No Trespassing

If you are really looking to antagonize someone in this part of the world try disputing their property rights. No matter what class or political persuasion the person, private property is fetishized, in fact made sacred, to an astonishing degree. Many people have no qualms with the concept of shooting an un-armed trespasser( though few would actually commit the act). The latest public conflict involves Montana's stream access law, the right of recreationists to access the waterways, in opposition to a fierce group of landowners who want to keep the riff raff out. But it cuts to the heart of a foundational contradiction of capitalism, the constitutional and moral imperative of equality in the face of disproportional ownership of property, hence wealth and power as such.

The interesting aspect of this dilemna to me is the degree to which the imperative of private property rights has been culturally hegemonized to the point that the poorest peasant will defend the right of the richest land baron to do whatever the hell he pleases with his land. I don't suppose this is particularly a western or American phenomena but in the American west it is defended religiously and causes more than a little friction around issues of public interest, trust or domain, such as that of fishing access.

Aristotle found "private property" to be a solution to the "tragedy of the commons", his observed tendency of folks to neglect that which was publicly held. John Locke theorized that a "natural right" to property was formed when one "mixed ones labor with nature, thereby securing ownership of that part of nature", subject to the limitation that there should be "enough, and as good, left in common for others"and felt "The reason men enter into society is the preservation of property." Adam Smith, of course, declared property rights to be the basis of the system of capitalism and enshrined in the French Enlightenment Universal Rights of Man we find that all citizens are to be guaranteed the rights of"liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression." Abraham Lincoln mused that "Property is the fruit of labor ;property is desirable;it is a positive good in the world." Both the 5th and 14th amendments to the US constitution associate rights with property ownership.

Some early socialists and anarchists saw problems with this, Pierre Proudhon being perhaps the most explicit when he stated "property is theft". Marx and Engles made a distinction between "productive property" which was social, and the "hard won" property an individual might put to personal use. Of course it was one thing when there was plenty of property( not just land but all the means of production as well) to go around, when it just had to be liberated from the fuedal Lord or the indigenous tribe who was currently in possesion but we can see the problem that comes up when all the deeds have been passed out and you didn't get one. Now you got rent. And so the dilemna of democracy: It might be "one man ,one vote" but if he's got all the property, wealth and power, he can buy all the votes he needs. if there is supposed to be equal opportunity, how come he sits on his couch and collects rent while I walk behind a mule all day for shares?