Property Rights Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Property rights are at the foundation of liberal democratic societies and social orders. However, how property rights are justified, and accounts of their limits, are matters of considerable debate. Nevertheless, the protection of property rights is a primary function of the liberal state and forms the basis of liberal freedom. While in liberal theory, property rights are private—that is, rights of individuals to their own property, and to use and exploit it as they will—the centrality of property rights to liberalism stems from historical opposition to the arbitrary power of absolutist forms of government. Property rights can therefore usefully be understood as functioning to impose constraints on political author ity and create spheres of private liberty.

The most well-known liberal defense of private property is John Locke’s argument in Chapter 5 of his Second Treatise of Government. In contrast to theorists before him, most notably Thomas Hobbes, Locke attempts to make the case for the natural right to property. For Hobbes, property rights could not come into being prior to a political authority assigning them. In this sense, property rights are artificial creations or are conventional. Locke’s argument focuses on the implication of this view, emphasizing that if the state in fact creates property rights, then there are no good reasons, or constraints, against the state imposing limits on them—thus, according to Locke, limiting the freedom of individuals.

Locke presents an elaborate argument for the development and possibility of natural property rights. His argument hinges on the principle of self-ownership, such that when one mixes one’s self-owned labor with an external object, the ownership extends to that object—through laboring, individuals take resources (most notably land) out of the pool of common ownership and acquire exclusive rights over it. There are initial limits on appropriation, which the introduction of money and improvements in general welfare overcome. In time, when the great bulk of the land is removed from common ownership and the distribution of the earth’s resources becomes increasingly unequal, natural property rights grow insecure. From the insecurity and “inconvenience” of all individuals protecting their own property, persons together can consent to create a common authority restricted to protect “life, liberty, and property.” While there is debate as to Locke’s understanding of the role of the state with respect to the common good, modern libertarians, notably Robert Nozick, defend Locke’s view of property rights preceding the state imposing “side-constraints” on the extent of its legitimate authority.

Locke’s theory specifically, and liberal property rights in general, have been the subject of diverse and intense criticism. An early and still influential argument against Locke is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Entrenching initial property distributions as natural rights, according to Rousseau, is a form of institutionalized theft. Appealing to the principle of individual consent cannot legitimatize them, since no rational individual would consent to a system designed to institutionalize one’s own deprivation. Notably, Locke leaves the property less outside of the consenting process.

Perhaps the most well-known indictment of property rights is that of Karl Marx. Property rights, for Marx, are the foundation of the bourgeoisie’s exploitation of the proletariat. With no property of their own, the working class is compelled to sell their labor to property owners. Since labor, according to Marx, is the source of value, to make profit, capitalists necessarily exploit laborers in extracting surplus value. The postcapitalist communist society is thus based on the abolition of private property.

The appeal to liberty and natural rights is not the only type of liberal defense for property rights. Many theorists, including Locke, appeal to the beneficial consequences of a system of property ownership and make broadly utilitarian arguments for it. One of the most well-known examples of this type of argument is found in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. For Smith, a system in which each individual pursues personal interests will produce more socially beneficial results than a system based on common ownership or nonownership. Other arguments for the social efficiency of property rights include Douglass North and Robert Thomas’s account in The Rise of the Western World, where they attribute this “rise” to the efficiency gains resulting from the development of property rights.

Bibliography:

Hobbes,Thomas. Leviathan. Edited by Richard Tuck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. The Communist Manifesto. Edited by E. Hobsbawm. New York:Verso, 1998.
North, Douglass, and Robert Thomas. The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1992.
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. London: Dent, 1964.

This example Property Rights Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.