Journal Morosoph's Journal: Property is a Positive Right 2
I do not mean that "property is a positively a right", although property is an important part of the concept of freedom, rather I mean property is a right in the same way that health care is a right, as opposed to say the right to bear arms.
A negative freedom is where others refrain from harming you, in particular the state. An example is freedom from false imprisonment.
A positive freedom is one where one is guaranteed something by an outside entity, usually the state. An example of this is freedom from poverty.
Property certainly appears at first to be a negative right because it appears to be very natural, especially to those that are used to it. It is indeed likely that civilisation would be impossible without it. However, property is not nearly as simple as being a simple, universal right. Coase's Theorem lies at the root of why land is property, and air is not, for example. The key here is the concept of transaction cost.
There is a defence of property as natural in the theory of natural law, but proponents of natural law are far more subtle than simply proposing property rights as absolute; rather such a defence is about the natural equilibrium of common law over time. Those who would hold property to be a negative right would have to lean on natural law theory, implicitly defining property to be a natural extension of the owner. The trouble with such a theory is that it isn't nearly as strong as the proponents would wish it to be.
Given the problem with defining what property is, and the implicit definition required of property being an extension of oneself, I posit that this kind of reasoning is post-rationalisation used by those who want a minimal government, and divide the concept of rights conveniently into positive and negative rights for the purpose of achieving the kind of government that they wish. This is an entirely reasonable thing to do: seeking consistency by searching for underlying principles is what makes a course of action moral rather than merely arbitrary.
However, property is awkward, and ever-shifting. The evolution of patent law and copyright show this to be precisely the case, and it appears that a better thesis than that of natural law, or concerns of efficiency concerning what is and isn't considered to be property is simply that the powerful get their way. Luckily, however, the multitude of firms in existence means that power is to some extent decentralised, but property certainly appears to exist with the blessing of the state, and this would still be the case even if property law enforcement were in some way more 'just' (this term will mean different things to different readers). In short, property is a positive right.
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