Robert Tracinski - Ayn Rand's Case for Property Rights

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Great. Well, uh, it is seven 30. We'll go ahead and, uh, get started as, uh, people start to file in the room. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Scott Schiff hosting the Atlas society's senior fellow Robert trinky on I Rand's case for property rights. Uh, we encourage questions. So as Rob is offering his take, feel free to raise your hand and we'll bring you up to the stage. Uh, I also wanna encourage people to sign up for the Atlas society's weekly newsletter with, uh, good weekly content. I'll put up a link as we get started. Uh, Rob, thanks for being here. What is I Rand's case for property rights? Speaker 1 00:00:45 Okay, so this, this, uh, the topic for tonight sort of began with me a few months back noodling over, uh, I Rand's case for property rights because, uh, I came across a discussion of John Locke's case for property rights and, uh, his case for prop rights. Lemme just quote it here. Uh, this is from the second treatise government, the labor of his body and the work of his hands, we may say are properly his whatsoever. Then he removes out the states that nature has provided and left it in. He has mixed his labor with and joined it to something that is his own and their boy makes it, it prop their by makes it his property. So this is the, uh, mingling of your labor with the property. This theory now the, the, and this is sort of the foundation for, you know, the, the founding fathers, uh, for modern liberal in the proper sense of the word liberal societies, um, and for modern capitalism. Speaker 1 00:01:45 But the problem with this, and, you know, this has been, the philosophers are going to town on this, that this analogy of mingling your labor with something is it's, it's an analogy, it's a metaphor. It's not really a literal description. Um, or at least it's not, I guess you could say it's a literal description, but it doesn't seem like it fully captures what's happening. It raises all sorts of questions. Like, you know, if you, if I go burn down a forest, just cause when I see it go up and smoke, just cause I like to see the flames dance, um, I've mingled my labor with the forest, but that does that mean I own it. Uh <laugh> so, uh, through my labor, I have, you know, I've, it has become something different has been changed by being combined with the products of my labor. But do I then can I claim ownership of it by doing something purely destructive and realistic? Speaker 1 00:02:38 So I looked at what, well what's iron Rand's case for property rights. And the interesting thing is I found that it's surprisingly diffuse, meaning that if you look around, it's kind of, it has to be pieced together, little spots in there. There's no session in Atlas shrug. I mean, for all, we think of Iran as this great defender of capitalism and of property rights and, uh, uh, and, and, uh, uh, uh, we would expect her to have that be a, a major issue with her philosophy. She actually doesn't spend a whole lot of time spelling out here is the basis of property rights. But if you look around, I think what you find is I was very, I was very pleased to find though, that didn't go, there is this little section where she says the source of, or GA says it, but you know, obviously it's her speaking through GA the source of property rights is the law of causality. Speaker 1 00:03:30 Now that's really interesting. And part of it, reason it's interesting is because I have this sort of pet theory, I might turn it into a book at some point, that causality is the fundamental concept that runs through all of the objectives, philosophy that so many different parts of objective can be explained as her taking seriously and applying the law of causality to a variety of different topics from morality to sense perception and, and everything in between. But so the idea that there, she would have a causal theory of property, I think is very interesting. Uh, so, and, uh, I think you've, I sent you a link. I don't know if you posted it yet of I'm just getting to it. Good. There you go. Uh, an article thought article, I did sort of putting all this together, but I want to zero in on it. Speaker 1 00:04:18 And the thing I find fascinating about about it. So here's what she says. Ingul speech about it. The source of property rights is the law of causality. All property in all forms of wealth are produced by man's mind and labor, as you cannot have effects without causes. So you cannot have wealth without its source, without intelligence. You cannot force intelligence to work. Those who are able to think will not, will not work under compulsion. Those who will won't produce much more than the price of the whip needed to keep them enslaved. You cannot obtain the products of a mind except on the owner's term terms by trade and by volitional consent. So in place of locking of you've mingled your labor with something, and because you owe your labor, therefore you own the thing that you've, Ingled the labor with. She has a causal view of property, which is that property is something which was brought into existence as, you know, a cause and effect chain from your actions, your actions caused this valuable thing to come into existence. Speaker 1 00:05:23 So you, there was an empty field, an empty bitter Prairie you came and you caused it to become, you know, plowed and fenced farmland. And therefore, because you caused this thing coming into existence, you therefore have a claim on it. But also specifically notice the kind of causation she's she's talking about here, which is it's not just your labor that has caused it to come into existence, but it's your mind and labor. And she talks about, you know, the wealth of source of wealth is intelligence. And I think it's interesting that Iran coming much later than Locke. Uh, I found that a lot of what she wrote about property, a, a fair bit of what she wrote about property. She wrote in articles and an article on patents and copyrights. So intellectual property, which was not a major issue in Locke's day, was a much more prominent issue by his time to get to the early 20th century. Speaker 1 00:06:17 Really. I mean, the, the late 19th or earliest 20th century is sort of the era of modern copyright before that, you know, hardly anybody got wealthy by writing a book before then, because it was so hard to, to copyright anything and to, to actually capture the value of a book aside from the fact there wasn't de literate math market either. Uh, so, you know, in the 19th century, you get a literate mass market, uh, for, for, for books, you get a giant and you also have a technological society. So there's a giant market for inventions. And so because of that, you started to get patents and copyrights and they become a major source of wealth. And so by the early 20th century, that would loom large. So here's what she wrote about patents and copyrights. Every quote, every type of productive work involves a combination of mental and physical effort of thought and a physical action to translate that thought into material form. Speaker 1 00:07:13 The proportion of these two elements varies in different types of work at the lowest end of the scale. The mental effort required to perform unskilled manual labor is minimal at the other end, what the patent and copyright laws acknowledged is the paramount role of mental effort and the production of material values. These laws protect the minds contribution in its purest form, the origination of an idea. And then that brings us back to which she's second speech about how the or case for property, right, is based on the fact that intelligence that the mind cannot be coerced, uh, that coercion doesn't is not conducive to thinking does not cause someone to think. So the interesting thing I found out, I, I