Propertarianism

Propertarianism, or proprietarianism, is a political philosophy that reduces all questions of law to the right to own property.Ralf M. Bader, John Meadowcroft, eds. (2011), The Cambridge Companion to Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, Cambridge University Press, p. 151. {{ISBN?}} On property rights, it advocates private property on the basis of Lockean sticky property norms, where an owner keeps their property more or less until they consent to gift or sell it, rejecting the Lockean proviso. Propertarianism is often described by its advocates as either synonymous with capitalism or its logical conclusion.Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1967). Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal. New York City: Signet. {{ISBN?}}

Closely related to and overlapping with right-libertarianism, it is also often accompanied with the idea that state monopoly law should be replaced by market-generated law centered on contractual relationships. Propertarian ideals are most commonly cited to advocate for an anarcho-capitalist or minarchist society, with governance systems either limited to enforcing contracts and private property or abolished through total privatization of its basic functions.

History

The term appears to have been coined by Edward Cain in 1963:

Since their use of the word "liberty" refers almost exclusively to property, it would be helpful if we had some other word, such as "propertarian," to describe them. [...] Novelist Ayn Rand is not a conservative at all but claims to be very relevant. She is a radical capitalist, and is the closest to what I mean by a propertarian.{{cite book|author=Edward Cain|title=They'd Rather Be Right: Youth and the Conservative Movement|publisher=Macmillan|pages=32–36|year=1963|asin=B0000CLYF9|oclc=979693144}}

Marcus Cunliffe defined propertarianism in his 1973 lectures as "characteristic values of American history" in regard to property.Hans Joachim Morgenthau, (Kenneth W. Thompson, Robert John Myers, Editors), Truth and tragedy: a tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau, Transaction Publishers, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4ejXvbBV0ocC&q=cunliffe&pg=PA174 p. 165], 1984 {{ISBN|0878558667}}.Marcus Cunliffe (1974), The right to property: a theme in American history, Sir George Watson lecture delivered in the University of Leicester, 4 May 1973, Leicester University Press, {{ISBN|978-0718511296}}Rob Kroes, Them and us: questions of citizenship in a globalizing world, University of Illinois Press, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QQ0ysmUUjFYC&dq=%22propertarianism%22+is+Cunliffe%27s&pg=PA208 p. 208], 2000 {{ISBN|0252069099}}Marcus Cunliffe, In search of America: transatlantic essays, 1951–1990, p. 307, 1991.

Philosopher Robert Nozick formalized Locke's approach in his book "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" with the Entitlement Theory of Justice, specifying criteria for just original acquisition, just transfer, and rectification.

David Boaz writes that the "propertarian approach to privacy", both morally and legally, has ensured Americans' privacy rights.David Boaz, Cato Institute, Toward liberty: the idea that is changing the world : 25 years of public policy from the Cato Institute, Cato Institute, [https://books.google.com/books?id=81to23W3wB0C&dq=Propertarian&pg=PA386 p. 386], 2002 {{ISBN|1930865279}}

Markus Verhaegh states that Rothbardian anarcho-capitalism advocates the neo-Lockean idea that property only legitimately originates from labor and may then only legitimately change hands by trade or gift.{{cite journal|last=Verhaegh|first=Marcus|year=2006|title=Rothbard as a Political Philosopher|url=http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_4/20_4_1.pdf|journal=Journal of Libertarian Studies|volume=20|issue=4|page=3|access-date=2009-09-01|archive-date=2013-09-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130911003819/http://mises.org/journals/jls/20_4/20_4_1.pdf|url-status=live}} Brian Doherty describes Murray Rothbard's form of libertarianism as propertarian because he "reduced all human rights to rights of property, beginning with the natural right of self-ownership".{{cite encyclopedia|last=Doherty|first=Brian|author-link=Brian Doherty (journalist)|editor-first=Ronald|editor-last=Hamowy|editor-link=Ronald Hamowy|encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|title=Rothbard, Murray (1926–1995)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|year=2008|publisher=Sage; Cato Institute|location=Thousand Oaks, CA|doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n271|isbn=978-1412965804|oclc=750831024|lccn=2008009151|pages=442–445|access-date=2016-10-12|archive-date=2023-01-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230109234738/https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}

L. Neil Smith describes propertarianism as a positive libertarian philosophy in his alternate history novels The Probability Broach (1980) and The American Zone (2002).L. Neil Smith (2002), The American Zone, p. 167. {{ISBN?}}John J. Pierce, When world views collide: a study in imagination and evolution, p. 163, 1989.

Alternative meanings

Hans Morgenthau used propertarianism to characterize the connection between property and suffrage.Hans Morgenthua, [https://books.google.com/books?id=4ejXvbBV0ocC&q=cunliffe&pg=PA174 p. 174] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240209000217/https://books.google.com/books?id=4ejXvbBV0ocC&q=cunliffe&pg=PA174 |date=2024-02-09 }}.

