The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.
– John Locke
Let’s say you’re eating a sandwich. Then, some dude walks up and takes it from you. He takes a big bite out of it, and he starts to walk away with your sandwich in his hand. What do you do? You could confront the man, or you could just allow him to walk away with your sandwich. If you choose to confront him, then you may find yourself in physical conflict. Can you overpower him if necessary? Or would he overpower you? What if he had a weapon? Is the sandwich even worth the trouble? What if it was your car that he took, though, or your home? We have laws that say he can’t do this. We have procedures for reporting this action as a crime. We have an entire legal system created around property ownership and its protection. We even have trained and armed people with the authority to seize and cage someone for such theft of another person’s private property. For the idea of personal property to exist, there must be a government and a system that enforces it.
Ownership
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
– Chief Seattle
What allows someone to own land? Is a human owning land less comical than an ant claiming ownership of a field? Many spiritual leaders and poets, throughout history and across the globe, have put forward the idea that the earth cannot be owned. “You do not possess the land; the land possesses you,” reads an ancient Zen proverb. “The Earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich or powerful,” from the Reg Vida. Even Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, “The possession of all things in common is the natural law, while private property is due to human convention.” Aquinas seemed to believe literally in, and hold fast to, the words of the Bible, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” Psalm 24:1. Yet, regardless of what seems sage advice, land and property have been privately owned since the beginning of civilization.
The earliest written records (Sumer circa 3,000 BCE) reveal private land ownership among the elite. The Code of Hammurabi (circa 1,750 BCE) in Mesopotamia codified property rights in written laws, which were enforced by the government.
In Ancient Greece, the concept of property became central in debates about justice, politics, and ethics. Aristotle believed private property allowed individuals to be self-sufficient and provide overall better stewardship of resources. He also recognized the dangers of property ownership to create extreme inequalities, and he proposed common ownership for some items, such as public infrastructure and natural resources.
As the Roman Republic spread across the Western hemisphere and became the Roman Empire, the bureaucracy therein developed laws and elaborate systems for the management of private ownership. The Romans believed that property was a fundamental right, and individuals could buy, sell, and inherit land and goods. With complex laws and procedures, the Romans established the foundations of our modern concept of private ownership and the government’s role in protecting, facilitating, and taxing it.
After the collapse of Rome, Europe was dominated by a feudal system. Individuals had no rights to own anything. Everything was subject to the king. The kings would grant property rights to lords and vassals in exchange for loyalty and military service. Peasants or serfs worked the land, but it was owned by the lord or monarch, as the peasants did not have the right to sell or transfer the land and were often bound to the land they worked through debt of service.
The European Renaissance saw a revival of interest in classical ideas of property. Individual property rights were put forward as a key democratic idea for the liberation of the people from the authoritarian feudal system. Such rights were for the good of the people and would serve to create a middle class. Though riddled, of course, with inequities, significant democratic progress was made by the proliferation of the concept of individual property ownership rights. More and more people were getting better off over time as a direct result of the concept of private land ownership as protected by law.
This “lots of ships rise” societal result is what led Protestant thinkers of the Reformation, like John Calvin and Martin Luther, to emphasize private property as a moral good. While Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke proclaimed property rights as natural rights, and Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management.”
The French Revolution was shaped by abolishing feudal privileges and encouraging the rights of individuals to own property, even though the revolution’s most famous philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argued that property rights were artificial and perpetuated inequality.
The spread of democratic government across the Western world was anchored in individual property rights and a staunch belief in the importance of those rights. The rise of industrialism and capitalism expanded the notion of private property to include factories, machinery, and other forms of capital.
In the 20th Century, wealth became increasingly based on the ownership of capital. And private ownership became the central difference between two economic principles that kept the world on the brink of war for the better part of the century. The fundamental difference between capitalism and communism is private property and capital ownership. “The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property,” said Karl Marx himself. The USSR, a false communist nation, used the idyllic abolition of property rights as an excuse for the government to take control of all property. The USSR was not a communist utopia but a dystopian authoritarian state.
Of course, communism was created as a revolution of the people, to represent working people and not wealthy elites. The irony is that individual property ownership had been introduced for the same reason–to represent the working class and not the wealthy elites. What all true revolutions of the people have in common is that they serve to redistribute power and wealth from the elite to the working and lower classes. If a movement is, instead, working to consolidate power and wealth to the top, then it is not a revolution of the people but a soft takeover of a nation by an oligarchy (supported by the plutocracy). They will call it a revolution of the people, but the proof is economic.
I believe that individual property rights are good for a democratic society. A democratic economy needs private property ownership, and that ownership should be spread as widely across the entire population as possible. I do think the state must intervene through regulations, taxes, and zoning laws. But in general, the wide distribution of property is a wide distribution of wealth and a wide distribution of power. This is the intended outcome of a democratic government. When the ownership of property is consolidated–be it by a communist state, a fascist dictator, or a wealthy elite–that consolidation leads to great disparity and ultimately to authoritarian control. For, he who controls the land controls the people.