thought about that is that when we're talk, comparing her to John Locke, I find that her argument for property rights is much closer to Don Locke's argument for religious freedom. Speaker 1 00:08:06 So for re reli in arguing for religious freedom in the letter concerning toleration Locke had said, uh, let's see, um, truth, the truth proceeds only from quote, the inward persuasion of the mind and the light of her own reason. And quote, again, such as the nature of the understanding that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force. So it's interesting that she's taking Locke's argument for religious freedom and for freedom of speech in the letter concerning toleration and focusing more on that issue in her case for property rights, um, which I think is an interesting sort of leap forward. That really, it, it highlights the way in which, you know, Iran's, um, mature philosophy is only really possible because of the industrial revolution, right? Because the industrial revolution, you saw the role of inventions and of cop and of, and of patents, um, and of ideas and, and scientific and technological ideas becoming so much more important in human life becoming so much more fully demonstrated the value that they bring to human life, that she's able then take something that Locke used to apply to, you know, freedom of speech and, and, and freedom of religion, and then apply it to the issue of property. Speaker 1 00:09:24 Uh, so I think the, the causal, but there's one other thing I wanted to throw in on the causal aspect of this property, right? Cuz there's one final form of another form of causation that is involved in rights and that is final causation. Now final causation in the university terminology means the relationship between means and ends. So, uh, something is a, a final cause of something. If it's the reason for which the goal which you are, which you were trying to achieve by, by performing an action, uh, and the way you put it is that, you know, it's the idea of the final result that motivates you then to take the action, to achieve that result. That's why it's a form of causation. And I think that that applies to property rights in the sense that, um, the, the real, the, the, the, the ability to enjoy the benefit of ownership, the ability to possess something, to own it, to dispose of it, to use it to pro, to be able to have control of it in order to, uh, promote your own goals and interests that is itself, the cause of you are creating that thing in the first place, right? Speaker 1 00:10:36 You created it so that you can own it and enjoy it and use it and, and promote your life. So it is, it is the enjoyment of the property, the, the ability to pursue rights over the property at the end point, that is itself the cause in the sense of final causation, it's the cause of that property coming into existence. So that's another sort of lay on this causal theory of property, but I think it's interesting that, that I think it's a kind of a, an area that hasn't been unfolded and explored to, to a great extent. And there's of course, tremendous confusion over, uh, over the basis of property rights. And I think a lot of classical liberals are still trying to sort of, um, prop up or patch together or explain and expand the Lockian theory. Whereas I think she's done sort of a leapfrog above that to have a, a more profound and also a wider ranging and also a more literally factually you know, direct description, uh, theory of proper rights by talking about the, the idea of the cause is simply a, a, a network of cause and affect relationships. Speaker 1 00:11:45 So for that, I, with that, I wanna open it up. Go Speaker 2 00:11:49 Ahead. Can I admit to being one of those confused folks and ask a question Speaker 1 00:11:53 <laugh> sure. Speaker 2 00:11:54 Wonderful. Well, uh, just to your point about causation or, or I guess, and Rand's point about causation, what about the circumstance in which there is no human element to the causation? You know, I'm thinking about, you know, land and resources that existed before human settled lands. You know, somebody goes and stakes out a, a bunch of land and claims a property, right. But has not presented, uh, has not mixed any labor or has not been causal in the creation of those resources. Speaker 1 00:12:28 Okay. That's a great question. Uh, now two things about that. One is that, um, there is an example, something is purely the way you're talking about that. There's no human, uh, action involved in it, and that is air and sunlight, right? Those, those are usual examples that often used, you know, the, the U there's no property rights over the air that you breathe, because it just, there, it just exists. It blows around <laugh> and there's nothing that any human being does to bring into existence. And so therefore there is no property rights over air. Now you might notice that there are cases in which there can be property rights over air. So, um, you could, for example, I mean, if you've got ever gone scuba diving, right, there's this tank, there's a tank full of air and that's Hanks owned by somebody. And that, you know, they have a property right over the air that's that's in that tank because taking air and putting it into a tank and making it usable for scuba at diving is a, is something that requires work and effort. And it's a causal is part of that caus and chain. Can I pose Speaker 2 00:13:31 The scenario and how to respond to it? Um, you know, I'm considering maybe the, you know, settlement of the west, um, you know, somebody hops off a boat in New York, um, you know, they are granted a property interest in a hundred acres of land and everything that's on that land from the natural resources like, uh, game and, and mm-hmm, <affirmative>, uh, lumber to the, you know, was below the ground. Um, a property interest is established before that person ever ventures out to those lands. Speaker 1 00:14:02 Well, okay. So I, I, that was what I was gonna deal with next, as the settlement to the west. Now, what you're actually talking about is the settlements of the east, because that was exactly what was done under the original Royal rule off like William Penn. You know, you get these guys who were granted, um, they were given Royal grants of here. You have 30,000 acres, huge amounts of huge amounts of land that were just given away by the decree of the king. And nobody had done anything to, to own that. And to, and that was the, that was basically the aristocratic system being applied to acquisition of new property in the new world. But at the same time, there was another system that was a more Lockian system and it was used in Virginia and it, they became the basis for the, um, what's the one that was used for the west. Speaker 1 00:14:54 I did, I should know the name. It's, um, drawing a blank. Anybody got it. The, uh, homestead act. Yeah, the homestead act. So, uh, basically most which mostly kicked in is people moved, you know, west of the Mississippi and under that. So, but you can, I can see where I live. You can see actually physically the remains of this, uh, which is that in Virginia, you'll see, um, especially not too far from here, you'll see often there, these very large pieces of property that are the leftovers of the sort of aristocratic settlements, where somebody would got a land grant of this giant amount of property. And then in, amongst them though, you'll find the, these little modest little two or three or five or 10 acre places. And those places were, were the ownership to those places was established under a more Lockian rule, which is if you could fence in the land, then you could claim it. Speaker 1 00:15:46 And basically if you fence in the land and you tilled the soil and you basically, you mingled your labor with the land and you did something to show that you had improved the