4 ms·

Where is the system of "property rights" coming if not from the state?

MR4D 10y ago
God. Natural Law. Whatever you want to call it. The idea is that some rights belong to the person, and they end at the point where one person can do harm to another person.
- RobertoG 10y ago
  Ok. We are going to forget, for a moment, that in different moments of history we found very different 'natural laws' argued as obvious. Who enforce the natural law, then, if not the state?
  - MR4D 10y ago
    (I was trying to avoid getting drawn into a discussion about God). That's a great question. It could be the State. It could be others. The Bar Association enforces standards and behaviors on lawyers, and thereby your right to practice law. Cisco enforces standards on it's engineers (I'm thinking CCIE, etc), and the rights that go with that. Here's the rub, though. The State should be a mediator between two parties. If I say that you destroyed my yard, I should get recourse in front of an unbiased and uninterested 3rd party. It doesn't have to be the State. It could be anyone that we both agree is impartial.
    - RobertoG 10y ago
      You are answering to who arbitrage a dispute, but who enforce the results?
      - MR4D 10y ago
        You originally asked where property rights come from. That's the question I was answering.
  - MR4D 10y ago
    One thing I forgot - giving you rights is different from enforcing them. Obviously, the State can take away those rights. That's different from giving you rights. Same is true for anyone with a gun (equating death with losing all rights).
nickik 10y ago
You hit the nail on the head. This is the relevant question. Of course we have states and they do both enforce and sometimes create rules. That is why people like Hayek and many others were not anarchists. The hole philosophy of classical liberalism is based around the idea of a small state to enforce these rights. The problem is that the solution 'the state' is not a complete one. We of course also know that property rights do exist and persist outside of state systems. Many different types of system can and do provide rights and have mechanism for enforcement. It is a major field of study in both economics, for legal scholars and many others. There has been a lot of work on this question and it is a hard one to answer. One possible that one economist/legal scholar provides is that it is all about the Schelling point, you pick some point and commit to overreaction. Once you have this idea even two people on a empty island can establish property rights. So its about commitment and signaling. We can easily find situations like this in real live. There are tons of example both now and historically. Common Law for example was not created by the state, but was in essence eventually enforced by the state. The first Stock market in Amsterdam was neither created, nor enforced by the state. There is a hole lot to be talked about. To tie it back together with the original discussion. If we are talking about pollution protection in the current world, it would of course have to be either rules created by the state, or rules that evolve as they did in common law (in fact many rules already exist in British common law). The state could set the limits for a pollutant but then let it be enforced by normal law enforcement, more like civil rather then criminal law. P.S: Many classical liberals believe in Natural Law, but many also do not. This debate is still active and has not gone away.
atemerev 10y ago
See "natural law" vs "positive law" debate. (I am strongly on the natural law side)
- ue_ 10y ago
  What has convinced you of natural law? I'm interested in your view.

MR4D 10y ago

God. Natural Law. Whatever you want to call it. The idea is that some rights belong to the person, and they end at the point where one person can do harm to another person.

RobertoG 10y ago
Ok. We are going to forget, for a moment, that in different moments of history we found very different 'natural laws' argued as obvious. Who enforce the natural law, then, if not the state?
- MR4D 10y ago
  (I was trying to avoid getting drawn into a discussion about God). That's a great question. It could be the State. It could be others. The Bar Association enforces standards and behaviors on lawyers, and thereby your right to practice law. Cisco enforces standards on it's engineers (I'm thinking CCIE, etc), and the rights that go with that. Here's the rub, though. The State should be a mediator between two parties. If I say that you destroyed my yard, I should get recourse in front of an unbiased and uninterested 3rd party. It doesn't have to be the State. It could be anyone that we both agree is impartial.
  - RobertoG 10y ago
    You are answering to who arbitrage a dispute, but who enforce the results?
    - MR4D 10y ago
      You originally asked where property rights come from. That's the question I was answering.
- MR4D 10y ago
  One thing I forgot - giving you rights is different from enforcing them. Obviously, the State can take away those rights. That's different from giving you rights. Same is true for anyone with a gun (equating death with losing all rights).

nickik 10y ago

You hit the nail on the head. This is the relevant question. Of course we have states and they do both enforce and sometimes create rules. That is why people like Hayek and many others were not anarchists. The hole philosophy of classical liberalism is based around the idea of a small state to enforce these rights. The problem is that the solution 'the state' is not a complete one. We of course also know that property rights do exist and persist outside of state systems. Many different types of system can and do provide rights and have mechanism for enforcement. It is a major field of study in both economics, for legal scholars and many others. There has been a lot of work on this question and it is a hard one to answer. One possible that one economist/legal scholar provides is that it is all about the Schelling point, you pick some point and commit to overreaction. Once you have this idea even two people on a empty island can establish property rights. So its about commitment and signaling. We can easily find situations like this in real live. There are tons of example both now and historically. Common Law for example was not created by the state, but was in essence eventually enforced by the state. The first Stock market in Amsterdam was neither created, nor enforced by the state. There is a hole lot to be talked about. To tie it back together with the original discussion. If we are talking about pollution protection in the current world, it would of course have to be either rules created by the state, or rules that evolve as they did in common law (in fact many rules already exist in British common law). The state could set the limits for a pollutant but then let it be enforced by normal law enforcement, more like civil rather then criminal law. P.S: Many classical liberals believe in Natural Law, but many also do not. This debate is still active and has not gone away.

atemerev 10y ago

See "natural law" vs "positive law" debate. (I am strongly on the natural law side)

ue_ 10y ago
What has convinced you of natural law? I'm interested in your view.