NATURE AND SCOPE OF PROPERTY

WHAT IS PROPERTY?

• Right to property is derived from the general theory of rights, but it is a complex issue.
• In cases like liberty, it’s easier to identify where one individual’s right may infringe upon another’s, but this is harder with the right to property.
• Property can be:
  • Inherited or occupied by chance, force, or tradition (e.g., landed property).
  • A product of cooperative effort, involving various individuals’ labor, skills, and investment (e.g., buildings, machinery, capital assets).
• However, an individual’s share in the product of their labor is often not determined by their contribution but by external factors like:
  • Market forces (demand, supply, competition),
  • Conditions of previous investment (pre-existing ownership),
  • Technological development and related social relations (master-slave, lord-serf, capitalist-worker).
• This creates ample scope for exploitation.
• The prevailing pattern of property ownership often does not reflect an individual’s true contribution to society.
• If property rights continue without addressing these inequalities, they contradict the moral basis of granting rights.
• The key issue is how to ensure the right to property serves social justice instead of becoming a weapon of exploitation.
• Social justice aims to prevent the concentration of valuable community resources (wealth, prestige, power) in the hands of a few.
• It seeks to create a social order where deprived and underprivileged groups can gain a respectable share of wealth based on their ability, effort, and need.
• The right to property is often questioned when it leads to concentration of wealth and obstructs others from accessing wealth.
• The right to property can divide society into ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, threatening the spirit of fraternity and brotherhood.
• Disparities in wealth, along with resulting differences in prestige and power, are sometimes justified by pseudo-religious pretensions (e.g., poverty as a result of past actions or divine ordination).
• These justifications are seen as poor consolation and a way to cover up existing injustice.
• The true justification for the right to property should be grounded in the existing institutional framework, not based on supernatural or divine compensation.
• Henri Amiel (1821-81) remarked: “We are always making God our accomplice so that we may legalize our own inequities.”

SCOPE OF PROPERTY

• The term ‘property’ or ‘private property’ refers to the possession of material things that are open to personal or selfish use.
• Material things may also include documents like promissory notes, patents, shares, guarantees, etc., which represent an individual’s entitlement to property, even if not in their physical possession.
• Birds and animals, like material things, may also be an individual’s property.
• Property in the form of human beings (e.g., the right to keep slaves) was once recognized, but is no longer considered legitimate in modern consciousness.
• Modern consciousness views all human beings as end-in-themselves, not as means to an end.
• No human being, regardless of birth or station, can be reduced to being the private property of another.
• Modern political theory analyzes the right to property from various perspectives, with liberal, social-democratic, and Marxist perspectives being particularly important.