property, then you could claim an ownership to it. And that was codified in the homestead act for most of the Western expansion, you know, uh, uh, um, starting in the 19th century, which was that you could go, you could stake out a claim of land and you could, uh, and then if you showed improvements and you stayed there for a certain period of time, then you had ownership of the land. You had to register that with an office and all that sort of thing. Now, the other thing I would point out is if you're talking about mining or something like that, thinking out a mine also involves human labor. It involves prospecting. Speaker 1 00:16:31 It involves finding out where the is, right? And then, uh, you know, you have to prove your claim. You have to, you know, put stakes around it. And you have to, you have to show that I identified where this gold was. I've dug up enough to prove that there's gold here and now I've, you know, plot out the, the claim that I'm making. I'm not sure what all the rules were, but the, the prospector staking, his claim, and the literally meant putting aches in the ground to show the barrier, the borders of it. But the prospector taking his claim was an example of somebody bringing his own labor and effort and thinking into the process, because he had to find out where, you know, find out where the gold was, make sure you're not taking a claim to a totally barren, uh, and worthless, uh, piece, uh, piece of mountain. I dunno if that Speaker 2 00:17:16 Thing is, I suppose what I'm saying is that the wealth exists before the property interest is granted that, that the, you know, a resource such as, you know, timber, um, is present without human action Speaker 0 00:17:29 Buck. I want, I wanna try to get Phil too, but go ahead, Rob. Speaker 1 00:17:32 Okay. So in order to point out there, I'll just give one quick answer to go to Phil, which is that the wealth does not exist before human action, because I mean, the, the, the material exists, you know, the copper in the ground exists, the trees are growing, but it's not wealth in terms of, it's not usable until somebody comes and does something to it. Right. So you gotta go cut down a bunch of trees before you don't have timber until you cut down the trees, right. A bunch of trees just in the forests on their own. Those aren't just trees. Those aren't timber. It's not, I, I think I'm think I'm pretty sure I'm correct. On the technical terminology here, that timber actually refers to trees that have been cut down and are basically ready to go to the sawmill. Well, it's a lot of work to do that. Speaker 1 00:18:17 <laugh>, uh, and similarly, you know, the, the golds that's buried under the ground is there before you came along, but finding out where it is and digging out of the ground and actually usable to human beings that does require a, require an enormous amount of effort. And it requires knowledge and it requires, you know, expertise and experience. And that's what gives you the property, right? So you do have to mingle your labor with it in lock in terms, or you do have to be, you have to cause that, that, that, well, to actually you're causing that wealth come to existence because you're causing the material that was there in the ground to come out and be available at a usable form by humans. So that's the quick answer, but we should probably go to Phil now. Speaker 0 00:19:03 Okay. Yes. Uh, Phil, maybe we'll get back to you buck. Uh, Phil, go ahead. You'll have to unmute your there's a, you click the microphone button. Um, I tell you what we'll actually go to Roger and, uh, Phil, while he's doing that, you can, Speaker 3 00:19:20 Oh, I got it. I got it. I got it. I didn't know where the microphone button was. Um, it seems to me there's something that's often left out, which ought to be added. And I suspect maybe this is already done in the common law, uh, in, in addition to what people often think of is you have the sole ownership of a physical thing, like your farm or your forest, or your mine, your timber, but, uh, there's a category seems to me, which for lack of a better term, and which could be partial rights, I'm gonna call it access rights, like suppose you, um, you're one of the first settlers out somewhere, and you're not right next to the river, but you constantly have walked to the river to get water for your house. And then somebody builds a farm between you and the river. I'm sorry, my, my voice machine and it, okay. Speaker 3 00:20:14 Somebody builds a farm, right. And cuts you off. You should still have an access to, to, um, the thing you don't have sole ownership of the water or the river, but whatever quantity that you consume, you know, somebody can't come and, and damn the whole river. And I'm just using that as an example. But I think there's also issues relating to air and pollution. And, um, I thought I forgot my other example, but you have access to something, a partial access, shouldn't that be added in as a, as a farm of property, right? Or somebody builds a house, um, you know, builds you, you have a house with a nice view and, and somebody comes and builds a factory right next to you and you don't get any more sunlight or some of these things are taken care of in socialism, under zoning laws. But I think so privately there are proprietary communities and there are de restrictions and stuff and covenants. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:21:13 Yeah. There's a lot of real life examples of this. So this is all well covered. In fact, the first thing you, you described, basically you described the plot premise for the, for Shane. Uh, it was a, Shane was a, you know, as a famous movie in the fifties Allen lad, the movie, I don't think is terribly. The movie's not very good. The book is, is perfect. It's like a, it's a perfect short Western book. Um, I'm trying to remember the Jack Schaffer was the author. The book is perfectly written it's, it is absolutely we're worth your worth getting. Um, but the premise for it is you have a bunch of homesteaders coming in and building farms a lot, the river and the big rancher who was used to having access to the river suddenly is mad at them and wants to scare them off. And so that's how he brings in a gun Slinger. And you have the whole sort of your basic Western setup, right? Yeah. And this was a common thing that the ranchers who had these vast lands that they used, but didn't own, uh, they used for grazing or for water access. And you suddenly had the home centers coming in and building farms there and it created this friction between them, the open range guys versus the farmers, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and the, Speaker 1 00:22:24 Yeah. Yeah. So this was dealt with in various ways and there are just access rates. Now, another example I'm talking to you right now from my house, right. When I bought my, my house is surrounded on all four sides, um, by forested land, uh, um, it's where there was a battlefield on here. So now it's all owned by a battlefield foundation, but because my house is surrounded, uh, one of the things we did when we bought the house is we had to go in and figure out, do we have basically access rights down our driveway? And, you know, the driveway is actually owned by the railroad cuz it goes along the railroad tracks. Uh, but we had to make sure that there was, you know, we, they had to get title insurance and all these things they had to actually go through. And there was, there was some trouble of evolved cuz it's, you know, this all dates back to the 1870s. So <laugh> finding the records was difficult, but this idea that you had to establish that, okay, you can't really buy this house unless you can establish that you actually have the right of way to get to your house. <laugh> uh, so again, all of this is dealt with in, in the common law. What was the last example