# Where do rights come from?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [October 8, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263 "2005-10-08T01:20:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2005, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263/121 "2005-10-17T10:41:56Z")
> [@wevets](#):
>
> I see what you’re thinking, although it conflates the two definitions of “property” a bit much for me to ascribe to it myself.
I don’t see where there are two definitions being used.
> [@](#):
>
> I’m essentially in agreement with you so far as “value-added property” (like having the right to a spear you make), but I don’t think it makes a lot of sense for the same idea to apply to property one has not added any value to (why should one person get to “claim” the land a community lives on? Especially insofar as the individual cannot cultivate the land by him/herself - food production is a great example of the necessity of communal effort.).
I’m flummoxed. Where have I said such a thing? Your livelihood, it seems to me, must be produced either by your labor (body) and/or wits (mind) or else by the generosity of someone who rightfully transfered their property to you (as a gift or sale).
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2005, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263/122 "2005-10-18T05:08:45Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> I don’t see where there are two definitions being used.
These two:
> [@Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary](#):
>
> Main Entry: prop·er·ty
> Pronunciation: 'prä-p&r-tE
> Function: noun
> Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
> Etymology: Middle English proprete, from Middle French propreté, from Latin proprietat-, proprietas, from proprius own
> 1 a : a quality or trait belonging and especially peculiar to an individual or thing b : an effect that an object has on another object or on the senses c : VIRTUE 3 d : an attribute common to all members of a class
> 2 a : something owned or possessed; specifically : a piece of real estate b : the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing : OWNERSHIP c : something to which a person or business has a legal title d : one (as a performer) under contract whose work is especially valuable
I have the property of being able to own property, but that is not my property… if you catch my drift ;).
> [@](#):
>
> I’m flummoxed. Where have I said such a thing? Your livelihood, it seems to me, must be produced either by your labor (body) and/or wits (mind) or else by the generosity of someone who rightfully transfered their property to you (as a gift or sale).
You didn’t say it quite that way; it may indeed be that I’ve misunderstood your post # 102, but it was the impression I got.
Fundamentally, I disagree with you that your livelihood is produced by **your** labor/wits/property. I think a person’s livelihood is produced by their activity in cooperation/collaboration/competition with other humans, or in hanging on to existence until one can rejoin/join a society of humans.
Earlier you gave the example of a person who gains the right to own land by investing equity in it (planting crops). I think this example ignores the fact that agriculture _is not, and has never been_ an _individual_ activity except in the most trivial of exceptions such as hermits or shipwrecked people growing gardens. It’s also a notion that goes beyond agriculture: people neither live well nor accompish much/anything except in a group of people. Humans living apart as individuals have a disturbing tendency to go mad or die (…er, that is, earlier than the rest of us :o ), and accomplish little or nothing.
Just so I can peg a real high value on the grandiose meter: Throughout human evolution, the fundamental unit which has improved quality and duration of life has been the group of people, not the individual. “Rugged individualism” is a recent invention of Western Civilization and is more or less a crock of $%@#.
[/soapbox]
So what does this have to do with property as rights? I believe that in many cases, communal rights to property should trump individual rights to property. Fresh water is an excellent example, and arable land another. :o
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### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2005, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263/123 "2005-10-18T07:02:29Z")
> [@wevets](#):
>
> I have the property of being able to own property, but that is not my property… if you catch my drift.
I do, but I didn’t. You use your property (as in ownership) to pursue your livelihood.
> [@](#):
>
> Fundamentally, I disagree with you that your livelihood is produced by **your** labor/wits/property. I think a person’s livelihood is produced by their activity in cooperation/collaboration/competition with other humans, or in hanging on to existence until one can rejoin/join a society of humans.
And with plants exhaling oxygen, and the earth rotating, and the moon revolving, and the sun shining… Should we say that this is not really you posting, but rather the aggregate of people who have influenced you? Sure, people are out there, and there is a society within which we operate. But that doesn’t nullify what you have done.
> [@](#):
>
> Earlier you gave the example of a person who gains the right to own land by investing equity in it (planting crops). I think this example ignores the fact that agriculture _is not, and has never been_ an _individual_ activity except in the most trivial of exceptions such as hermits or shipwrecked people growing gardens. It’s also a notion that goes beyond agriculture: people neither live well nor accompish much/anything except in a group of people. Humans living apart as individuals have a disturbing tendency to go mad or die (…er, that is, earlier than the rest of us :o ), and accomplish little or nothing.
Again, you’re stuck on a red herring. So you hired someone to help you, so what. So you have neighbors, so what. To bring you back to an earlier point, your body and your mind are inviolate. No one can else experience your consciousness (from which comes your consent) and no one else can live in your body (from which comes your labor). You do not lose your identity just because you interact with others.
> [@](#):
>
> Just so I can peg a real high value on the grandiose meter: Throughout human evolution, the fundamental unit which has improved quality and duration of life has been the group of people, not the individual. “Rugged individualism” is a recent invention of Western Civilization and is more or less a crock of $%@#.
A gratuitous assertion which I gratuitously deny.
> [@](#):
>
> So what does this have to do with property as rights? I believe that in many cases, communal rights to property should trump individual rights to property. Fresh water is an excellent example, and arable land another.
Communal rights are fine so long as the property is owned communally. But if you have a private well, are you really saying that I should be able to tap it and direct some of it to my house while you still pay to run the pump?
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [October 20, 2005, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263/124 "2005-10-20T18:14:11Z")
> [@Liberal](#):
>
> So you hired someone to help you, so what. So you have neighbors, so what.
So your survival is not a result of your actions as an individual, but is inexorably tied to the survival of the group. Did you follow the part of my post about how agriculture is not performed individually?
I’m also surprised you jump right to the assumption that I was talking about hired hands - we’ve been discussing property rights, and if one person doesn’t have the right to lay claim to land that an entire community works, why should the rest of the community be in an employer/employee relationship with one person? Think about family farms as one example, if it makes it easier to envision that all these people are close kin (it’s probably a fair bet to say that people in small settlements ever since agriculture began were mostly relatives of one sort or another).
> [@](#):
>
> No one can else experience your consciousness (from which comes your consent) and no one else can live in your body (from which comes your labor). You do not lose your identity just because you interact with others.
I never claimed anyone lost their identity. I’m just saying that the importance of society over the individual is underappreciated (especially in the US, where the importance of the individual is overstated) and that rights are a product of the group’s need to balance individual freedoms with the functions of society.
It’s a bit tangential, but I don’t think anyone sufficiently understands consciousness to claim to know where it comes from. That’s more of an existential and neuroscience debate than one essential to moral/ethical/legal rights.
> [@](#):
>
> Communal rights are fine so long as the property is owned communally.
I would argue that communal rights continue to exist even when private property is recognized. There are good reasons someone isn’t allowed to build an Anthrax factory even on their own property in my residential neighborhood 🙂 .
> [@](#):
>
> But if you have a private well, are you really saying that I should be able to tap it and direct some of it to my house while you still pay to run the pump?
That depends on the conditions the society is faced with. In most circumstances, I would say no.
In the case where my well is drawing water from under other peoples’ property and/or public land, I should have to compensate others for that.
In the extreme case, where I control the only source of water for the entire community, yes, you do have the right to tap my well. No one should have the power of life or death over a community and the society should have the right to defend itself from my stranglehold by making the water communal property. Once the well becomes community property, I shouldn’t have to pay more for the pump than anyone else.
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### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [October 26, 2005, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-rights-come-from/325263/125 "2005-10-26T06:49:32Z")
Or am I just too far wacko loony out there? 😉
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