It’s a serious question, are all properties worth defending?
The problems with patents aka private properties on ideas, is that they are ill defined (lacking boundaries) and are not actually real things. So to make this simple, I’m going to ignore copyrights, patents, trademarks and human rights (I assume you own yourself). So we’re left with physical properties that are not people, ideas. still with me? good.
It’s considered fair that a capable and hard working person should be able to advance their position in society. To do this in the modern world we acquire status value in possessions, money as liberty and functional properties as leverage (houses, offices and the like).
But it’s also considered fair that in any society that no person is able to control or adversely harm the community. If owning vast amounts of properties begins to harm society should we be concerned about the reach of those property rights? In a previous blog entry I explain some ideas about property reach and social cost of imbalances and I will try and clarify some things.
I believe that the scales of imbalance between the rich and the poor in modern society are straining to the function of the free market and are harmful to both capitalist and governing mechanisms. The protection of excessive properties in the hands of the few is a cost born of the entire system and society as a whole. Think about the way in which money is a reflection of work done and think of the limits on the amount and scale of work that any one person can achieve and then think about the scales of properties some people hold.
It’s easy to throw our hands up in the air and exclaim how unfair everything is on us as individuals at the bottom of the pile, but it is important to consider the problem socially. if the system of slavery worked we’d still have it, but there are social implications to good economic systems.
I’m not against people having different amounts of wealth, some people work hard for their money and property. I just don’t want to see such imbalances that the society that is charged with protecting the system of property collapses because it can’t protect and be take the abuse at the same time.
And I’m not just talking about the difference between a single poor person in the USA with a single rich person in the USA. The difference in wealth between countries creates just as much strain and you see the result in human migration, an unfortunate symptom of a problem with greed and lack of social vision in society.
I’m still developing my ideas, but I’ve so far concluded that property can not be infinite in scope, reach and accumulation if we want to maintain stability. I would recommend a system of property reach to dampen the ability of massive wealth accumulation, as well as preventative measures against abuse and possibly even reverse migration grants to take pressure from countries that are suffering the western economy.