you had? Speaker 3 00:23:32 Um, I had an example. I mentioned pollution, but I didn't develop it. I also somebody cutting your view off, you know, the Billy, right. And you know, Speaker 1 00:23:43 Pollution is the, why do factories have smokestacks is because your factory's pushing out all the smoke. Well, if, if you're, if you're pushing it up and it goes up a little chimney and comes out, you know, 40 feet off the ground, what's it gonna do? It's gonna go right next door into the tenements next door. And everybody's gonna get covered with SL mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so the solution to that is, well, okay, build a 200 foot high chimney and all the stuff will go up there, high enough that it blows away and dissipates and Del and um, you know, they say dilution is the solution to pollution. It, it dilutes enough. It, it disperses it diffuses enough into the air that it won't bother anyone. So again, there's all sorts of ways within the common law that they've come up to deal with with these questions of, you know, you're doing something in your property that causes pollution or damage to somebody else's property, therefore they have got a legitimate claim against you. And there are ways of, of, you know, settling those disputes or, or, uh, common law has developed rules for, for how, who has a valid claim and who doesn't Speaker 4 00:24:44 Mm-hmm <affirmative> right. Speaker 1 00:24:47 And it can be like totally unlimited claim. Like, you know, because you live next door to me, I can never build anything. You know, that's sort of the NIMBY approach that, that, that has been used now under zoning laws and things like that, they've decided, oh, well you can't build something that will change the character of the neighborhood mm-hmm <affirmative> and then you get this point where, you know, uh, nobody can afford to live in San Francisco because nobody can build anything. Speaker 4 00:25:11 Mm-hmm <affirmative> Speaker 0 00:25:11 Right. Roger. Uh, thank you for, uh, your patience. Do you have a question for Rob? Speaker 5 00:25:18 Yeah. I wanna do, uh, walk down the path of intellectual property, right? Yeah. Um, my understanding is that Rand was in favor and I think it, it, it stands for a reason as it, um, it's personal, you know, uh, her, yeah. So, yeah, so, so if something that we create with our mind, it, it it's, it's a, it's something that belongs to us. Uh, and, and, and I think having protection under the law, uh, Rand's idea of, you know, having courts to disputes, I think patents, trademarks, mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, uh, things of that nature should fall under that. Um, but there's, there's, there's an argument that's made by Murray Rothbard. Um, you know, where he goes against the idea of intellectual property rights, uh, suggesting that, uh, that government putting these arbitrary limits, um, uh, I is, is stifling to growth and, and is basically government interference into a free market. And I would just, I, you know, I would love to get your take on, I, I, I have my take, but I I'd love for, for you to give the, uh, the difference between Rand and Roth. Bar's take on, uh, intellectual property. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:26:28 I'm not familiar with Roth, bar's take as such, but I think I'm familiar with hearing it from a lot of people over the years, so I'm not sure if this is the exact Roth bar version or the, just the standard libertarian argument. Well, here's, here's the thing. It's first thing I declare my bias, which is I'm a writer and I make my living off of property rights or off of intellectual property. Um, the fact that, you know, if I post something to my website that you can't just come along and copy it, or if I, you know, if you, if you're on my newsletter, you can't just grab that and publish it as your own. Um, so, you know, without that I'd have to Institute some much higher security measures to sort of keep people from stealing my stuff. And it probably, I would make less money and PE fewer people would get access to the ideas than everybody loses. Speaker 1 00:27:16 Right. So, um, I sort of see the practical, immediate practical value or to put it in nine Rand terms, the causal chain, right? So if I am able, I'm, I'm able to produce a lot more ideas as an intellectual because I there's a causal chain where I can then take those ideas and, and if, and, and sell them, essentially sell access to them, to people who value them and make enough money that I can then afford to live on and then afford to create more ideas, right? The, the, the, the final causation loop where you, you, you, you do something in order to create value, and then you achieve, you get the, the, the, um, uh, the value that you create that and allows you to do more of it and create more of it. That, that final causation loop is the reality of my everyday life. Speaker 1 00:28:11 Okay. So that's part of my perspective on it is that, uh, the idea that, you know, fewer ideas will be created if people can't get paid just for creating ideas. Um, and there's no way to can get paid for it when, without ability to assert some exclusivity. Now, of course, I give away all sorts of stuff for free or nobody's paying to, well, actually the Atlas society is paying me here to, to be here to talking to you on clubhouse. So somebody is paying for this. It's just not, you know, the listeners aren't, but, uh, the Atlas society is because they want you people to be able to talk about this. They want you people to be aware of them. So again, the, the causal loop is still there, right? Somebody benefits from this thing happening, and that benefit is what causes the thing to happen. Speaker 1 00:28:56 And without that, um, I probably wouldn't, you know, if, if I were, if, if this were totally, if I, as we totally just be donating my spare time, I might do it, but there's a good chance. I'd have other things to do. I'd be off, you know, selling insurance all day and, uh, be too tired at the end of the day to, uh, uh, to put in the extra effort. So they there's, it's that causal loop. And that's a real, uh, I think that's the explanatory power of that causal loop is it shows why you need intellectual property rights. And I'm Grant's case was specifically about the idea that it allows in intellectual property rights allows for a separation between the inventor and the manufacturer. It allows to that division of labor where, you know, in, in the previous eras, if you were the inventor, something, if you invented a new thing, you are probably also the guy who made it, and the way you kept it secret was you literally kept it secret, right? Speaker 1 00:29:50 It was a secret handed down to your apprentices or to your, to your children who would succeed you in the business, you know, as a clock maker, uh, and you, but the, the inner workings of the clock and how you make all the different parts and how they all fit together. That was all literally a trade secret that you were, that you kept other people from knowing anything about. And that was the only way to protect it. And what that meant is you had to be both the, um, inventor and the manufacturer, and that division of labor between inventers and manufacturers. Couldn't really, wasn't really viable. And it's only with intellectual property rights that you could kind of somebody who comes up with ideas and invents them and writes code, and then somebody else goes out and does stuff with it and produces things. Uh, but you don't have to worry about that. Speaker 1 00:30:39 You can specialize and focus on the me on that. So that's, that's, uh, uh, my main response to that now I do wanna just acknowledge briefly that there have been some abuses of this where, you know, people will ex assert patents over things that are really dub that, uh, uh, whether they