Private Property, Freedom, and Order

Social Contract Theories from Hobbes To Rawls

Mehmet Kanatli

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000507133
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Storia e teoria politica

This book looks at how the ideas of freedom, property, and order are expressed in modern social contract theories (SCTs). Drawing on the theories of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls, it studies how notions of freedom promulgated by these SCTs invariably legitimise and defend the private ownership of the means of production. It argues that capitalism's impact on individual dependence and economic inequality still stems from this model, ultimately working in favour of proprietors.

The author highlights the problematic nature of SCTs, which work as ideological mechanisms put forward under the guise of formal equality and formal freedom, by focusing on the historical and social context behind them. From a methodological point of view, the author presents a de-ideologization of the contractarian issue and provides insight into the political 'layers' within the discourse of individualism, human nature and morality shaping the outer corners of contractarian theory.

An important intervention in the study of SCTs, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political and social theory, sociology, political history, and political philosophy.

1

The conceptual framework of private property and its relation with freedom and order

DOI: 10.4324/9781003159346-2

In political theory, there is a vast literature on the concept of private property. But there are few resources that directly deal with the relationship between private property, freedom, and order. In many sources it can be said that the concept of private ownership is blurred and even it is claimed that since the term private property has different meanings throughout the history, it is difficult to make a common definition of private property (Grey, 1980: 69). Even the more interesting point is the fact that the concept of private property is consciously desired by some liberal and libertarian scholars to be confused with the concept of property as ‘personal belongings’. Notably, since the concept of personal belonging, which is generally dealt with in the context of the legal framework of individual freedom, is regarded as a phenomenon that is not directly reflective of social relations especially of economic inequalities in a given society, the notion of freedom and its possible relation with private property is argued by liberal, libertarian, and even conservative scholars for the sake of justifying a private property-based economic and political order. In order to overcome such theoretical frizzles the first thing that should be done in terms of clarifying what private property is in this chapter is to make a distinction between the terms ‘property as personal belonging’ and ‘property as means of production’. If such a distinction is not made during the process of examining literature about what property is, it is clear to say that the notion of private property is vulnerable to be misused by ideological figures of bourgeoisie class as it has already done. For instance, the arguments put forward by some liberal and liberal conservative scholars such as Pipes, Hayek, Nozick, and Kirk which legitimate the idea that there is no difference between having a toothbrush and having a factory within the framework of individual possessiveness, in this respect, do indeed mask the reality that factory compared to toothbrush directly leads to social-economic inequalities, since a factory is a direct means of production. In other words, according to some liberal and conservative intellectuals having a toothbrush and having a factory are the same things in terms of justifying personal belongings and its necessity for realizing freedom. However, once the concept of private property is dealt with by distinguishing it from the concept of personal belongings, it is plain to say that the concept of private property as a means of production ownership of which plays a key role in founding economic base of a given society has a direct political, legal, and economic effect on social inequalities. Therefore, the relationship between private property, freedom, and order can first be understood by responding to the questions of ‘what does private property mean?’, ‘what are the property systems and how should they be assessed?’, and ‘what is the relationship between private property, freedom, and order?’, respectively. That is, a classification of property and property systems should be analyzed first in order to link the notion of property to freedom within the context of any political and economic order.

1.1. Property and property types

The idea of property as an individual possessiveness dates back to the Ancient Greek Mythological Period. We witness the idea of possessiveness even in Ancient Greek myths. For instance, the sentences following as:

after Zeus defeated Kronos, he became the only true owner of the universe…. Deciding to divide the universe, Zeus took the sky and gave his brother Poseidon the sea and Hades the underworld…. Then he classified the earth and especially Olympos as common ownership.

(Phillips, 2015: 19)

indicate that the idea of personal belongings dates back even before to first Greek philosophers who put forward comprehensive arguments concerning private property. Yet, what makes them different is based on the idea that they have put forward comprehensive arguments concerning private property compared to mythological arguments. When the first time Plato and Aristotle, arguments of whom were discussed in short in the introduction, in this regard, have argued the role that property must play in society, and since then, by defining what property means, almost every political philosopher has touched on the social role of property and its direct relation with freedom and order as well. The state’s position as a builder of order between private property and freedom has also been an important determinant which has been elaborately questioned by these scholars in terms of determining what the limit of individual property should be. Thereby, the origin of state which dates back to thousands of years ago as well as the relation of state with property and freedom have been discussed throughout history and are still being discussed today.

