Every physical thing on this planet is scarce, including human bodies and the space they take up. Thus, property rights must not only deal with possessions, but also with persons themselves. If person A owns person B, that means A has the right to coerce B to use his physical body in any way A sees fit. This concept will become clearer as we examine examples.
We see through logical examination that there are only five ways in which it is possible to allocate the ownership of person and property. In the first system, nobody owns, that is, has the right to use, any person or physical thing. Second, everyone owns everything, that is, he has the right to use any person or thing as he sees fit. Third, everyone owns one seven billionth (his proportion of the world population) of everything. Fourth, one person or group of persons completely owns the persons and property of another person or group of persons. Fifth, each person owns himself and his justly acquired property. There are no other conceivable ways to allocate the use of person and property. Let us examine each.
Nobody owns anything
In this system, no person has the right to use any object or person. We can see that this system of property allocation would quickly fail. Not only would a person not have the legal right to life sustaining activities like eating, he would not even have the right to exist, for the very fact that his body is taking up physical space in the world is illegal since he can have no legal claim to that space. Obviously this system is absurd.
Everyone owns everything
In this system, every person has the right to use of every physical object or person. Again, this system is doomed from the beginning. Imagine a scenario in which two persons claimed the right to use the same fork. There is no legal way to establish who has the “proper” claim to the use of the fork, because, after all, they both “own” it. This system is even more impossible when applied to persons themselves. As stated above, if one person can claim ownership of another person, then he can force that person to essentially be his slave, that is, to use his body as the owner sees fit. Thus, if we say that everyone owns everything, and this applies to persons as well, person A could legally claim ownership of person B. Meanwhile, person B could just as easily and legally reject this claim that he is owned, citing the fact that he has the same right to the use of his body as person A. Person B could even counter this claim of ownership by attempting to claim ownership of person A. Again, this entire system is bizarre and would break down immediately.
Everyone owns an equal share of everything
This means that a person has the legal right to use 1/7,000,000,000 of every object or person in existence. This system too breaks down immediately. For ownership implies the sole use of an object, unless consent is given to others to use it. I have ownership of a piano, and others can use my piano only to the extent that I consent to their use of it. Thus in our “everyone owns an equal share of everything” system, it would be impossible to use anything, for to use anything would require gaining the consent of the other 6,999,999,999 people who also claim partial ownership of that object. Philosopher Murray N. Rothbard addressed this system in his beautiful treatise The Ethics of Liberty, saying, “Can we picture a world in which no man is free to take any action whatsoever without prior approval by everyone else in society? Clearly no man would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly perish.”
One class owns another
This is, I would argue, the system in place today. In this system, a person or group of person is entitled to own not only themselves, but the rest of the physical objects and persons in existence. The first reason that this system is disastrous is that it is not an homogeneous system, that is, it is not a universal legal ethic. For a system of law to be just, the law must apply equally to all members of society. The three systems mentioned above at least are universal in their scope, that is, no person gets special treatment, but in this system, a certain class does get special treatment under the law. Furthermore, this system violates one of the most basic and God-ordained truths of nature, namely, that all persons are created equal. For one group to deny to another group the use of their persons and properties is to say that they are, by nature, subhuman. This system is exactly what is in place today, wherein the state has the “legal right” to coerce the citizenry to use their bodies and possessions in various ways that benefit the state. This is called coercion. Common examples of this type of coercion are taxation, wherein a citizen is called upon to simply hand over his possessions upon the threat of violence, and conscription, wherein a citizen is called upon to hand over the use of his body upon the threat of violence. This system, under any definition, cannot be called just.
Everyone owns himself and his property
The only remaining conceivable system of allocating scarce resources is one such that each person has the right to use his body and his justly acquired possessions as he sees fit, provided that he does not interdict upon the ability of anyone else to do the same. This system is a universally applied legal ethic, it complies with the laws of nature, and it does not stifle the activity of society, unlike the others. Consider: only I, in the state of nature, have the ability to use my faculties (movement, vocalization, thinking, ect.), and therefore, only I can claim a right to their use. This concept is called self-ownership. When this right of self ownership is extended to other material objects, it can be said that I have the right to the use of those objects which I have either contractually exchanged with another person, or have created or gathered out of previously unowned objects (This latter concept is called homesteading, and for more on this important topic, read Locke’s Second Treatise, Section 27.)
Thus, this final system is the only way to justly, equally and plausibly allocate scarce resources. In the real world, this system would prohibit any person or group from violently confiscating the person or property of another. This means that, for example, bank robbers could not, brandishing guns, take money that from the bank that they did not earn. Also, a government could not, brandishing guns, take money from its citizens that it did not earn. It means that a kidnapper could not, under the threat of bodily harm, force a person to go anywhere or do anything against his or her will. It also means that a government could not, under the threat of bodily harm, conscript a person into its army against his or her will.
Only a system of interpersonal ethics that is universally applied, consistent with the easily apprehended laws of nature, and allowed persons freedom to act within defined spheres can ever hope to be just. Only a just system of interpersonal ethics is in line with God’s design and will for His creation.
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