actually created or they, or they're certain patents over in the software field, that those Silicon valley people will know examples of this, of, you know, apple asserting a patent over something. And Google says, wait a minute, you can't patent that. Um, there was that old onion headline now Microsoft to patent ones and zeros. Uh, <laugh>, there's sort of a, a shot at the idea that Microsoft was patenting things that they, you know, that they didn't really invent. And of course, there's Disney, which has successfully lobbied for the extension of copyrights. You know, every time, every time Mickey mouse is in danger of going into the public domain, they, they manage somehow to get Congress to extend copyrights in other another 20 years. I think they're at the end of the rope on that. I think they can't push it any farther, but they have been successful for a long time doing that. So there are abuses, but, you know, I think the idea of the causal chain that you have to get, be able the value of your intellectual work in order to be able to do more intellectual work. Uh, I think that that has to be taken to account. Speaker 6 00:31:58 Thanks, Rob. Speaker 1 00:31:59 Yeah. Speaker 0 00:32:00 Great. Ja, did you wanna, uh, say anything? Speaker 7 00:32:04 No, I was just applauding Rob, your acknowledgement of the Atlas. <laugh> Speaker 0 00:32:11 Excellent. Well, speaking of the Atlas society, we have the founder, David Kelly. Uh, Speaker 6 00:32:19 Thanks, Scott. I just wanna add a, a very fundamental philosophical point, too. Excellent discussion. Um, the whole lot, a lot of in philosophy, a lot of, uh, the discussion of property rights still revolves around Locke's argument about missing labor. And, um, but the thing is, it's a procedural argument. It's how you acquire exclusive title over, over, uh, a good like land in his day, especially. But, um, um, and the problem that people raised against it is, well, compare, compare property rights with the system of commons. Uh, if I'm have a boat in the ocean, I'm, it's the ocean so far, um, outside some, some narrow restrictions is the commons that is, anyone can use it and put it to productive use, but they don't have the right, uh, exclusion, excluding others from the same waters. Um, and so I think you have to supplement the procedural type of argument with a substantive argument that this is why human beings need to own things with the exclusive right to use and dispose of them and the right to exclude others. Speaker 6 00:33:46 And, um, in at least in an Anglo American law, that right to exclude tends to depend on whether you're putting it to some productive use. And that's your final causation, Rob? Um, yeah, if you, you know, if I just walk across, uh, an unknown piece of land out west in the 19th century, I don't own it. I can use it, I can hunt fish and whatever, but if I'm gonna stake a claim I need to show, and this was embodied in the law of the time that I'm going to, uh, use it for productive purpose as shown by, you know, I think hope set act sets five years and you gotta have a crop at the end of it or something to show that, you know, you have a right, that you've done something that requires not only your ability to use, use that property, but to your, for exclusive control. Speaker 6 00:34:46 And a lot of that, a lot of the issues we're talking about this specific issues about copyright. Um, I think Rand's Rand's argument I had, I haven't studied the way you have Rob, but, um, I think that's a kind of a continuation of the procedural argument from Locke only, you know, advanced by Rand's understanding that the mind is, is the source of wealth, but we still need a, uh, developed a substantive case. Why a system of private property is superior. It is justified and is superior to assist of collective property as in socialism or centuries ago in the Aris aristocratic Beal system where the king claimed ownership of all land, and you just had, uh, the right to use it under the Kings and addiction. So anyway, that that's my philosophical point, um, because it, it, it, I think you have to appeal to the substantive need for productive capacity, the substantive need for exclusive used in control and exclusion in order to settle a lot of the issues. And they're very complex about repairing rights like bill was mentioning or, um, patents and, uh, copyrights and the limits of those and so on and so forth. I think those all should trace back to the human need for a system of individual property to free the, the intellect, the individuals in intellect to create. Speaker 1 00:36:29 Good, good, good point. Um, there was something else I was thinking about in there. Um, you, I's interesting that, that the ex the issue of exclusion applies more clearly to physical goods like land, right? You know, that if you're plowing the land, it's obvious that nobody else can be plowing the land, or if you are, you know, if you are harvesting your crop, it's clear that, you know, there's an exclusive exclusivity there that if you pick the apple off your tree and eat it, that's exclusive of anybody else picking off the apple off the tree and eating it. Whereas with copyrights, it's not as clear what's exclusive, and what's not because, um, you know, I could read a book and somebody else could read a book and he doesn't take anything away from my reading, the book. There's where I think you need, though, that idea of the, the final causation argument that you pay me for the book, or you paying me for an invention is part of that loop of final causation that causes the, the book or the invention to come into, into existence in the first place. And without which it, it would not, you know, the, the creation of the book would not be connected to my need, to sustain my life. Speaker 0 00:37:40 Can you put restrictions on sharing the book? Speaker 1 00:37:44 <laugh> well, you know, that now partly that's a practical thing, right? Like, how do I put for put restrictions on somebody sharing a book, but they do that for things like, um, I can buy a copy of a movie on D V D. And if I loan that copy of a movie to my buddy, Hey, this is a great, you should see it. That's not a problem. If I put up my big screen TV and invite a bunch of people over and then charge them $5 a piece to watch the movie, then I'm violating the rules on that, right. Because I'm basically setting myself up as a, as a movie theater and, uh, violating the, the rules under which they release the, the thing. And that's actually a real issue. I mean, I don't think it's that common that it happens, but, uh, they who have have rules around that. Speaker 1 00:38:29 And that's the sort of thing that has to be hashed out in common law as when is the restriction too much. And, and most, for the most part though, I don't think it even makes it a common law because it also becomes a matter of, you know, what's enforceable at all. You know, <laugh> having a role that, okay, only you can read this book, but you can't loan it to a friend or give it away to you. Can't loan it to a friend that how would you even enforce that? It becomes an impractical, uh, restriction. Speaker 0 00:38:55 Great. Thank you. Well, we have, uh, several Ari scholars on the stage now. Next is, uh, Richard Salzman. Thank you for joining us. Speaker 8 00:39:07 Thank you, Scott. I just wanted to say that I think one of the real advances that Rand had versus Locke and Locke really does have a decent argument for property, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative> but one of David's right about the procedural aspect of Locke's theory. One of the things Locke says is the earth is given in common to all men by God. Okay. <laugh> the two things I, Rand would say what, what she would say there's no, God, and why would you start with communism? But it's very clever because then he says, I'm gonna show