The End of Gun Control: 5.1 The Primary Object
A property-centric legal order allows no one to be above the law, applies equally to everyone at all times & provides clear lines to determine violations. Property is the path of peace among people.
When the American colonists were yearning for liberty amidst the depredations of the British monarchy the importance of private property was well understood. All fundamental rights were understood as property interests, including one’s own life and physical body.
Enlightenment philosopher John Locke explained that every person has a property in their own person that included the choice of what they will do (how they use their bodies in time and space) as well as the benefits of what they have done (the resulting fruit of their activity). When understanding this in light of Locke’s theory of homesteading property, as mixing one’s labor with natural resources, one can see a comprehensive system of property rights deriving from the nature of humanity and human action.
Originally understood, property is not, primarily, about material objects or even natural resources. Private property is a social convention whereby people in society recognize the connection between a particular human being and the things they have exclusive title to. Property titles come about through action whether it be carving out raw materials from the natural environment, trading with others, or receiving items as gifts from a previous owner.
In other words, private property is about people, not just stuff. More importantly, property is a system by which people can live peaceably among one another by setting boundaries for acceptable behavior. The clear lines of property boundaries, relatively speaking, eliminate ambiguity as to whether an action is right or wrong.
In a just society, everyone is secure in their property and those that fail to respect property or violate the integrity of someone else’s property is rightly labeled a criminal. The science of justice depends upon identifying “mine” versus “thine” as legal theorist Lysander Spooner posited.
Moreover, with property as the standard of justice, the principles of law can be applied universally to all people, equally, at all times. This scientific approach, using private property as the clear lines that determine transgressions, allows no one to be above or below the law.
“When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.”
-Patrick Henry
The first generation of Americans understood this fully. Samuel Adams, writing well before the 1776 Declaration of Independence, described the Rights of the Colonists as consisting of Life, Liberty, and Property, along with the best manner of supporting and defending them.
James Madison, the alleged father of the Constitution, called property a claim of dominion over external things in the world, “in exclusion of every other individual.” For Madison, governments were instituted to “protect property of every sort”, including the free use of an individual’s thoughts, opinions, faculties, and how individuals employ material objects.
Here again, the property standard also naturally circumscribes individual liberty so that it is not carried to excess or to harm others. An individual can employ material objects in whatever manner they choose so long as that action does not violate the integrity of anyone else’s property. This is the concept of equal liberty under the law. The property boundaries allow individuals and legal professionals to know when a transgression occurs.
Law, and legal procedure, in a free society thus consists in determining if a violation of a property has occurred and, if so, by whom. At that point, the remaining matters to sort out involve assessing the extent of harm incurred through the violation in question and the amount of restitution suitable to make the victim whole.
In a property-centric legal order, law is discovered through applying fixed, and universal, principles to specific cases. It is a matter of examining particular facts and circumstances to determine who violated what property and formulating a level of compensation for the aggrieved.
While universal standards of justice are available through a private property based legal order, one of the added benefits of this simplicity is that there is no need for a “law giver”. In other words, law is discovered and not made. There is no need for “law-makers” to dictate from on high what the standards of behavior or justice are. The clear lines provided by private property boundaries instills meaning to the material world and clarity for assessing the justice of human conduct. An organic social order, based on mutual respect, naturally flows from a private property legal system.