Criticism

In the science fiction novel The Dispossessed (1974), author Ursula K. Le Guin contrasted a propertarian statist society with an anarchist anti-propertarian societyUrsela K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed, HarperCollins, [https://books.google.com/books?id=k1Smynbdy_IC&q=propertarian&pg=PA326 various pages] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240209000244/https://books.google.com/books?id=k1Smynbdy_IC&q=propertarian&pg=PA326 |date=2024-02-09 }}, 2003 {{ISBN|006051275X}}.John P. Reeder, Source, sanction, and salvation: religion and morality in Judaic and Christian traditions, [https://archive.org/details/sourcesanctionsa00reed p. 113], 1988. Reeder uses phrase "nonpropertarian" to describe Le Guin's views. in an attempt to show that property and state objectified human beings.Laurence Davis, Peter G. Stillman, The new utopian politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The dispossessed, Lexington Books, [https://books.google.com/books?id=9goKmJQaMzEC&dq=Ursula+K.+Le+Guin+propertarian&pg=PR17 p. xvii] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240209000416/https://books.google.com/books?id=9goKmJQaMzEC&dq=Ursula+K.+Le+Guin+propertarian&pg=PR17#v=onepage&q=Ursula%20K.%20Le%20Guin%20propertarian&f=false |date=2024-02-09 }}, 2005.[http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/delany52interview.htm On Triton and Other Matters: An Interview with Samuel R. Delany] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719163943/http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/interviews/delany52interview.htm |date=2021-07-19 }}, Science Fiction Studies, November 1990.

Murray Bookchin objected to propertarians calling themselves libertarians, arguing:

We have permitted cynical political reactionaries and the spokesmen of large corporations to pre-empt these basic libertarian American ideals. We have permitted them not only to become the specious voice of these ideals such that individualism has been used to justify egotism; the pursuit of happiness to justify greed, and even our emphasis on local and regional autonomy has been used to justify parochialism, insularism, and exclusivity – often against ethnic minorities and so-called deviant individuals. We have even permitted these reactionaries to stake out a claim to the word libertarian, a word, in fact, that was literally devised in the 1890s in France by Elisée Reclus as a substitute for the word anarchist, which the government had rendered an illegal expression for identifying one's views. The propertarians, in effect – acolytes of Ayn Rand, the earth mother of greed, egotism, and the virtues of property – have appropriated expressions and traditions that should have been expressed by radicals but were willfully neglected because of the lure of European and Asian traditions of socialism, socialisms that are now entering into decline in the very countries in which they originated.Murray Bookchin, The Greening of Politics: Toward a New Kind of Political Practice, Green Perspectives: Newsletter of the Green Program Project, No. 1 January 1986 [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives1.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001223850/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives1.html|date=2019-10-01}}.

Bookchin described three concepts of possession: property itself; possession; and usufruct (i.e. appropriation of resources by virtue of use.Ellie Clement and Charles Oppenheim, Department of Information Science, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics Great Britain, [http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/articles/ClementOppenheim.pdf Anarchism, Alternative Publishers and Copyright] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180216090420/http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/articles/ClementOppenheim.pdf |date=2018-02-16 }}, [http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/ Journal of Anarchist Studies] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201030172016/http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/journals/anarchiststudies/ |date=2020-10-30 }}, undated.)

Some critics charge that this prevents freedom from making sense as an independent value in anarcho capitalist theory:{{cite web |last = McKay |first = Iain |date = 2012 |orig-date = 2008 |title = An Anarchist FAQ – Appendix: Anarchism and "Anarcho"-capitalism – 2 What do “anarcho”-capitalists mean by “freedom”? |url = https://anarchism.pageabode.com/book/2-what-do-anarcho-capitalists-mean-by-freedom/ |publisher = AK Press |location = Edinburgh and Oakland |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20250127212945/https://anarchism.pageabode.com/book/2-what-do-anarcho-capitalists-mean-by-freedom/ |archive-date = 27 January 2025 |url-status = live |access-date = 30 April 2025}}

{{Quote|text= Looking at Rothbard’s definition of "liberty" quoted above, we can see that freedom is actually no longer considered to be a fundamental, independent concept. Instead, freedom is a derivative of something more fundamental, namely the "legitimate rights" of an individual, which are identified as property rights. In other words, given that "anarcho"-capitalists and right libertarians in general consider the right to property as "absolute," it follows that freedom and property become one and the same. This suggests an alternative name for the right Libertarian, namely "Propertarian." And, needless to say, if we do not accept the right-libertarians’ view of what constitutes "legitimate" "rights," then their claim to be defenders of liberty is weak. |author= Iain Mckay.(2008/2012) |title= Appendix: Anarchism and "Anarcho"-capitalism. |source= }}

References

Category:Anarcho-capitalism

Category:Libertarian theory

Category:Political theories

Propertarianism

History

Alternative meanings

Criticism

See also

References