It's My Property!

"It's my property and I have a right to do what I want with it!"

How often I have heard this sentiment, or one very like it, expressed.

The speaker is usually ranting about wanting less government interference in something. Often he or she is venting about how they want less taxes.

It is, superficially at least, an attractive position. I do, after all, own my property. I did, after all, work hard to gain the ownership of that property, assuming I didn't inherit it or receive it as a gift. Why shouldn't I be able to do what I want with the stuff I worked so hard to own?

Well, two reasons: first, it's illegal. Second, it's immoral.

Now, the illegality of doing whatever you want with your own property can always be changed. It is usually this illegality (the fact that using your own property anyway you want, without any obligation to use it in any particular way, is not permitted by law) that the speaker wishes to have changed. And, if enough of us agree that it should be changed, we can all agree to change it. But, we shouldn't.

Because it is immoral to "do whatever I want with my own property."

In logic, there is a concept called reductio ad absurdum. The idea is that the logic of an idea can be tested by taking the idea to its "logical" conclusion. If, when one does, the idea becomes absurd, then it is, in fact, illogical. For an idea to be logical, it must be logical in all its applications, not just some applications.

The notion that we have the moral right to do whatever we want with our property fails the logical test of reductio ad absurdum.

Imagine that one person has managed to acquire ownership of all the property in the world. All the real estate, all the businesses, all the food, all the water, all the houses, all the streets, all the schools. Everything. And imagine that he has done this perfectly legally. He is just such a skilled businessman that he has managed to acquire all the property in the world by completely legal, legitimate means. He - one person - owns everything.

And further suppose that it was, in fact, the law that a person could do anything they wanted with their own property, including doing nothing at all with it, if that's what they chose.

Would it be morally right for that one person to withhold all property from everyone else in the world, just because he had the legal right to do so? Would it be morally right for him to let everyone else in the world starve to death and die of thirst, just because it was all his and he had the right to do with "his" property what he wanted, and he didn't want to share with anyone?

If the answer is "yes," it is a perfect example of reductio ad absurdum. It cannot possibly be true that it is morally right to let everyone else starve when you own all the property in the world, just because you have the legal right to do it. That conclusion is absurd.

What if just two people owned all the property in the world? Would it be morally right for those two to let everyone else starve - all 6 billion human souls - because it was theirs and they had the right to do what they wanted with it? Clearly not. No reasonable person could think it would be moral for them to let everyone else starve when they had more than they could ever use, just because they had a protectable property right.

How about if three people owned all the property in the world? Or 100? Or 1000? Or what if 1 billion people owned all the property and the remaining 5 billion had nothing? Would it be moral for the 1 billion to let the 5 billion die so that they could exercise their "right" to do whatever they wanted with "their" property? Clearly not.

Well, if it isn't morally right for one person to deprive all the rest of the necessities of life, or 2, or 3, or 100, or 1 billion, then the notion of "its mine and I have the (moral) right to do what I want with it" has been demonstrated to be logically faulty.

In fact, we have demonstrated that, rather than having a moral right to do what you want with your own property, you really have a moral obligation to use your property in a way that benefits others. If you have very little property, than your moral obligation is very small, but if you have a great deal of property, then your moral obligation is very great. In fact, there is a direct proportionality between the amount of property one owns and one's moral obligation to use that property for the benefit of others.

The rich have a moral obligation to use their property for the benefit of the poor.

It is, in fact, the teaching of Jesus.

Now, we can quibble about how that moral obligation is affected by the choices the poor have made, or, more precisely, the choices that the rich think the poor have made. But, no matter how the obligation is affected or modified by individual circumstances, it never goes away. It always exists in some form or another. Remember, our hypothetical man who acquired all the property in the world did it legally, and as a result of his skill as a business man. That means that everyone else must have made really poor choices when they agreed to the business deals that resulted in them losing everything. Even so, we cannot imagine that it is then morally acceptable for him to let everyone else in the world starve, because they made "poor choices." It is still clear that he has some obligation to use his property for the benefit of the rest of the world, who are all starving.

So, once it becomes clear that anyone who owns property has at least some moral obligation to use his property in a way that benefits others, we can have legitimate debate over the extent and nature of that moral obligation. We cannot, however, ever logically claim that "its my property and I have a right to do whatever I want with it."

That's absurd.