Ownership and Free Trade

You own things, and ownership of property was originally one of the three ‘inalienable rights’ mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Yep, it was originally ‘life, liberty, and property’ before it was ‘life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.’ To own something means that you, as the owner, get to decide what is to be done with it, whether or not you keep or somehow dispose of it, and how much you will get for it if you should decide to dispose of it.

The thing that I ultimately own is my life. I can sell parts of it in exchange for things, for money, or for the services of others. That’s what labor ultimately is- the trading of portions of my life for things. I can make those portions worth more or less, depending on what I do with them. If those portions of my life are spent doing things that anyone else can do, that time is worth less than if I am the only one who can perform a certain task AND that task is one that others need or want done. That’s why Michael Jordan was paid as much as he was to play basketball, and why people who push brooms for a living don’t make much at all.

I can also own things. Those things can be acquired by selling my labor, they can be gifted to me, or I can trade for them.

I can sell or trade those things (or my labor) to others and use the proceeds from those trades to acquire the goods and services of others. The free trade of goods and services is a representation of free trade.

There is, of course, another way to acquire things. We can take them, either through deceit, through fraud, theft, or even through force. It doesn’t matter if I take them myself, or I coopt others into doing the taking for me, it is still not free trade.

Governments, as the paper says, are instituted among men to defend your right to ownership, with those governments deriving their just (moral) powers from those who would be governed. For many of you, you will recognize the preceding paragraphs as the philosophies of John Locke, referred to as Lockian Liberalism, or classical Liberalism if you prefer. For those of you who know the philosophy, you also know that it was this philosophy that was the basis for the founding documents of this nation.

The reason this is important to me is that, like our Founding Fathers, I believe that the main purpose of government is to defend people and their right to ownership. That ideal is one that our nation has unfortunately moved far, far away from.

There are even readers of this blog who somehow feel that the government’s job is to help them acquire the property of others at gunpoint. For example, the landlord who charges market rates for the temporary use of their property. Some feel that the law should force a property owner to rent it for some other rate, a rate that is inevitably to the benefit of themselves.

Likewise, their labor, the labor of others, and other goods. People will nearly always find a way to rationalize taking someone else’s property by force, especially when that force is being applied by an agent of government. After all, when a police officer does violence on your behalf to force a property owner to sell at a lower rate, it doesn’t really feel like robbery, does it?

Now that doesn’t mean that a landlord can cheat you. The contract (lease) should lay out the circumstances under which things will be handled. Air conditioning? The amount of rent? Who pays utilities? All of these are laid out in the contract. The only role that government legitimately has in such a situation is to ensure that both parties follow that contract.

This is true of other goods as well. If a seller represents a gold ring as being 22 grams of 22 karat gold, but it turns out to be merely gold plated pot metal, then the government has a role in regulating that fraud.

Try using that yardstick anytime you find yourself saying “there ought to be a law,” and see if your statement is morally correct.

I can already hear the argument that “what if no one will sell me that product for a price I want to pay” or “what if all properties’ rents are higher than I want to pay?”

Well, one of two things will happen-

1. no one will buy or rent those goods, which will eventually force sellers to lower their prices or face being stuck with a product that isn’t selling
2. someone else will buy or rent that property, proving that someone else thought it was worth it

So if you can’t afford a good or service, you either have to come to the realization that you need to lower your expectations, or you need to come up with more money.

That is true whether you are dealing with renting an apartment, hiring a lawyer, or buying a gold ring. You sell those things for the most you can get, and buy them for the least that you can. That’s how markets work, unless you are willing to lie, cheat, or use force to acquire them.

Which is, of course, not free trade.