you how you get private property out of this common pool. And the answer is cuz you mixed your labor with RO you know, raw. We know the story, but the other problem with Locke is because he starts with that communism and theism principle. He has these two provide that says, well, as long as you don't take too much from the common pool. Speaker 8 00:40:03 Yeah. And you must Le I think the wording was something like you, me, you must leave as good a shape as you can for all of you. So the environmentalists actually use locks theory to say, you're using up the earth, agree to leave. <affirmative> Rob. I just, all, I really just wanted to ask you whether, um, you think the, the real issue in people opposing private property is all these, I think there's like four or five ways to control or use it. And the way I teach it at duke is the right to earn proper then to consume it, then to exchange it then to say, save or invest it. And then most controversially to bequeath it Al almost no student will say you have the right to bequeath it, to gift it, to give it to others, you know? And because they hate, um, trust fund babies and things like that. Even though, even though most of my duke students are trust fund babies. <laugh> Speaker 1 00:41:02 Exactly, exactly what I was gonna say. I was like, you're teaching at duke. How many of them are trust fund babies themselves? Right? Speaker 8 00:41:07 <laugh> so, so, so what I'm thinking is, remember people used to say, Obama's a socialist and Obama would say, no, I believe in private property. I don't, I'm not advocating nationalizing the means of production, but the you what's going on today is they control totally your, your handling of your own property. So it's, it's a hybrid system of, you know, fascism, you get to own it in title, but we're gonna tell you all the ways to spend it. So, any thoughts on these hybrid versions of private property? Speaker 1 00:41:39 Well, well, so that's where I think that the causal theory of property comes in and especially the final causation, right? The purpose for which you want to use the property is the reason it comes into existence. You created this in order toe, your own purposes, and one of those purposes, you know, which we all know, and the trust fund babies know better than anybody else. Part one of the, one of the purposes for which you create property is so you could provide for your kids. Um, you know, I'm hoping mine will provide, for me, I'm telling 'em that they have to go like write an app and because of billionaire or something. But, uh, but you know, what's probably UN end up happening is I'm going to, you know, work my whole life and leave something for my kids, you know, at the end. And, and, you know, I, I I'm putting them through school and, and all that sort of thing. Speaker 1 00:42:28 So part of the, you know, w we, the, the purposes for which you want to use our property, this is the whole key to final causation. Is that the purpose for which you're going to do it is itself the cause of that thing coming into existence. And that's how that, that's the crucial importance of final causation, both in I Rand system of morality. And in, I think in her system, property rates, the purpose for which you, you want to use, it is the reason it came into existence. And therefore that's a, you know, the event purpose has to be protected. Um, and you know, the, one of the most normal, basic elemental things is that human beings use their property for is for the support of their children. Right? So the, the, the, now what it really comes from is it's, it's the trust fund babies, but it it's people resenting the trust fund babies. Speaker 1 00:43:25 It's, it's en empathy and resentment towards the people who, who would, who have more benefits than they do growing up. But I think even more common it's and you, you probably have lots of, up of close, look at this, uh, teaching at university, it's the trust fund babies, themselves feeling guilty. Yes. Feeling like, like, I didn't create any, I have all these benefits showered on me, my entire life, my helicopter parents. Right. My helicopter parents sent me to sent me to all these lessons and gave me, sent me to a private school. One got me into duke and who know what they did to get them into the right college. Right. Uh, <laugh> we've had some scandals about that and they feel like I've gotten all this stuff. And I can't possibly say that I earned it or deserve it. Therefore, I feel guilty and have to, you know, become the college socialist to compensate for it. Speaker 8 00:44:11 Yes. And Rob, and then Rob, they'll say, they'll say Paris Hilton doesn't deserve. And once, once they get on the argument of deserve, I say, so you do believe in deserving earning <laugh>. So you're already in my camp now, does her father, I don't know who her father, Conrad Hilton does. Mr. Hilton have the right to give the stuff to parents, even if she's a waste role. Yeah. Which she is, and, and the students are like, uh, well, that's not relevant. She didn't earn it in a way. She did earn it. I mean, parents do parents do disowned and disinherit kids. Oh yeah. It's not like, and so you have to kind of presume if, is it to Hilton, uh, to Paris, he thinks she deserves it, but that's the point is it's his right. The focus should be on his right to gift. Not whether she's deserving of it. He thinks she's deserving of it. Right. Yeah. But I, I think you're right about the guilt that they feel. Yeah. They feel guilt that they're the recipients of this Speaker 1 00:45:10 Now, but the, I, I think it's partly, they feel guilt, but also notice that mm-hmm <affirmative>, I don't know how probably in my experience, none of them actually renounce their fortunes. None of them actually like give away the buddy and, Speaker 8 00:45:22 You know, Speaker 1 00:45:23 They could take all the money from the gift from, they could, they could sign it all away to the red cross or whatever. Right. If they wanted to, but they Speaker 8 00:45:30 Don't green piece. Yeah. Speaker 1 00:45:32 So it's also part of it as a matter of, it's not so much, they feel guilty, but also they're looking for a, a way to create it's. It's very Jim, Tigerish a way to create an exception for them. Well, it's okay for me to have this money because I endorse the right social causes and it's, it's this sort of protected of Campbell Fage. <laugh> it's okay for me to be rich so long as I'm, I'm one of the good rich guys who, who who's in favor of socialism. Speaker 8 00:46:00 Yeah. Who gives it away in a bill, in a bill gates case, he, he flips the script and said, oh, I'm not making the money anymore. I'm giving it away. And in the first case, I'm, you know, SCR in the second case, mother Teresa, cause I'm giving it away. Yeah. They do feel that. But Speaker 1 00:46:15 I, I don't, I don't mind that bill gates guy so much, because, you know, he's provided plenty of money for his kids. So, you know, I think he basically said, you know, my kids are gonna live well for the rest of the lives. That's not an issue. And the idea of saying I made a lot of money and now I'd like to see it go for good causes. And he doesn't pick like really terrible for, to my knowledge. He does not pick really terrible causes. He, Speaker 8 00:46:34 Yeah, that's right. Is, Speaker 1 00:46:36 You know, curing cancer and clean water in the third world and stuff that Speaker 8 00:46:40 <laugh>, Speaker 0 00:46:41 You two could go all night. Speaker 8 00:46:43 I'm thank you. Forward Speaker 0 00:46:44 Discussion next week. Speaker 8 00:46:46 Thank you, Rob. <laugh> Speaker 0 00:46:48 Um, I Speaker 6 00:46:48 Just have one to follow up on Richard and, uh, the exchange about babies. How about a, a case directed to them to say, you know, advocate, objective advocate, libertarian principles, and the lower class will benefit. Oh my