A Paper Boat Named "Liberty"

A Paper Boat Named "Liberty"
[07-01-2016 22:57:00]
José Azel
Investigador, Universidad de Miami

(www.miscelaneasdecuba.net).- Property rights, or the lack of them, are
central to all contemporary political philosophies. Marxism rejects
property rights outright, as explained by Karl Marx in the second
chapter of his Communist Manifesto: "the theory of Communists may be
summed up in a single phrase: Abolition of private property."
Even within the family of democratically grounded political beliefs —
classical liberalism, social democracy, and christian democracy — the
topic of property rights receives dramatically different
interpretations. Let's try to examine briefly this extremely complex topic.

Classical liberalism is unambiguous as to property rights, as
articulated by John Locke, the 17th-century British political
philosopher and father of classical liberalism:

"Every Man has a Property in his own Person … The Labour of his Body,
and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then
he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left in it,
he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his
own, and thereby makes it his Property."

For Locke, property rights are a necessary implication of
self-ownership. For example, if I take a sheet of paper that I own and
fold it carefully so as to make a paper boat, that paper boat is
properly mine. I have joined my labor with my sheet of paper, making the
crafted paper boat my property.

Unceremoniously, I christen my paper boat "Liberty" and launch it to the
pool.

Social democrats see it differently. During the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, social-democracy movements profoundly influenced by Marxism
sought to replace private ownership with social ownership of the means
of production.

In its current version, social democracy can be defined as a political
ideology that advocates state-economic and social intervention (e.g.,
regulation of the economy, redistribution of income) within capitalism
to foster social justice. Its end goal is to promote a peaceful
evolutionary transition of society from capitalism to socialism using
established political processes.

As social democrats see it, they can rightfully expropriate my paper
boat in the name of social justice, because the boat is not rightfully
my own. The sheet of paper that I used came from a tree that, in nature,
is part of the common heritage of mankind, and therefore the byproduct
is not properly mine. It belongs to us all.

Similarly, because I developed the labor and technology that I used — my
paper-boat-making skills — while attending a public school financed by
the community, social democrats argue that the paper boat, or a portion
of it, belongs to the community.

On this topic, Christian democrats arrive at more or less the same
conclusion, but from a different philosophical perspective. Christian
democracy can trace its philosophical roots back to Thomas Aquinas, but
emerged as a political movement at the end of the 19th century,
influenced by Catholic social doctrine.

As Christian democrats see it, the paper boat is not mine alone. The
sheet of paper I used came from a tree created by God and therefore
belongs to us all. My paper-boat-making skills are a God-given gift, and
God would want me to use his tree and the talents He gave me for the
benefit of mankind.

While social and Christian democrats differ on many other dimensions,
they agree on regulating market forces, social justice, and support for
a welfare state. In Latin America, for example, while tending towards
conservatism on social issues, Christian democrats ideologically join
progressives on economic issues.

Both social and Christian democratic orthodoxies propose using the
state's coercive force to cut my paper boat so that, in the name of
social justice, one part can be shared with the community. Although I am
unpersuaded by their arguments that the boat is not really mine, I am
given no choice.

I cut "Liberty" in half, but when I placed it back in the water, it
promptly sank.

Source: A Paper Boat Named 'Liberty' - Misceláneas de Cuba -
http://www.miscelaneasdecuba.net/web/Article/Index/568edf2c3a682e0ad0585455#.Vo_JyxUrLjY