Different theoretical approaches, in this respect, explain the origin of the state and its relation with property and individuals’ freedoms by basing on different theoretical arguments. From anarchists’ arguments to conservatives’ arguments the ontological aspect of the property is explained from two different points of views. Yet, since the goal of this book is to argue the relationship between private property, freedom, and order within the context of social contract theories, it can be said that an unquestionable fact in social contract theories about the ontological aspect of state is based on the idea that the reason for the emergence of a state is protecting individuals’ basic rights including the right to private property derived from justification of natural rights or common agreement (Hobbes, 1985; Locke, 2003; Rousseau, 1999; Rawls, 1971). That is, the emergence of the state as an order founder in social contract theories is stemmed from consent-based agreement carried out by rational/reasonable individuals in order to make legal arrangements about what property is and who has the right to use that property. Since such an approach considers the state as a result of consent, the relation of state with the concept of private property and freedom is determined by the parties of that agreement as well. Any definition of property in social contract theories also determines its relationship with state and freedom; that is why a correct and comprehensive definition of property including its personal belonging and means of production versions is a core need.

Etymologically, “‘property’ derives from the Latin ‘proprius’, meaning particular to, or appropriate to, an individual person” (Pipes, 1999: xv). Though the word property arouses in our minds the idea of physical objects such as land, bank accounts, house, car, etc., it has much broader meaning including copyrights, patents, and even life and liberty in a Lockean sense as well. Since the concept of ownership has such a wide content, the concept of the property, first of all, ought to be divided into two categories as mentioned earlier. That is, ‘property as personal belongings’ and ‘property as a means of production’. A lot of things can be considered as personal belongings in this sense. From tubes of toothpaste to houses, clothes, and books which satisfy the basic needs of a human being can be regarded as non-productive and non-profit elements of the property once a communist economic order is taken into account. On the other hand, properties such as land, capital, factory, etc. which are productive forces can be regarded as property as means of production within the context of this categorization. Therefore, personal belongings differ from the property as a means of production in the sense that every kind of property system inevitably includes personal belongings. That is, one may have personal belongings no matter whether one lives in a common property-based economic order or a private property-based order.

Such a basic categorization is necessary especially when historical and anthropological works are examined. For instance, many ‘anthropological pieces of evidence’ discussed later clearly indicate that even in a common property system or collective property system people had their personal belongings such as clothes, toys, weapons, housings, jewelry, etc. in the history. Having made this distinction between property as personal belonging and property as means of production, it can be said that there are three property types which are private property system, common property system, and collective property system which have been applied from primitive communities to today’s capitalist societies as far as property is regarded as means of production. In other words, it is noteworthy to say that these three property systems have become dominant property systems at a certain time in a given society. At the same time, as Jeremy Waldron notes, socialists’, capitalists’, anarchists’, and conservatives’ understanding of property are derived from these three types of property system; that is why literature about the private property has to include common elements in social science (1988: 44). Given this brief info concerning the importance of property, the definitions of property in literature will vigorously clarify how property systems ought to be assessed as well.

1.1.1. Private property

There is much debate in the literature about what private property is. The most interesting of these is the hypothesis based on the argument that the notion of private property cannot be defined, for it has been used in different meanings throughout history. Moreover, according to this view, it is claimed that private property does play no essential role in modern political theory due to its elastic and ambiguous aspect of the definition. Thomas Grey (1980) is one of the pioneer writers of those who support this idea. In this sense, Grey’s hypothesis is based on three propositions (P) and three conclusions (C) which are pointed out in Table 1.1:

Table 1.1 Definitional ambiguities of private property

P1. The eighteenth-century conception of private property, which is also the ordinary conception, views private property which is only linked to material things.	Therefore	C1: The eighteenth century neglects various of intangible properties such as copy rights, proprietorship, etc.
P2. Traditional capitalism supported the notion of private property which is assessed as material things, and traditional Marxism attacked private property which is assessed as material things, as well.	Therefore	C2: Both traditional capitalism and Marxism are undermined in terms of assessing private property.
P3. There is not any similarity between the traditional understanding of property and current usage of property.	Therefore	C3: Property is no longer an important category in political theory.
Note: The information in the table was prepared and collated by using Thomas C. Grey’s work which is titled as “The Disintegration of Property”. See. Grey. Thomas C. (1980) “The Disintegration of Property”, in NOMOS XXII: Property edited by J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, New York: New York University Press, 69–85.

