Property Is Theft

So, alright, Proudhon responds to Locke’s assertion on the right to private property. I guess I am just a wee bit naive. Both of these cats argue their positions on the basis of Natural Law—the God thing—, and silly me being an atheist just don’t seem to get it. But let us suppose just for a moment that I am a God-fearing Christian Conservative. I still don’t get Locke’s point in his Second Treatise to Government.

“God, who hath given the World to Men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of Life, and convenience. The Earth, and all that is therein, is given to Men for the Support and Comfort of their being.”

I guess I understand his bit about appropriation, sort of, but how can man own property? I’ll start with so-called real property. From whom does he acquire it? Nobody owned it in the first place. All people have equal rights to all “property.”
Property was originally acquired through murder, or at least violence and exploitation. Once acquired, it was maintained through violence, as it still is through laws enforced by Police powers, but it was never available for sale because nobody owned it in the first place. I have no right to happen upon some vacant land—let us say an unchartered isle—claim it as my own and sell it anymore than a government can murder some indigenous peoples and distribute the land to whomever it pleases. These benefactors then use this land as means to production, exploiting at every turn the labourers who toil and give the land value. Nowadays, the labourers are of even less in favour of technological solutions, but the exploitation continues.

Land—the dirt we walk on—is a common good. It cannot be bought and sold. It is no one’s to sell. Where did this originate? Nothing in this world is more harmful than Religiosity. So, what about other property? Surely that can be owned, right? A tree is grown on common ground. Whose property is it? Of course, it, too, is common property. What if someone labours to fashion the tree into a bench? Can that be property? Well, no. If the tree is common property, then the bench cannot become private property? How can it be? The problem arises, methinks, when we attempt to employ an monetary economic system on these goods, but then again one cannot barter away what is not his anyway.

OK, so what then? Should I not be rewarded for my labour? I suppose one could trade the value added by ones labour but only the incremental amount. This does not change the fact that the base to which the labour was applied still belongs in the public realm. I guess property really is theft.

LVX

~ by tfacblog on May 29, 2007.