God. Get rid of all those municipal laws that restrict people from starting a taxi business or whatever it might be. Jennifer, there's a lot of money behind this. Speaker 1 00:47:23 <laugh> well, I see, I don't, I don't think we could make them feel guilty enough though. See, what I would like to see is more the, the, the, the sort of Hank rear and differe Francisco to Ko response, which is if you've got all these benefits and you've got all this money, how come you're not out there making even more, you know, making something growing to something even bigger. Uh, you know, if, if, if your, if your grandfather had oil Wells, how come aren't going out and, you know, creating some new source of energy that will make, that will grow even more, uh, you know, a, a fortune is having a lot of money. Uh, that inherited is kind of a responsibility. You should be doing something productive with it. Speaker 0 00:48:03 Now we'll take, uh, bill, thank you for your patience. Speaker 9 00:48:08 Okay. Um, I've noticed the discussion is on property and yet, uh, although David and Richard both touched on it, uh, it is not so much the physical item or the, uh, abstract intellectual item, but rather the use of it that is important. You know, it is property, not because not simply because I mixed my labor with it, but because I can put it to a use merely mixing my labor with it is not sufficient. And so it is go back to what Rand says about rights, okay. Conditions necessary, uh, for survival in society, we have property rights to delineate what a person may do with some, uh, existence and whatnot. We distinguish property from other existence by the fact that that someone was involved in being the cause of it. And by the fact that they, that they are in some way making use of it or potentially making use of it. And I think we haven't been emphasizing that second part as nearly as much as we should, should be. Speaker 1 00:49:13 Well, yeah, I think there's definitely a case for that fact that, you know, in order for it to be a property, right, it has to be not just, you have taken action to change something in nature, but you've changed it in a way that is actually has value to human life. Um, or at least, you know, some, at least Speaker 9 00:49:31 Your own, Speaker 1 00:49:32 Uh, if well, and also, you know, perceived value, does, you know, you don't wanna put the government in the position of selling the judge, trying to judge, oh, well, what you did with this land, wasn't really a good thing. So therefore we don't want to recognize your property rights. It has to be, you know, the value as judged by, you know, real people in the market. Uh, but, um, yeah, it is the fact that it has some value. And, you know, that also goes to this issue of, you know, of what most of what we create most for most of us, most of what we create, we create not in order so we can have it and use it ourselves, but so we could trade it and we can get the, you know, the product of somebody, the, the product that somebody else has created through their effort. Speaker 1 00:50:16 And that, that's why I think this sort of final causation argument is so important that, uh, for, for the case for property rights is that, you know, the purpose for which you created the thing is in order to have the value for trade and not just, not just for your own youth, but also to have the value of that for trade so that, you know, you can create 10,000 widgets, not because you need 10,000 widgets, but because you wanna trade them for food, uh, or for whatever else that that is that you know, for the other guys' widgets. Speaker 0 00:50:48 All right. Great. Uh, thank you for that. I misspoke before this is, uh, Atlas society, scholar, Jason Hill. Thank you for joining us professor hill. Speaker 10 00:50:58 Thank you. Thank you so much, Rob. Uh, for that really, really, um, deep analysis of luck, I'm, I'm gonna be really radical here. And as we're Rob what he thinks about this, uh, when I teach Locke, I always, and I compare him with Rand. I always see more of a direct line between Locke and John raws. And I see Locke as a metaphysical egalitarian, and it's something that Richard raised Locke has the proviso that you don't take too much out of the land. Yeah, yeah. Uh, more than you can eat and rans utopia of greed in Atlas, shrug puts a direct into that nonsense. That is, as far as your ability can take you, you can acquire as much wealth as you can. So I see lot really as sort of the father of the equity movement, uh, strange, strange way. If you sort of take his argument to its logical Terminus, uh, don't be too greedy. Uh, it's a kind of moratorium to use Rand's term on the brain that is coming out of Lockian philosophy. And I wanted to, uh, I could say much more, but we we're, we're limited here. So I want, I want, uh, Rob, I wanted to hear your take on that. Speaker 1 00:52:08 Okay. That's really interesting. And I, I'm gonna try to squeeze this in because you roped the whole new can of worms. Uh, now part of it is I think interpreting lock as an egalitarian is wrong because it's anachronistic that he, it was bringing up issues that he had even gotten around to thinking about. And part of it, you know, the earth was incredibly underdeveloped and, and, uh, at the time that Locke was writing, I mean, there was all this giant, vast wilderness that it was 1689, you know, America was this vast wilderness with a couple of thousand guys living on, on the coast of it basically. Um, we hadn't gotten very, we hadn't gotten very far at all inland. I mean, they hadn't gotten to, they hadn't gotten as far as I live from, you know, in Virginia, uh, and in 60 89. Uh, so, you know, they, they have maybe gotten as far as Richmond, which is, you know, miles and miles to the east of me. Speaker 1 00:52:58 Uh, so, uh, this idea that there be some sort of, you know, limit to the amount of land. Even now, we haven't settled all of it. We haven't, there's vast areas of unsettled land and unused land in, in the world. And so it goes back to this issue of the commons, like the ocean being the commons. Well, the commons are to some extent, a phenomenon of a lower level of, of economic development, right? Cause you haven't gotten to the point where you actually can use, uh, can put something to use, you know, like the, uh, the native Americans generally held land in common because they didn't have the agricultural ability to use the land. The way that the, the European settlers did, or the oceans today are in common because, you know, you, we don't, we don't have the, a technological ability or the level of wealth necessary to build, you know, build under sea cities, uh, the way that they, they, you know, that you project in science fiction. Speaker 1 00:53:54 But here's the other thing I think you need to understand about Locke. So Locke wasn't even thinking about a lot of the economic issues that, that, you know, it wasn't part of his context of knowledge. So he wasn't able to address that. What was part of his context of knowledge is that I think you can't understand the second treatise in government where he makes these arguments without thinking about the first treatise in government and hardly anybody reads that because it's actually quite boring because it's it, it's him answering an argument that has long been abandoned. The argument for the divine writer of Kings and the, it comes to effect he's coming from a Christian perspective and, uh, a biblical perspective. And the argument is going is Robert Filmer's argument about how basically God gave the earth to Adam when he created the first man, he gave earth and dominion over all the earth to Adam. Speaker 1 00:54:41 And Filmer's argument is, well, the ultimate descendants of Adam, the Kings, and therefore the Kings have, you know, divide amongst themselves and their different domains. They have