When the argument put forward in the table is examined it can be claimed that even though Grey’s hypothesis is thought-provoking, it sounds implausible owing to two specific reasons. First of all, the emerging of various aspects of private property throughout history does not mean the original meaning of private property is meaningless in the twenty-first century. It only can be claimed that the examples that are to be evaluated in the category of private property have been diversified throughout the history which does not undermine the reality and definition of private property in today’s political theory. Moreover, we regard the concept of private property like concept of freedom as one of the Essentially Contested Concepts and use them as object of inquiry in political theory discipline. In other words, although there are tens of categories in political theory such as freedom, equality, state, etc., all of the meanings of which have been changed throughout the history, political philosophers still regard them as categorical bases. That is, the understanding of justice, freedom, and equality may have been changed from one distinctive historical period to another historical period, yet this does not mean that we do not need to discuss what equality, freedom, and justice are and how they should be categorized in political theory.

Another hypothesis which has a skeptical attitude towards the definition of private property is based on a kind of pragmatic view. That is, according to this hypothesis, there cannot be any definition of private property; “since private property is indefinable it cannot serve as a useful concept in political and economic thought: nor can it be a point of interesting debate in political philosophy” (Noyes, in Waldron, 1988: 26). The main premise on which this hypothesis is based is about the one-dimensional relationship in analyzing the notion of private property. It is claimed by this group that the relation between a person and a thing does not lead to legal and economic relations, since economic and legal relations should involve a relation between persons not between a person and an object (Ibid: 28). Yet, such an approach to the concept of private property does not make much sense, because it ignores the potential emergence of multidimensional relations of private property in a free-market economy. That is, suppose you live and have a car in a capitalist social order in which ‘basic rules of a free market-based economy’¹ determine most of the economic and social relations. In such a society you are allowed to rent or sell your car to another person because you have rights concerning how to control and use your own material resource. In free-market economy-based society since you are allowed to sell, rent, or exchange your personal belongings, your economic relations will negatively or positively affect other groups in society in terms of economic and social inequalities. In other words, such a social order inevitably may lead to a social order in which the more you may get richer the more other people of the society may get poorer and vice-a-versa even if the thing you have is your personal belonging.

However, suppose you live in a society in which material resources are used collectively or commonly and money is not in use which means you are not allowed to rent or sell your personal belongings, since all people’s personal basic needs have already been satisfied. Thus, only in such a collective property-based social order is it possible to say that the relation between a person and a thing does not lead to legal and economic relations in terms of social-economic inequalities. Thus, what needs to be said is that in a free-market economy the relation between a person and an object does lead to legal and economic relations, that is, to multidimensional relations in terms of both economic and social inequalities.

Apart from these skeptical and critical arguments which deny any possibility of definition of private property and private property system as well, it can be claimed that the notions of private property and private property system are concepts that need to be considered together. In this regard, private property can shortly and particularly be defined as “that domination which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the World, in exclusion of every other individual” (Madison, in Pipes, 1999: vii). More importantly, another comprehensive argument related to private property is clarified by Fahri Bakırcı (2004). In this regard, Bakırcı defines one of the important aspects of private property system as “a system of rules governing ownership and control on tangible assets” (Bakırcı, 2004: 139). Yet, it is noteworthy to say that ‘by rules concerning tangible assets’ Bakırcı does not mean all rules concerning tangible assets. Therefore, property here is directly related to the question of ‘who will use that asset and when to use the material asset?’ (Ibid). Nozick, in this sense, regards private property as something which enables the possessor to decide how to use this thing by underlining the basic core of possessing private property in the sense that private property gives its owner the right to do what he or she wants about that thing (Nozick, 1971: 171).

What distinguishes private property system from common and collective property systems is rested on the idea that any material resource can be possessed by a person or a group as their rights. As far as private property system is concerned, in this system, as Waldron writes, “the rules governing access to and control of material resources are organized around the idea that resources are on the whole separate objects each assigned and therefore belonging to some particular individual” (Waldron, 1988: 38). Moreover, in a private property system, any person who is entitled to his/her specific object is the same person who will decide how to and whom to use this object. Therefore, the response to the questions of ‘how are resources allocated?’ and ‘how should they be used?’ leads to the point which distinguishes the private property system from other kinds of property systems. That is, as Eleftheriadis argues, what distinguishes a private property system from other property systems is based on the idea that in a private property system “property owner is not simply the current possessor but the one who has a ‘final determination’ over the use of the thing” (Eleftheriadis, 1996: 35).

The common point of these definitions is that in order to be able to name something as private property, the first thing need to be expressed is a need for making a relation between a subject and an object. Additionally, as can be understood from these definitions, the principle of ownership between subject and object is necessary in terms of analyzing the pri...