Common Property and Libertarianism

"it is a mistake ... to think that the natural resources of the world originally were, or still are, or should be, owned by humans 'in common'”.

common property  Common ^*property, or ownership, is property “owned by all”. This could be all living ^*persons on Earth or all people in a particular ^*society (where all persons in some group within a society own something, that is sometimes distinguished as “^*collective, or cooperative, ownership”). That is, something that everyone has a ^*legal ^*right to use but not to exclude others from using and, usually, not to destroy (although that is a limitation on ownership). If it is global common property, then it is in no sense ^*private property with respect to other people. But presumably that is still, implicitly, the private property owned in common by humans rather than any extra-terrestrial persons. If it is common property within a society, then it is also the private property owned in common by all members of that society rather than any extra-societal persons.

If one of the owners of so-called “common property” can unilaterally claim his share from the rest (as, for instance, the USA and UK ^*state-^*laws allow, but the USSR state-law did not allow), then it does not look as though it really is common property: it is only collective property shared by ^*consent, which might be withdrawn at any time. This possibility might give individuals bargaining power that could solve some of the problems with full common property: for inescapable common property will usually be ^*economically inefficient because of the ^*“tragedy of the commons” effect. Therefore, it is usually a greater ^*initiated imposition on people to enforce any global common property than to allow its ^*privatisation. Any global common property is normally not ^*libertarian.

Consequently, it is a mistake made by John Locke (1632–1704) and more recently by ^*left-libertarians (but also various other philosophers), to think that the ^*natural resources of the world originally were, or still are, or should be, owned by humans “in common”. It seems more libertarian and less confused to say that natural resources are unowned until ^*initial acquisition takes place. Presumably, for libertarians this must both be and remain in accord with ^*liberty. But Locke, left-libertarians, and mainstream libertarians lack any explicit abstract theory of liberty to explain their positions.

The natural resources that are ^*air and the ^*ozone layer are examples of global common property. However, there are some intellectual creations—such as natural languages, old inventions, traditional music, etc.—that are also efficiently and genuinely commonly owned. It would usually initiate impositions for someone to turn them into ^*intellectual property (unless, perhaps, some invention, work of music, etc., has become lost and a rediscoverer might have some time-limited intellectual property claim).

See ^*oceans and seas; ^*public goods.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)