Economics Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Property: Property is anything that is owned by a person or entity. It can be tangible, or intangible. Property rights give the owner the right to use, possess, and dispose of their property as they see fit. See also Rights, Duties, Contracts._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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Murray N. Rothbard on Property - Dictionary of Arguments
Rothbard III 91 Property/market/contracts/Rothbard: (…) in order for a person to exchange anything, he must first possess it, or own it. He gives up the ownership of good X in order to obtain the ownership of good Y. >Exchange/Rothbard, >Market/Rothbard. Ownership by one or more owners implies exclusive control and use of the goods owned, and the goods owned are known as property. Freedom from violence implies that no one may seize the property of another by means of violence or the threat of violence and that each person’s property is safe, or “secure,” from such aggression. What goods become property? Obviously, only scarce means are property. General conditions of welfare, since they are abundant to all, are not the objects of any action, and therefore cannot be owned or become property. On the free market, it is nonsense to say that someone “owns” the air. Only if a good is scarce is it necessary for anyone to obtain it, or ownership of it, for his use. The only way that a man could assume ownership of the air is to use violence to enforce this claim. Such action could not occur on the unhampered market. On the free, unhampered market, a man can acquire property in scarce goods as follows: (1) In the first place, each man has ownership over his own self, over his will and actions, and the manner in which he will exert his own labor.(2) He acquires scarce nature-given factors either by appropriating hitherto unused factors for his own use or by receiving them as a gift from someone else, who in the last analysis must have appropriated them as hitherto unused factors.(3) He acquires capital goods or consumers’ goods either by mixing his own labor with nature-given factors to produce them (…). Rothbard III 92 (4) He may exchange any type of factor (labor service, nature-given factor, capital good, consumers’ good) for any type of factor. Exchange: In order for the giving or exchanging of goods to take place, they must first be obtained by individual actors in one of these ways. The logical sequence of events is therefore: A man owns himself; he appropriates unused nature-given factors for his ownership; he uses these factors to produce capital goods and consumers’ goods which become his own; he uses up the consumers’ goods and/or gives them and the capital goods away to others; he exchanges some of these goods for other goods that had come to be owned in the same way by others.(1),(2) >Person/Philosophical theories, >Market/Rothbard. In contrast to general conditions of welfare, which on the free market cannot be subject to appropriation as property, scarce goods in use in production must always be under someone’s control, and therefore must always be property. Market: On the free market, the goods will be owned by those who either produced them, first put them to use, or received them in gifts. Similarly, under a system of violence and hegemonic bonds, someone or some people must superintend and direct the operations of these goods. Whoever performs these functions in effect owns these goods as property, regardless of the legal definition of ownership. This applies to persons and their services as well as to material goods. 1. On self-ownership and the acquisition of property, cf. the classic discussion ofJohn Locke, "An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government, Second Treatise" in Ernest Barker, ed., social Contract (London: Oxford University Press, 1948), pp. 15-30. 2. The problem of self-ownership is complicated by the question of children. Children cannot be considered self-owners, because they are not yet in possession of the powers of reason necessary to direct their actions._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Rothbard II Murray N. Rothbard Classical Economics. An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing. Cheltenham 1995 Rothbard III Murray N. Rothbard Man, Economy and State with Power and Market. Study Edition Auburn, Alabama 1962, 1970, 2009 Rothbard IV Murray N. Rothbard The Essential von Mises Auburn, Alabama 1988 Rothbard V Murray N. Rothbard Power and Market: Government and the Economy Kansas City 1977 |
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