fundamental political principles (and fulfilling a rant request)

[cellio]

A few weeks ago sekhmets_song posted a poll asking "What do you see as the most fundamental political issue?", with options like "education", "religion", "gender identity", and others. profane_stencil posted the same poll. In both cases the most popular answer was "class".

I, on the other hand, feel that the most significant political issue, the foundation on which many others are built, is property -- not who has it (this isn't "class" in disguise) but rather what we believe about property rights. At least for domestic policy; this doesn't work as well for international issues. I've been meaning to write more about this since then, but I've been busy. But hey, I'll take a stab at it now.

I think one's view of property informs many other beliefs -- everything from taxes to abortion to the judicial system. A generic western capitalist probably wants to keep taxes low (keep more of my money), thinks medical decisions belong to the individual (my body belongs to me), favors some level of civil torts (compensate me for damages done to my property), and so on. A lot of the thinking can reduce to "it's my property and I get to decide how to use it".

This view is probably pretty foreign to the generic socialist. (Disclaimer: I must rely more on observation than direct experience in this analysis.) Property really doesn't belong to you, so you don't get to control it -- it's perfectly ok to take from you to help someone else, because helping everyone is the goal and it's all public resources anyway. If socialists thought about their high taxes in terms of "the money they're taking from me", they might not support those high taxes. But since property belongs to everyone, it's not really "my" money, at least not mostly. Sure, we can all benefit individually from our labor, but only with what's left over after meeting everyone else's needs.

(Yes, of course this is an over-simplification. But if you think I've completely missed the mark please speak up.)

In trying to put this in words I realized that the foundation does seem stronger for the first position than for the second. This might just be that it's easier to support positives than negatives. It's not that the socialist is explicit about his view of property rights, but I still think the view comes through by implication.

Many issues depend on this. Education? One view is that you should have access to whatever you can afford (including by being good enough to win sponsorship); the opposing view is that education should be provided to all for no cost for the public good. Health care? Really, it's the same argument. Labor policies? One view is that I should be able to sell my services for whatever price I can get (even a very low one, if that's all I can get); the opposing view is that people have an inherent right to a certain level of financial support and that it's ok to compel employers and forbid low-bidding workers.

While some in the US today seem to think that religion is the fundamental issue (at least in its fundamentalist-Christian flavor), I think that the issues actually being argued under that guise often boil down to property. The right-to-die issue , for example, isn't about religious values at its core; it's about control over the individual. If I believe that I own myself, it would be unthinkable for me to intervene in your decisions even if it's a decision I myself would never make; if I think that the community owns me, then of course it has the right to intervene.

It's not evil to believe in property rights, nor is it inconsistent with supporting those around you. I, personally, believe very strongly in the legal right to the fruits of my labors, the obligation to cover my own expenses (and not take from others), the expectation that I use some of my resources to provide for myself in the future, and the moral obligation to support those who cannot do so. That moral obligation comes from a combination of religion, upbringing, and enlightened self-interest, but the key is that I give, not that someone else takes.

So to me this means taxes for necessary infrastructure and private charity for support, not taxes to be redistributed (at high overhead) by a government that tries to serve everyone from a distance. And yes, I realize that this approach breaks down in large groups; smaller communities take care of themselves better than large nations do. I don't know what is practical to implement in the US today, but a lot of what we're doing now runs counter to property rights, so I find myself getting bugged by it from time to time. For example, I've known for years that I am part of the generation that's going to pay for retirement twice -- once for those retiring before me and once for myself because those who come after me won't be able to support my peer group. From a property-rights view this is fundamentally unfair, even if -- absent the taking of that money from my paycheck -- I would turn around and spend that amount to support others anyway.

Comments

[siderea]

If socialists thought about their high taxes in terms of "the money they're taking from me", they might not support those high taxes.

