property, rights and law: a rant

Several posts ago, I promised to give examples of gaps in our thinking. Later I gave the example of religion. Today I want to rant about property. And it's my Blog, so I'm gonna talk about what I want, so there.

In the last post I said that property means causality or responsibility. Most economists have a different definition, based on rights. But this is a huge gap in our thinking. Where do "rights" come from? They have no rational basis! We just make them up. If we are allowed to make up rules as we go along, then there are no rules at all.

Land ownership is just the most obvious example of this nonsense. Look at the history of Britain, or America, or any other country. Hundreds (or thousands) of years ago, one army killed thousands of people in another army (and probably plenty of civilians as well). And it then said that it owned the country, and started giving or selling parts to its friends. Then those "owners" claimed a moral right to live there and charge rent to other people! It's crazy!

People who kill thousands (or millions) and steal a whole country are called heroes. They write their history so they look good, then write the laws to stop anyone else doing what they did. And the laws say that people who only kill one or two, or steal small things, must be thrown in jail! The whole system is corrupt, hypocritical, dishonest, and just plain bad. It's called realpolitik, it is the basis of our society, and no amount of whitewashing history will change it.

And don't go saying "that was all a long time ago" as if time can change wrong into right. The violence (or intimidation, the threat of violence) goes on today. The theft by people grabbing wealth they did not create) goes on today. It is all discussed on the web site. I won't repeat it all here. I just want to point out a rather glaring gap in our thinking: our civilizations run on violence and theft. Great evil is rewarded, and small evil is punished. And we call that morality.

OK, enough ranting and raving. It is one thing to point out a problem. What about a solution? Land rent is the solution. It's probably time to start commenting on the news. Hopefully by showing example after example, day after day, this will become clear.