Rights Theory, Book/Article Reviews
How Liberty Upsets Property
We might want to say a person has full ownership in some object X iff she has:
- A right to exclude others from using X.
- A right to use X.
- A right to compensation from those that destroy or damage X.
- A right to modify, waste, or destroy X.
- A right to income from the use of X or forgoing of the use of X.
- An absence of term–these rights are of infinite duration.
- A power of transfer–the power to transfer these rights to others by consent.
- NB: Call each of these, 1-7, an incident of a property right.
Gaus concludes:
We saw that, while this argument seems plausibly to support the idea that each person has an extensive domain in which to lead her life in her own way, based on her own values, projects and ends, it does not lead to the ideal of full ownership; to be maximally responsive to a person’s ends and values, it would seem a system of property must allow people to devise domains that best suit their ends and purposes, and this very ideal will lead to fragmenting property. But while this ideal does not lead to the classic idea of full ownership, it does, I think, endorse a system of strong and extensive property rights. It requires a system of strong property rights insofar as, whatever incidents are part of one’s domain, unless these rights are weighty, they will not provide a secure basis for living one’s life as one sees fit. To grant property rights, but allow that these are easily overridden by other moral and policy considerations, hardly makes them a crucial tool in living one’s own life in one’s own way. And of course in a more nuanced account of strength.