I think you are mistaken in thinking that they don't already think of it as "the money they're talking from me." I, leaning far to the left (economically) of you, would say that's the practical difference between communism and socialism. In socialism, you pay taxes (and know how much was "yours"). "In communist Russia" (all together now!) "taxes pay you."

(I can't believe I made that joke. :)

I'm unconvinced by your argument. While I can see how you see things in terms of property rights (something I've heard much of from Libertarians; that's canon, isn't it?) I don't really think that's the fundamental issue there. I think what Libertarians are really pointing at, when they call out property rights, is actually the role of the government in society.

Because there's a real simple answer to the question "By what right does the government take my money?": "It's your government, you pay for it."

The rebuttal "But I didn't vote for all these services and whatnot!" only invites the answer "Welcome to Democracy." The People did, so The People have to pay for it.

As unpleasant as that may be for those of The People who disagree, that makes ethical sense, if one grants the legitimacy of Majority Rule.

This is going to sound horrendously bitter (not to mention anti-democratic), and I don't mean it that way at all, I just mean this as a value-neutral observation of How The World Works, but: As others before us have observed, in a democracy there is a tendency for the majority to vote themselves largesse.

As someone (Churchill?) once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others." *sigh*

I would say that the issue of What Is Government's Proper Role In Society, itself rests on something much more fundamental, and that is the issue of What Should The Relationship Of Man To Society Be?

Some people -- you are not among them :) -- think that since society thrives or flounders on the basis of the wellness of its constituent members, society has an interest in and should take an active role in the affairs of its members. This is a man-society symbiosis.

Other people -- perhaps you -- think that society is a fiction, that there really is not greater whole, just large numbers of individuals, and that all individuals need is a mediating body to handle conflicts. As such any action on the part of "society" is considered illegitimate, society is a result of interpersonal interactions, and should never be reified. This is society as product of man.

[sekhmets-song.livejournal.com]

I think that you have done a decent job of stating the capitalist view of property rights. And it is obvious that you have logically defended your position.
I do think that your view of property rights is very much influenced by your class background, though. I think that those whose skills are not currently valued by those in the ruling class would argue, for example, that there is no parity or much that is just in how the cost of one's labor is determined. CEOs are paid incredible amounts for work that our current capitalist society sees as more valuable. Those who produce the products of the company that the CEO helms get paid much, much less for work that most people would agree is more taxing and takes more of a toll on the body and often more of a toll on the mind. Is their labor less valuable to the society? I would argue that it isn't. If the workers at Consumers Energy refused to toil, we would notice that as a society much sooner than we would notice if Consumers Energy's CEO decided to go on strike. It is easy to say that those who are making more money are shouldering a bigger burden through the (theoretically) higher taxes they pay, but it is the working class who produce the products and services that our economy, our governemnt, our society need for us to get through the day, both as individuals as well as as a country. So, your definition of the "fruits of your labor" would be one that a socialist would take issue with.
I think, too, that your assumptions that the capitalist system is more protective of the individual's rights to determine what happens to their body are also not necessarily ones that a socialist would agree with. The capitalist system metes out decisions about health care very sparingly, mostly to those with the luxury to pay for health insurance and for premium services. In other words, if I cannot afford health insurance that covers reproductive medicine (other than pregnancy), and I cannot spare the money from my personal budget to cover a procedure, such as an abortion, I don't get one. Oddly, many HMOs will pay for prenatal care, but won't even cover the costs of birth conrol pills. So, the decision is not as simple as saying that I own my body. I must also own the ability to pay for "extra" services if I am to really have the same amount of freedom of choice as a wealthier person. In a system where health care were a right of every citizen, then all would have the ability to choose, truly choose, what happens with the body they own.
Finally, most socialists are actually fairly explicit about how they think about property rights, and it can be summed up thusly: Capitalism survives based on the idea of supply and demand. Prices go up when something is scarce and they go down when there is a surplus. The system is founded on an idea of chaos and randomness in production. Now, that idea may have been justifiable when capitalism was nascent and small-scale. With the advent of the industrial revolution, production no longer needs to be random. Socialist and communist economies are ones in which production is planned. There is very little surplus and very little scarcity. If we, as a society, no longer wasted our production resources on making too much of one commodity and too little of another, we would find that there is generally enough wealth (property, if you will) to benefit all of us. And then, we would likely also have surplus labor to dedicate some resources to things (education, fighting disease, science, etc.) that get short-shrifted in a capitalist system. That means there would be no "surplus labor;" we would, each of us, be equally contributing to the health and wealth of our society.

