The meaning of property has been grossly misunderstood.
The answer goes far deeper than one might think.
According to the modern sages of civilisation, property rights refer to the legally or socially recognised rights that individuals, groups, or entities have to control, use, transfer, and benefit from resources, goods, or property. Such agreed-upon rights define the relationship between people and how they wield tangible assets and help establish the framework for ownership, economic exchange, and societal organisation.
However, the big problem with this widely accepted view is that it overlooks the concept of agency. In fact, only individuals can control and decide to transfer or benefit from something. Agency, consciousness, free will, and decision-making only exist at the individual level. Ultimately, this is because ownership and control are synonymous. You own what you control, and you control what you own. If you do not control something, you cannot own it. If you do not own something, you cannot control it.
It would seem that the modern version of property rights and how they relate to sovereignty, responsibility, and morality within society have been grossly misunderstood. Today, individuals routinely claim they own things they do not control and say they can control things they do not own. The best examples to illustrate this point would be huge landowners who’ve secured property deeds to vast swathes of land they will never see, visit, or use. The land they say they own, they do not control.
The human body is property, and it's yours
The best example, however, is the most important piece of property of all: the human body. The bipedal fleshy meat sacks we call our bodies can move around, affecting the physical world and requiring regular maintenance. At a fundamental level, human bodies are items that someone must control. The question is, will it be the individual or someone else? As only the individual can decide and actuate their body to perform actions, the individual owns his body and no one else’s because they do not control other bodies other than their own.
If modern property rights were morally justified, this understanding of ownership would extend to every individual as an inalienable fundamental right. The notion of “sovereignty” can only exist for individuals and never a group. When governments and nations claim sovereignty over “their people”, they’re openly claiming control/ownership over all individuals in a region. When governments enforce laws to “protect the greater good”, they’re attempting to own something they cannot control and, by extension, seek to control something they cannot own.
When politicians parrot lofty speeches about securing power, ruling, governing their nations, and enforcing the rule of law, they are making implicit claims that they’ve supplanted the rights of the individual to control and own their bodies.
Reconsidering the status quo
The current status quo is simply unjustified. Every country on Earth operates with the same unjustified principles regardless of culture, ethnicity or political persuasion. So, too, historically, there is no historical record of alternative property rights to the ones we hold today with such ubiquity. The closest alternative would be native tribal communities such as the pagan societies of S. America (Aztecs, Incas),
Is it justified for a handful of individuals to claim property over millions of hectares of land and then force everyone else into paying rent? This is precisely what’s happened over the millennia – a few like-mindedly sinister people have acquired all the land as part of an intricate government-enforced system involving social contracts, money and property deeds, and enforced by a monopoly on force to prevent competition. Not too dissimilar to the likes of Al Capone, but when done on a vast global scale and approved by government law, gangsterism becomes civilisation.
So what about some alternatives? Are we destined to live in a world where adults are infantilised and told they cannot have ownership, control and sovereignty over their bodies?
The solution to this problem will not be easy to hear because it will necessarily challenge deeply-held beliefs, including the notion that someone can own something they cannot even see.
A justified alternative to the status quo would see valid property claims based on seven necessary conditions. All the following must hold for a property claim to be valid:
1. Only individuals can own/control items.
2. Any claimed item must have only one owner/controller.
3. Only material items can be owned/controlled.
4. Owned/controlled items must be acquired without violating Sovereignty.
5. The individual accepts full responsibility for maintaining the owned/controlled item.
6. The individual accepts full responsibility for all effects the owned/controlled item manifests.
7. The owned/controlled item remains within visual distance of the individual.
Imagining a world where such principles reign may shock readers, and yet, this is how animals see property values in the wild. It's how humans consider property instinctively and intuitively unless conditioned otherwise. It's how ancient pagan tribes decimated by colonisation saw property values in the past. These are the only values that can be morally justified without invoking contradictions, such as using violence to create safety (government). Or how agency can be both singular and multiplicitous at the same time.
3. Only material items can be owned/controlled.
4. Owned/controlled items must be acquired without violating Sovereignty.
5. The individual accepts full responsibility for maintaining the owned/controlled item.
6. The individual accepts full responsibility for all effects the owned/controlled item manifests.
7. The owned/controlled item remains within visual distance of the individual.
Imagining a world where such principles reign may shock readers, and yet, this is how animals see property values in the wild. It's how humans consider property instinctively and intuitively unless conditioned otherwise. It's how ancient pagan tribes decimated by colonisation saw property values in the past. These are the only values that can be morally justified without invoking contradictions, such as using violence to create safety (government). Or how agency can be both singular and multiplicitous at the same time.
At the highest possible level, it's how property values were meant to be according to Divinity. Are we not merely tenants in a Divine creation with all items provided for us, not necessarily to run around and own/control, but to safekeep and utilise in accordance with our fair share, i.e. that which the individual can reasonably carry, maintain and use in their life without hurting others? Ultimately, we're supposed to belong to the land instead of thinking land belongs to people.
In a world with justified property rights, the alternative principles discussed here would be cherished and held as fundamental necessities for people to retain their freedom and live in true prosperity. If such principles were loved in the same way that people currently love the social contract and government-stamped property deeds, the world would be a better place and a step closer out of our dystopia.
Written by George Tchetvertakov
