Ownership in an Equitable Society
Chapter Four: Ownership in an Equitable Society (from the Case for the Equitable Society — unpublished)
The equitable person must be very careful to limit the right of ownership in a manner that does not violate the principle of equality. The right to property has become so ingrained in western thought that most of us haven’t considered thoroughly what private ownership means. Let us examine the right to property and then subsequently discuss the limitations thereof.
The right to property is the right for a person to keep in one’s possession a certain object. For said object, this right immediately reduces the rights of all other humans by a factor of one object that they could otherwise use, potentially use up completely. If you own something, then you own it to the exclusion of someone else, or there would be little point in making the claim that you own it. If I own something, yet others may freely take it from me, then I can’t be said to own that object. So ownership has two sides: it gives rights to the owner and takes rights away from everyone else.
If you own something, then you own it to the exclusion to someone else, or there would be little point in making the claim that you own it.
Traditional Ownership
We should explore what ownership means in western society today. To do this, we’ll use a thought experiment. For the simplest situation, suppose two travelers discover a peculiarly shaped rock which confers upon both of them the desire to possess it. Which has the right to ‘own’ the found resource? The traditional model stems from might makes right (i.e. the natural model), so in our thought experiment, if our two finders happen upon the rock at the same time, one will walk away with the rock, and the other with an injury and resentment. Or, some philosophers invoke deus ex machina at this point, suggesting that God has dictated that individuals have a right to ownership, regardless of their strength. Note that this argument relies on the hierarchal model and that the reason the God argument even works is that it’s a derivation of might makes right, taken to logical extremes. An all-powerful being has been created to level the playing field for everyone else.
Equitable Ownership
Under an equitable ownership model, the individual claiming ownership can only have ownership if the other voluntarily gives up any ownership claim. This may seem odd, but even in the might-makes-right case, for ownership to attain any sort of permanence, the individual who is deprived must agree to be deprived implicitly. Otherwise, the ownership only lasts as long as the mighty owner can defend his right to possess it, in which case, theft, and property transference aren’t possible and therefore there is no real ownership right at all.
A person who values equality will suggest that they should share the rock equally, or that nobody should own the rock. Let’s take the basic case: two travelers come upon a rock. For them, sharing the rock may work. If, however, there exist a thousand travelers, and still only one rock, then such a rock could not be shared, and another way must be found. To clarify, for those situations in which it is impossible to share resources, such as when the number of people in the society grows to such an extent that the time allocated to share a resource is insufficient to accomplish anything useful with it, or in an alternate case, wherein a resource which may be divided (such as food) splits too many times to be useful, then society must choose a fair way to select someone who may use the resource.
This concept becomes even more important if we substitute rock with items of sustenance. Then the nature of the question of property changes from one of ownership, to one of life or death. There being only a single fish, or ear of corn, and with individuals on the brink of starvation, who should then eat?
Self-preservation would require that each person attempt to consume the limited resource for him or herself, and thus, would result in violence (individual survival can often be in direct conflict with social good). The inequitable individual would find themselves chained by their instincts of self-preservation and locked into that competition for the resource. The rational, but not altogether equitable, individual might suggest that whoever manages to acquire the food through force or coercion is the fittest and hence should be afforded the opportunity for food in order to best perpetuate the species. Another rational person might suggest that whoever needs the food the most should be awarded it to eat, as then multiple people would be allowed to live longer and work together to find more food. More people might better ensure the survival of humanity than choosing a specific person.
The equitable person, however, would make the decision based on who would be the best capable of furthering the ideal of an equitable society. This is the equitable solution to the problem, but it requires thought and careful deliberation—things in short supply when scarcity is at play. We will explore this further, but for now, we are attempting to define equitable ownership and these are only examples for consideration.
What, then, is equitable ownership? Equitable ownership is ownership that acknowledges the fact that for me to own anything, everyone else must agree to give up their own claim to it. Therefore, in the case of food, everyone must agree that I am the person to whom it makes the most sense to give the last of such a scarce commodity. In trading away the rights of others in the group to lay claim to the food, the individual who accepts the food is therefore charged immediately with using it to the benefit of the group.
Equitable ownership is an ownership that recognizes not only someone’s right to own something but also the fact that in order to own something, everyone else must lose a right the same.
Corollary Concern about Rights Generally
The above raises an interesting corollary question: is there any right to which an individual is guaranteed to have, independent of the acquiescence of the community in which they exist? It may be confusing as to why, but the answer is no.
Even the right to life is not beyond the reach of the principle of equitable ownership. People must eat, and eat objects. Back to the ear of corn argument—if someone eats an ear of corn then no one else can eat that same ear of corn. As such, corn is property, and anything which exists which can be used for sustenance is also property. Therefore, it is the communal right of everyone to care for said property and to determine how the property is distributed. The choice of who lives or dies within a community must then be dictated by the community as a whole with regard to whether that person may partake of the sustenance available within that community.
Only in isolation may a person be in possession of rights to the exclusion of others. That is because rights belong to a population and not a person, and in isolation, the person is the entire population. A mistake that philosophers have made in the past is to consider this special case (of isolation) as the general case and to begin their philosophical exploration by imbuing the individual with all manner of rights, ignoring the more general truth: an individual rarely exists in isolation. This is a mistake and warps thinking by stripping away the complexity of human interaction.
Many may cringe at the idea that their very right to exist is granted at the will of the community. If this is you, then it may be of some comfort to understand that as much as life is a shared right, not only does the individual not have that right except that it is granted to them by others, but nor does any one person have the right to take the life of another without the consent of the larger community.
This essay is part of a series. Search on the tag “equitable society” for related essays. The evolution of society should always be pushing forward, always toward the most equitable solution for us all. There is a way forward that doesn’t involve violence, but it may involve a reimagining of the world we must create together.
