The essence of ownership is control. Labels implying otherwise are incidental. So the base question is, How is ownership established? In the jungle, a question of ownership is settled by the existence of superior physical force. At a given time and given place, an animal owns all of the territory that he has the physical capacity to control, including all other animals with less physical ability. In a pack situation, the pack leader is the ultimate owner.
To sharpen focus upon the issue, let us now leave the jungle stage and imagine one individual human being emerging from the sea and finding himself alone upon an island. Of course, the question of ownership does not arise. The totality of personal preference is in one mind and one mind directs the actions of one body. Then there emerges from the sea a second individual, volitional, i.e., with personal preferences.
In the jungle, the question of ownership is answered by physical force. There is no volition, no choice. Volition adds a dimension: Options. The two individuals can engage in physical combat until one or both are dead. One can establish physical superiority and the other can obey, or he can avoid physical contact if circumstances afford opportunity. That is, if the island is large enough and suited to evasion. If not, we're back to the first two options. Or one individual can choose to obey the other without being intimidated by force. Or they can, by peacefully resolving conflicting personal preferences, exist socially without either initiating force.
Suppose the evasion situation exists. The physically superior individual may claim to own all of the island, but the existence of the other individual opposing his personal preferences belies his words. As in the jungle, he owns only that which he can control, and he cannot control all of the island, or the other individual. So the other individual owns part of the island. At a given time, which part depends upon the actions of the physically superior, but at all times, some part. This situation constitutes shifting ownership. Neither individual owns all of the island for neither can exercise control over it all. When the physically superior individual attempts to control a different area, he automatically relinquishes objective claim of the area vacated. It may be said that the two individuals own the island collectively. It may be said, but saying does not erase the relationship between ownership and control, and the fact that collective ownership means no ownership. If two individuals are said to have equal ownership of a given property, disagreement as to action regarding the property results in zero. There is no action, i.e., no control. There is no natural law that says that a particular individual must own a particular property for a specific time. There are many arrangements that may be made to accommodate many situations. However, in the final analysis, ownership and control are synonymous and a single mind is the ultimate director at any given time.
The jungle type existence described above can continue or the physically stronger, being volitional, may decide that the actions he is taking are not in his own best interest. He concludes that he can never really control, i.e., own all of the island and that his time and energy would be of more value if used in gathering food and building shelter. So he stakes out a claim, either physically or mentally, encompassing a territory of dimensions corresponding to his ability to control. Naturally, the other individual then owns the remainder of the island. Such is the birth of the concept, private property, as it is, one step removed from the law of the jungle.
At this point, the private property idea is strictly a one-sided affair as decided by the physically superior. This individual successfully directs his actions and accomplishes much. He builds a shelter and gathers and stores a substantial amount of food. Then one day he thinks of something he would like to have, but this thing is beyond his territory. He has no fear of the other individual, so he sets out to get it. Returning some time later, he finds that his store of food is gone. The other individual has come while he was away and carried it off.
He valued his store of food more highly than the thing he had gone after, so he lost in the exchange. Yet, he valued both and preferred to have both. The question is, how? Answer? By making an agreement with the other individual which would be conducive to this end. Property lines are defined and rules of conduct are agreed upon to accomplish this goal. Such is the birth of the concept, individual rights. Individual rights - one step removed. Each owns and each controls his own property. They trade and each prospers from this social action. Then one day, there emerges from the sea a third individual. Again the same fundamental options are available, plus a few more. Since it is established that each of the first two individuals agree that value is derived from a social existence based on the concept of individual rights and private property, it might be assumed that these two individuals would combine their physical force, if necessary, to preserve this relationship. Thus they could exclude or include the third individual in respect of mutual personal preferences.
It might be assumed, but volition can negate arbitrary assumption. The third individual could combine his physical strength with either of the first two and take over the property or life of the other. They could accept "majority rule", which is regression to jungle existence. This circles back to the "no ownership" situation with the actual controller and owner hidden behind the abstract, majority. After the "majority rule" decision, the survivors, or "victors", might again talk about individual rights but the words serve only to self-delude.
You might ask, Where did these two individuals each get a right to this property in the first place? Since no one can produce an original deed to Earth, it is often argued that the Earth belongs to all. The question not addressed is that since "all" is an abstract, how is "collective ownership" going to work in practice. It doesn't because its an illusion. Nevertheless, many subscribe to the illusion and presume to build a social structure upon it. This is where many theories of "natural rights" are usually offered in eternal arguments about what those "natural rights" are. They ignore the individual and ask the wrong questions. The defining question is, How are rights established? They are established by individual choice; a choice to cooperate rather than conquer. I'm quite sure that the idea of rights being left up to individual choice rather than being "natural rights" is a terrifying thought to the "inalienable rights" believers, but that's the way it is; an ongoing and ever-present responsibility to choose a course of action compatible with the end consciously desired. This fact doesn't present a problem, but denying it does.
Rights are but means to an end and can be validated or invalidated only in this context. In the preceding illustration, we have assumed the desired end to be social cooperation and peaceful trade. As rights are means to an end, a right refers to action. Since rights refer to actions, the term rights has definitive meaning only in reference to an entity with the capacity to act, i.e., an individual human being. Declarations such as "society's rights vs individual rights", "rights retained by the people", "state's rights", "minority rights", and all the other claimed "abstract rights" are god concept illusions that actually deny the concept, rights. They are posited for the purpose of self delusion and to "justify" might and rule. In an official governmental system where "rights" are a matter of feeling and force, is it any wonder that instead of the concept rights being a means to peacefully resolve conflicting differences, "rights" are the source of conflict. (Yes, reality mentally reversed again.)
Copyright at Common Law, Delmar England,
1997
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