"Property is sacred"
The sacredness of property is not more rational than the divine right of kings.
The cycle of civilization is a massive business cycle driven by the concentration and dispersion of wealth. If property is sacred, there is no stopping the concentration of wealth. If you don't mind a dark age every so often, then you may be okay with "property is sacred". Otherwise, it's a no-go.
Me, I always liked Issac Asimov's picture of a civilization lasting twelve thousand years or more. But as Toynbee pointed out, in 6000 years of human civilizations, ours is the third generation. On average, a civilization lasts only about 2000 years.
By one commonly used count, this is year 2019.
My guess is that most people like the idea that property is sacred. They don't like the idea that "property is sacred" could be a driving force behind the concentration of wealth and the fall of civilization. If I'm right about that, it would explain why civilizations always collapse: We refuse to accept the idea that sacredness of property can be harmful, and we don't limit ownership.
So if a civilization is lucky enough that nothing else causes it to collapse, the concentration of wealth engendered by the principle that "property is sacred" will eventually bring that civilization to an end. One might say that sacred property is the method behind the madness in the phrase "civilizations die from suicide".
When the growth of wealth outpaces the concentration of wealth, civilization grows. When the concentration outpaces the growth of wealth, civilization declines.
2 comments:
In Francis Fukuyama against mainstream economics, Branko Milanovic echoes a few of Fukuyama's ideas, including these two under the heading Against “property rights fetishism” (Fukuyama’s term):
“The theory that links the different components of the rule of law to economic growth is empirically questionable and becomes doubly so when projected back onto societies that existed under Malthusian economic conditions” (p. 247).
“In a Malthusian economy where intensive growth is not possible, strong property rights simply reinforce the existing distribution of resources. The actual distribution of wealth is more likely to represent chance starting conditions or the property holders access to political power than productivity or hard work….rigid defenders of property rights often forget that the existing distribution of wealth does not always reflect the superior virtue of the wealthy and that markets are not always efficient” (p 142).
Brankovic adds his own thoughts:
"At the end of the book, Fukuyama, when discussing the contemporary China, writes that “good enough” rule of law is often sufficient for fast economic growth. Moreover, technology is much more important than property rights. Fukuyama points out that in a Malthusian world, no property rights will provide you with an economic surplus; but technological development will (p. 249)."
At the end of his post, Brankovic says:
"At the end, another concept that I really liked, handsomly-termed, “the iron law of latifundia” or large real estates: “the rich tend to get richer in the absence of state intervention” (p. 368)"
We're looking at the same economy, Milanovic and Fukuyama and me.
From Roger E.A. Farmer in Social Progress is not an Illusion:
"... it is hard to argue with the progress made by free trade and property rights in catapulting 1.5 billion Chinese out of poverty. The absolute income gains of Chinese peasants may not be as large as those of fortune 500 billionaires, but they are very real. And they were delivered by a move from central planning to a free market economy, and most importantly, by a recognition of the importance of property rights."
I think that without property rights, China would not have made the progress it has made. But China was only at the beginning of its wealth-accumulation phase. In the US we are near the end of our wealth-accumulation phase; wealth has been too concentrated and it gums up the works.
Property rights make wealth permanent. At the beginning of the process this makes things better. At the end of the process, it makes things worse.
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