their portion of Adam's dominion over the earth and the whole first treatise. It's been a long time since I've read it, but my em, my recollection of it is that the whole thing is this long biblical exed justice, about how well, uh, God didn't really give it him dominion over the earth in that way. And even if he did, uh, it's been so long, the line of succession from Adam has been lost. So we can't say that the Kings are, the descendants of are, are the descendants of Adam and have his rights handed down. And we're what he came to is this idea that, um, the, uh, the, the, the Adam's dominion of the earth has devolved equally to all of us, every person that this is where the all men are created, equal thing comes from all men equally have a share of Adam's dominion over the earth. Speaker 1 00:55:49 And then he says, then there's, that's where he gets to in the, by the second tree is saying with this, we all have an equal share, an equal claim to dominion over the earth, along with every other human being. Therefore there has to be something else that gives us a special claim to this particular patch of earth. And that's where he says, um, was that God gave earth to the use as a mankind. And, um, God came, God gave earth to the use of the rational and industrious and labor was to be his title to it. That's the phrase. So that's where he's coming from is he has this whole roots of it in this biblical argument, uh, that he was using against another biblical argument made by Robert filmer. And that's where he comes up with this sort of stuff that seems very egalitarian it's because he was using that egalitarianism to refute the divine right. Of Kings. So that's kind of getting into the weeds, but Speaker 10 00:56:41 Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I know that, and actually I actually teach the first treat is I'm I'm among the few people, but, but, but, but, but, so I think you've just read later, elaborate elaborately, my argument that, so we wouldn't call him a wouldn't call him metaphysical egalitarian since that word wasn't wrong, but it proves that he's a fore run into the equity movement by giving this altruistic argument and placing a moratorium membranes that is showing what Iran actually showed that in her pyramid of a myth ability in ALA shrug, that you actually place some kind of limitation on the brain on the mind. That is, that is you don't, you don't manifest or the values that are part of the development of reason. That's concretized through the development of the creation of property. So that's all I, that's all I really meant to say. That's where I think hand made a frog leap to use your term overlock. So whatever term we use, whatever term we use, whether meta legal or into the equity movement, that's, that's the only point I really wanted to make where Rand really is as an advanced, uh, thinker locking that respect. Speaker 1 00:57:53 Yeah. What I would say is, I don't think Locke was wily, you know, intentionally a forerunner to that. Um, but that I think cousin had to put, it felt to put us whole lot of Christian foundation rooted in the Bible and took, he basically accepted Robert filler's terms about, you know, the Bible and religion being the source of, of political authority because of that, he ends up producing that result. I think you're correct about that. Speaker 10 00:58:19 Yeah. Thanks Rob. Thanks a lot. Yes. Speaker 1 00:58:21 Very interesting discussion by the way. I'm you wanna pop in real quick? Speaker 8 00:58:26 Yes, very quickly. Let's remember also that Locke had this idea. It, it was really an assertion. We own ourselves. It's called the cell ownership principle. So think of this. He says the earth has given us in common by God, but we mix our labor and he says, but we own ourselves. So it's a, it's like a mathematical. If you mix what you own with what you don't yet own, you end up owning. And that in Rand, when you think about the idea of just asserting you own yourself, uh, Nosak took that over at Harvard, in his, uh, libertarian book. And that's been, that's been disputed. David will know this Jason into Steven. This has been disputed for four decades. Do we really own ourselves? And can you just start with that as an Assurion as lock did, or do you have to argue for that? And unless you argue for that, you don't have a case for private property. Uh, uh, I just wanted to throw that in there, this, the self ownership principle Speaker 1 00:59:25 And, and the self ownership principle all comes from this problem of having to, to, to ground morality in religion and in God now he had about the best version of it. And there's a whole, I'm, I'm planning to make a study of this at some point in more detail. This is this whole theory of natural that he helped originate. He wrote a book called the reasonableness of Christianity. So it was like a quasi secular really enlightenment version of Christianity that he had. But it all come this self ownership thing all comes from the fact that he had to say, well, this is what I think God will. And therefore that's why it's it's valid. So it all comes to the fact that he had to, he had to ground it in this Christian foundation, which then of course, you know, Christianity fades and becomes, uh, recognized essentially as not a, uh, not a, not a convincing foundation for anything. And then we're, we're stuck trying to find the psych for Speaker 0 01:00:23 David quick, final thought before we go, or, Speaker 6 01:00:28 Yeah, I just wanna emphasize that, uh, Rob put it a passage that I would say is locked in vocation of a substantive argument, which is God, get the earth to the Indo, the rational and industrious, which is, goes way beyond mixing one's labor. Um, and it, uh, the industrial in industry requires that you be able to acquire proper property, uh, with the, with the element of exclude. So it, you know, locks, uh, mixing labor argument gets all the attention, but, but he also has this other substantive argument and which is not hard to translate out of a theological perspective yeah. Into, uh, rational terms. And I think that's exactly what objective does even if ran in her own writings may not have been, you know, clear about that, but, but some of us have, have developed that case in detail, um, including Rob myself. Yeah. Richard, I'm sure you have some to add to that. So, um, um, <affirmative>, you know, I, I think, um, I would give lock a kind of pass partly for the, you know, contextual reasons that Rob mentioned, but also because I think he's got both elements of procedural and substantive. Um, Speaker 1 01:02:02 And I would say that that substantive part about the rational industrious really ties into his natural religion at ethics, uh, which is very, this worldly very much, you know, God basically God wants us to live and he wants us to use reason and therefore we should be rational and industrious. And, uh, again, it's something I can develop more because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff there that there was a sort of de facto secular ethics of the enlightenment, but it was developed under the name of natural religion. So it, you know, it's not recognized as being a secular argument, but it really is. Um, I, you, with the, a gloss of religion on top, it really is in a substance, a secular argument, but that's, that's old other topic for another day. Speaker 0 01:02:46 Yeah. This was a great discussion. I wanna thank everyone for participating the scholars for helping us promote the time change. Uh, 4:00 PM back here on clubhouse Thursday, professor Jason Hill will be talking about why defeating Russias and America's national self-interest, uh, Alan, I'm sorry. We didn't get to you, but, uh, in the meantime, Rob, great discussion. Um, I'm Scott hosting for the Atlas society home of independent open objective. We'll see you next time.