[madfilkentist]

If I'm going to disagree with you, it's only at nitpicking details of basic philosophy -- but those details can affect a lot. I see the most fundamental issue as one of two different views of rights: rights of independence vs. rights of entitlement. This subsumes the issue of property. Rights of independence are the kind described in the Bill of Rights -- rights which say that with respect to your property or your person, the government may not do certain things to you. Rights of entitlement are claimed in a horde of modern "bills of rights," and say that others must do certain things for you.

Looked at this way, the conflict with regard to taxes isn't just over who owns the money (public vs. private) but of how one asserts a claim to owning it. With rights of independence, one asserts a claim by producing wealth or acquiring it in trade. With rights of entitlement, one asserts it by claiming a need. "Victimhood" status is a good way to assert a need; thus the proliferation of attempts to count as many victim points as possible.

Property is one aspect of this conflict, but I think the nature of rights is really the central issue.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why you think property is more fundamental for our society than rights in general. Even in its most basic sense of land, property is not inalienable -- sovereignty resides in the state, and your ability to own property (in theory) devolves from the state. We have due process in place to theoretically ensure that taking of land or property by the state is done in accordance with democracy, but just ask those people in New London being moved out to make way for Pfizer. Property is no more fundamental than any other right.

More broadly defined as ownership, property comes down not only to keeping what one feels that one has, but to the ability to dispose of it as one sees fit. However, one's personhood (opinions, value, sense of self) is not something that can be bought or sold or disposed of; even under slavery one has a quality of personhood. Most of the things you (and everyone) sees as inhering in our system derive from rights of personhood, not the "ownership" or lack of ownership of the self.

So it would be more accurate, I think, to see property as one of a constellation of "rights" that according to our system derive from the fact of personhood. The problem is when those rights come in conflict with each other, as they inevitably do. Liberals resolve the conflict in more communitarian, positive-rights kinds of ways, while libertarians do in more individualistic, negative-rights kinds of ways (enumerating what the state should not be able to do to me). The movement toward "property rights" is just about defining the ownership component of those rights as being more socially useful and worthwhile.

[sethg]

I would say that property is a means to various worthwhile ends, not a right in and of itself.

On an individual level, of course, owning or renting a home is a means to staying warm in the winter, owning food is a way of staying nourished, etc. However, property is also a means to feeling in control of one's own environment. This is a very important psychological need, but it doesn't line up neatly with property in the formal sense. Two examples:

(1) If the government witholds 25% of the money in my paycheck before I ever see it, I don't feel disadvantaged. If IRS agents came into my house and seized one out of every four books on my shelves, I would feel violated.

(2) I would not want to work in a place where there were strict limitations on how I could decorate my cubicle, or where I was expected to plug my laptop into whatever desk happened to be unoccupied at the time that I showed up. The cubicle is not in any legal sense my property, but it's a part of my enviroment that I want to control.

Even though I don't believe in any fundamental right to property, I can see that it is in the public interest for the state to insure a certain level of individual property rights. Heck, even the Bolsheviks realized that if they wanted to keep their factories running, they had to pay their managers more than the regular workers.

[madfilkentist]

I'm not going to start arguments with other people in your space, but at least it's been well established that some people don't think you have any right to property at all -- at most, you have permission from those in power. The beliefs which these people hold represent a threat to freedom which runs much deeper than any partisan power-grab.