Lost Property

For instruction on how to regulate society, it’s hard to go past the 10 Commandments. (By comparison, according to Thomson Reuters, Australian governments have over 40,000 commandments on the statute books!)

So, when God decides to distil everything down to just 10 laws and then applies two of them to the protection of property – do not steal (Commandment no 7) and do not covet your neighbour’s goods (Commandment no 10) – it’s reasonable to assume that property rights are an important subject.

Commandment no 7 – ‘Covet’, the old-fashioned word for ‘envy’ – wanting what someone else has – is one of the deadly sins. However, note that envy is not to be confused with ‘jealousy’, which is not wanting someone else to take what you have and is not a sin. Envy and jealousy are very different, in fact they are the exact opposite of each other. People often use the word jealousy when in fact they mean envy.

Laws which say, ‘do not steal’ clearly imply there are things which belong to other people, and you are not permitted to take them. It is their property, and they have a right to keep it.

This principle clearly pre-dates governments. But it also has a very long history.

Property rights was one of the key features of the Magna Carta (1215), the foundation of democratic principles and rule of law, and a symbol of liberty and the struggle against tyranny.

English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) said, ‘Every man has property in his own person, and nobody has any right to it but himself. The labour of his body, the work of his hands, are properly his. Whatsoever he removes out of the state of nature … and has mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something that is his own, thereby makes it his property.’

Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) argued that once governments enforced property rights, there was little else they needed to do.

William Pitt, speaking in the House of Commons in 1763, said:

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. His cottage may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storms may enter, the rain may enter—but the King of England cannot enter. All his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.”

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) wrote, ‘Two principles stand above all others: the fundamental human right to do as we please with our own property – whether it be our human capital or our life savings – and, as a corollary of this, a belief in the inherent moral superiority of an economy based on freedom of contract rather than collective coercion.’

And yet, property rights are increasingly being lost. Today, we’re witnessing this erosion in real time, with the Queensland Government forcing entry onto private land — without consent and often without evidence of infestation — to broadcast chemicals under the guise of fire ant control, trampling both property rights and the principle of voluntary agreement.

As we know, property encroachments by governments have widened substantially in recent years with the impact of heritage listing, planning regulations, tree protection, native vegetation protection, changes in sea levels due to ‘climate change’, native title, and numerous other encumbrances leading to increasingly restricted use of private property.

Farms with water rights – including the amount of rainfall that falls on the property – can have those rights removed.

If Federal, State or local governments wish to either acquire a person’s property or limit a person’s right to develop or enjoy a property, it is hardly controversial to expect that the property owner would be fully compensated for his or her loss.

A current example is government decisions to impose wind turbines – causing devaluation of property – which should result in either the government or the wind turbine proponent – or both – being liable to compensate landholders for their losses.

And yet, while paying lip service to property rights, the major political parties in Australia have all but abandoned this concept. Big business, which has never been on the side of property rights – or free markets for that matter – is no better. Major corporations have always wanted markets they can dominate, and to be able to eliminate competition. If that means doing the government’s bidding, so be it.

The essential element of free societies is individual liberty – no-one possessing a veto over another person’s right to decide what they can and cannot do with their property, including their labour.

It’s why socialism – property and markets controlled by the state – and fascism – property and markets controlled by corporations on behalf of the state – are so closely related.

Until property rights return to the top of the public policy tree, all other policies are meaningless.