeks and Romans
and provided part of the moral justification for the European conquest of the
Misgivings:
Ø
More
wealth has been accumulated by conquest, through the labor of many individuals
and by several forms of manipulation and coercion than by first occupancy.
Ø
With
the first occupancy argument, appropriation becomes exploitation and the right
of all to appropriate becomes the right of the powerful few to appropriate and
exclude the original inhabitants.
4) Personal
Under this theory, private property is regarded
as essential for the creation and protection of the inalienable rights of every
individual. Philosophers including Kant argued for the rights of the individual
against the state, and Hegel saw private property rights as the individual's
way of objectifying himself or herself and realizing external freedom. In a
society where material well-being is highly valued, the power to control part
of the materials from which the well-being is derived forms the foundation of
individual happiness.
Misgivings:
Ø
An
individual's exercise of a right impinges upon the right of others.
Ø
Domination
over material things is also domination over fellow human beings. Owners of capital
and land have the right to make economic decisions for others in the
society.
Ø
Individual
property rights in a market economy resemble a privilege and not a right.
A right calls for a corresponding duty so it is only under a privilege that an
individual may have an exclusive right to a property.
Theories and Economic Systems
Ø
Liberal
Theorists defend private property (CAPITALISM)
Ø
Socialist
Theorists argue for some form of state or collective property regime
(SOCIALISM),
Ø
Liberal
Democratic Theorists argue for a modified form of private property system
(WELFARE STATE) in which government intervenes in the allocation of material
resources to secure some self-sufficiency for the weak, unemployed and
underprivileged members of society.