The original thread title gets at the nature of private property. What is it that makes something yours and gives you ownership of it. For real property, is it the fact that the County deed records say you are the owner, therefore you are the owner? That’s more or less it for real property. But conceptually, this means that something is yours because the sovereign says it is yours. Same with registering your ownership of a car. Also, your real property will be taken by the government if you don’t pay property taxes, so it’s sort of like a lease that defaults back to the government for failure to pay taxes.
In Merry Olde England it really was that a property was yours, at the pleasure (sometimes the whim) of the sovereign—the King. Blackacre was yours until the sovereign said it was not. All property was initially “earned” by the right of conquest. That part is also true for the US.
Conceptually, if something is yours, then don’t you have the right to give it away to whomever you choose to give it away to? If not, then is it really your private property to begin with? There are some fundamental questions underlying all this that I don’t think people are considering.
Do you only really have the "right" to the things you earned from the sweat of your own brow? Then investment proceeds and windfalls should not be yours, same with inheritances. This sort of thinking underlies much of Marxism.
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Last edited: Oct 21, 2019