Holte's corner

Sometimes it is how the argument is framed

Sometimes it is how the argument is framed,
And sometimes it is the argument.

I was looking for arguments that I could use to bolster my own thesis that fundamental rights are universals, need to be fought for, and are matters of humanity. I found a bunch, but in looking I also found this instead. I not only can't agree with it, but I think it clouds the issues, and so I have to disagree with it as vociferously as I disagree with the "counter argument." It is an argument that "cuts out the middle." It muddies the arguments and in the end pits two competing "collectivist" visions while claiming to be opposing abuse.

Here is what the article says:

This http://www.focusweb.org/defending-and-reclaiming-the-commons/index.php?Itemid=27, article the first part I agree with:

"Corporations continue to expand their activities and economic power through the privatisation of public and common domains, from land, water and energy to technology, knowledge and health care."

Okay, so far so good. I'm against the kleptocratic sort of privatization that increasingly denies rights to commoners. I can agree with the following criticism:
"By privatisation, we mean the entire spectrum of policies and measures that facilitate the transfer of collective community and societal wealth, goods and services -- the commons -- into corporate hands and control."

But I also object because this is not a genuine transfer to "private" hands. This miscasts the issue. They are talking about the transfer from one form of collective ownership to another. From that of Governments to that of those mini-governments called corporations. The ultimate hands the property is given to may be individuals, but privatization is mostly about the transfer of control of land to powerful individuals and their corporations. That isn't real privatization. Property owned by corporations are no more genuinely "private" property than is property owned by the State. Why? Because Corporations are communal interests themselves. And powerful people with others working for them aren't commoners -- they are aristocrats.

The points I've been making about the commons have not been aimed at denying the importance of property and private property -- but of its importance. Property is necessary to liberty. Property is what we own. And ownership is the power to do and behave. John Locke says that property begins when a person removes some item (such as a fruit or a nut) from the commons. He says "We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that it is the taking any part of what is common, and removing it out of the state nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use. And the taking of this or that part, does not depend on the express consent of all the commoners." It doesn't need explicit consent, because it is a "natural right" that derives from the needs of those commoners who eat, who labor, who build their homes. I conclude from his argument and my dissection of the meaning of the words involved that natural rights flow from our need for Liberty. The principle of property flows from the need to secure individual liberty. There is no liberty when people do not own property. The best example of this is the slave. http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm

To put it another way, "real" property itself is a "commons" that has been divided up between stake-holders. It is a useful division, because it expresses the "natural" needs of people for space, for ownership of their personal space. Really, who can own the earth? The earth is a commons. The divisions of that commons that can be owned are the "countries" -- each of which claim to own a piece of it. And countries like ours give us "titles" to pieces of the common property of each "commonwealth" or State. The US doesn't give us our titles, my State Maryland does? On what grounds? A grant from the King of England to Lord Calvert? Who gave him the right? God? As commoners, the ownership of commons doesn't make us Kings, even when a person owns a telephone, if there is an emergency, for the duration of that emergency call -- that phone is mine.

However, once property is divided and becomes property, in some cases it looses the property of a commons, in others not. A network, a Kingdom, a Store, doesn't really completely lose the property of a commons simply because it belongs to someone. Wikipedia tells us that in Europe, "common" lands are often owned by Lords and Nobles -- every inch of lands in Europe is "privatized" -- and has been since the middle ages.

The idea of the commons is meant to defend the rights of commoners to survive, to own the fruits of their labor, to be able to have liberty and freedom in a world where property is unevenly divided and people need to communicate, to travel, to have access to stores, and to deal with each other to do their business and seek happiness. The idea of the commons is meant to protect stake-holders from Owners, and the ultimate owner is the "State" itself.

Privatisation therefore isn't an ill because it empowers individuals, but because it empowers factions. It is a way of "kleptocracy" -- rule by theft because the property so divided is naturally "in common" and is taken without the consent or the agreement of those whose rights to liberty are infringed by the very act. If I can't tread formerly common land because a landowner has fenced it, drink water, or breath air because someone has bottled it, that is a monstrous theft, not "privatisation."

The authors maintain that:

"States have assisted them by imposing legal systems based on private property over legal systems based on communal tenure and the public interest."

And they are right, but more importantly the States have been imposing legal systems that increasingly deny individual property in favor of titles and grants given to the powerful and connected.

The purpose of establishing a commons is to enforce the rights of commoners. This is only necessary when something is part of a shared system that cannot effectively be controlled by any one person without infringing on the rights of those who need access to that space or those things in order to exercise their own liberty. And that remains the case no matter how technically "owned" a commons is. It retains its common property until it is taken out of the commons with fences, and walls, bloodshed and tears.

Corporations are not "private individuals" they are special interests funnelling the power and money of aristocrats, and the factional interests of those powerful people. Genuine private property is under the control of one person and can be controlled by one person. It is a home, a business, tools, a car, a life.

What we are fighting is "corporativism" -- which is a form of oligarchical collectivism. It is a way that people can launder their money, protect themselves from liability, and amplify their assets. And it is neither evil nor good, but as a tool for amplification it amplifies the power and thus the evils of those who control them. Thus a corporation can steal and defraud, poison or dispossess on a scale that a single proprietor could never imagine. Investors get used by corporations. At best it is a mutual win win trade, but at worst, as with Enron and current companies, it is a situation in which we invest in 100 million dollar salaries of people who convert our dollars to their dollars.

This is an issue in which left and right could agree if they'd only really pay attention to the terms, the logic, and the meanings of the arguments involved. Do we really want to let two competing forms of collectivism and tyranny fight for our allegiance?

I agree with part of the point. I personally believe that corporations should never be allowed to own private property. That the commons should never be divided up or given to people because that creates an Aristocracy. I do believe that corporations should be allowed to administer, lease, or hold mortgages, but that is the extent of it because there are some things that corporations can do well. Anything that can be monetized. And it is time to enforce some laws against monopoly, oligopoly, and abuse of power on these people.

And we have to stop letting our politicians and corporations loot the commons -- because they are ours and our children! They can't be effectively divided without infringing on our and our children's liberty!

chris

Homework:

John Locke
http://onthecommons.org/node/1080

Posted by cholte at May 10, 2007 10:18 PM