Is there any "natural right" to property?
Let us say you are alone on a small deserted island in the Pacific. Maybe you're the sole survivor of a shipwreck or a plane crash or who knows? You're there alone with only the clothes on your back. Your thirsty and hungry. You fully explore the island and, while confirming there are no people on it, you find a spring with fresh water and, amazingly, next to it is a cache of of unmarked boxes containing food and diamonds. You build a fire and feast and think to yourself that, while the diamonds have no value to you as you sit alone on the island, if you you could get back to civilization you'd be rich!
Attracted to the smell of food a warthog comes out of the brush and attempts to take some of your food. It doesn't even pay attention to you but goes straight for the food. You through rocks at it to get it to go away. The food is your most valued possession. At first it ignores this but you find throwing diamonds at it had must really sting for it backs off. It's waiting for you to turn your back and so it can get to the food. Meanwhile ants have also come out of the small tropical woods and gone for the food. You brush them away, but there's not deterred. You kill some and they;re not deterred. So you take a stick from the fire and kill the ants, and when the warthog returns you kill it too. Over the next day you roast and skin the warthog as best you can with what you have and wonder about rescue.
After several days native islanders arrive. They've seen the smoke. They do not attack you or even threaten you but see the cache of food and diamonds and remains from your meals. and unceremoniously start taking the remainder of it and loading it into their boats.You try to push them away, but they push you away and laugh at you. When you tell them it is yours; you found it, and they are stealing it. If it was every anybody else's, it was abandoned, and you own it by dint of finding it! They laugh more at you. They do not seem to understand. They're excited about the diamonds, but they do not seem to recognize any "property right," at least not any that exceeds their right to take it. You are powerless, and they leave soon. You are worried about starving and are bitter about the loss of the diamonds you found.
A day later a boat arrives to pick you up. Its crew was alerted by the natives about your plight. You complain about the cache having been stolen. The captain laughs. Once ashore, you find out that the natives are within the shore authorities' jurisdiction and you file a claim against them. You at least want all your diamonds back. A representative of the natives appears and does not deny what happened. But instead of getting the diamonds back you are accused of trespassing and theft! The island is owned by the natives, and they had stored the food and diamonds there. You stole the food you ate. You never owned the diamonds, just wrongfully possessed them for a short period.
You seem destined to go to prison but while awaiting final judgment the island court learns that the natives have no property interest in the diamonds or the food. They found them on an abandoned boat, and it seems that a little girl is the sole survivor of a family lost at sea that owned the boat. She inherits the right to its contents.
You look in the books, though, and find no prior law on this. "Yes," you are told, "this is a case of first impression, but we have now determined the law. You are powerless to protest. Your claim to the diamonds is no different than the warthog's claim to the food on the island." You have no course of redress left.
The moral of our story is that there are no "natural" property rights as far as we can tell. They are not inherent in object or place. They are not self enforcing. Property rights are made by people, determined by human laws and customs, and vary by region, people, and culture. While they may seem to inhere in the powerful to enforce rights of ownership, the weak can have property by force of law, laws that people make.
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