Special Report
Do It for the World’s Poor
A sobering report on the state of property rights protections worldwide.
One of the favorite mantras of the left is the need to protect people rather than property. But very often the best way to protect people is protect their property. Those with power and influence can steal what they want. Only when property rights are protected do average people have a shot at both liberty and prosperity.
There are two major indexes of economic liberty — Economic Freedom in the World (from a group of think tanks, led by the Fraser Institute) and Index of Economic Freedom (from the Heritage Foundation) — of which property rights protection is a part. But for a long time there was no comprehensive index of property rights around the world. Then the Property Rights Alliance stepped into the void. It recently released its latest report.
The question of property ownership goes far back into human history. Individual sovereignty over land was alien to hunter-gatherer societies, but they died out because they were “unsustainable,” in current parlance. Larger populations required greater productivity, which required some form of property rights, even if by a tribe or some other group. The latter could sustain a certain level of life, but as peoples ancient through modern have discovered, collectivizing production inevitably limited available food and other goods. Rulers in a strong empire might succeed by plundering everyone else, but civilizations were unlikely to develop without a system of ownership which rewarded those who invested in developing and improving property.
The right to private property evolved out of a basic moral notion. While one could argue endlessly about how to initially distribute unowned property — Locke’s picture of mixing one’s labor with land was particularly influential in Britain and the American colonies — land acquired through purchase and improved through work or expenditure embodied value based upon one’s own efforts. Property owners also use knowledge, insight, and vision to enhance the worth of their assets.
Property ownership assumes the right to exclude others and to employ one’s resources as one sees fit. Writes Anne C. Dedigama, who conducted the Alliance’s 2009 study: “A person is deemed to be the owner of the property has this right of freedom of enjoyment of his property. Thus, private property rights are the hallmark of liberty.”
Although land and chattel long were the most important forms of property, today intellectual property has assumed much greater significance. The productive value of human creativity has expanded from hands to minds. The software programs on a computer, not the physical components of a computer, are that instrument’s most productive property. Which means that real protection of property rights requires the proper definition as well as effective defense of property.
Getting property “right,” so to speak, is not just a convenient option. It is vital to promote free and prosperous societies. “Property rights in land are critically important for the functioning of societies. Stability and certainty of property rights form the foundation of financial and political security,” writes David Stanfield of the Terra Institute, a contributor to the latest Index. The most obvious imperative is to “improve security by which land is held,” he writes, but that is not enough. Given the prevalence of environmental degradation throughout the developing world, another objective should be to “protect land and water resources.” Finally, the left is right to point to pervasive injustice in the Third World. But such injustice normally results from the lack of property rights. Thus, the goal should be, writes Stanfield, to “provide access to land by the disadvantaged.”
Property as an intellectual concept is interesting, but has practical value within a particular social context. To achieve Stanfield’s three goals requires striking a complex balance within the political and legal regimes. Different countries might strike the balance differently. The International Property Rights Index, explains Stanfield, is intended to help promote the “continual strengthening of the capacity for this successful balancing,” which not only promotes prosperity but “is fundamental to a vibrant, just and sustainable global economic and political system.”
Any cross-national comparison will have limitations, of course, and the Index is able to include only 115 countries, but they account for roughly 96 percent of global GDP. The Index focuses on ten major variables which affect both the definition and protection of property rights.
Under legal and political environment the Alliance assesses judicial independence, confidence in the rule of law, political stability, and corruption. Under physical property rights the Index covers legal clarity and judicial protection of property rights, ease of property registration, and loan access. Under intellectual property rights, the Index measures confidence in IP protection, strength of patent protection, and copyright piracy.
Although some of the specific ratings may surprise, the general results are predictable. For the third year in a row Finland came in at number one. Denmark and the Netherlands tied for second. Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand join six more European countries in rounding out the top ten (which actually numbers 12 because of ties).
The U.S. falls in the next ten, along with Hong Kong and several European states. The next bloc of ten mixes European nations with South Africa, Chile, and a couple of Middle Eastern countries. The next highest-ranking African country is Botswana at number 43. The next Latin American country is Costa Rica, falling in a three-way tie at 46 with Kuwait and India.
The last of 115 — the worst disasters, such as North Korea, are not rated — is Bangladesh. Angola is 114. Tied at 109 are Chad, Venezuela, Guyana, Burundi, and Zimbabwe. Also in the bottom 20 are five European (Bosnia, Albania, Moldova, Serbia, and Macedonia), three Latin American (Paraguay, Bolivia, and Nicaragua), and three African (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon) countries, along with Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The rest fall in between in no particular order. Poland and Turkey fall in (along with two others) at 53. Mexico is at 62. China and Brazil rate 68. Vietnam comes in at 77. Russia hits 87. Pakistan is a 90. Unrated countries include Afghanistan and Iraq.
America’s relatively weak showing reflects a particularly anemic rating for its legal and political environment. In contrast, the U.S. ties for second worldwide in intellectual property protection.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author and editor of several books, including The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington (Transaction).
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David Mathews | 3.26.09 @ 7:11AM
Doug Bandow is mistaken when he claims ...
* "The question of property ownership goes far back into human history. Individual sovereignty over land was alien to hunter-gatherer societies, but they died out because they were "unsustainable," in current parlance. "
The Hunter-Gatherers did not die out because they were unsustainable. Hunter-Gatherer civilizations have survived for up to 40,000 years.
What happened to the Hunter-Gatherers? They were driven extinct via genocide. See, for example, the fate of the Native Americans of North America.
Who committed genocide against the Hunter-Gatherers? the property owners, the capitalists and the Christians. In North America, for example, the desire to own property and exploit resources provoked Americans to drive the bison nearly extinct, drive the Native Americans to reservations, deprive Native Americans of their human rights, destroy and despoil the environment.
Without the genocide of the Americans, the Native American Hunter-Gatherer civilizations could very easily have survived for another 10,000 - 20,000 years (perhaps even longer).
What then of the property-owning civilization? Given the poor state of health of our nation and the poor state of health of our planet, I think it safe to say that the United States of America will suffer a Soviet style collapse into nonexistence within several decades.
And what of our unsustainable civilization? Technological civilization will not survive beyond the 22nd century.
And what of the fate of the Homo sapiens? A horrendous population crash will occur in the 21st century. Humankind's population will reach 8 billion and then an apocalypse shall occur and at least 90% of humankind will die in the worst possible manner.
That's the price humankind will pay for property ownership and also for excess, greed, gluttony and treating the planet like a sewer.
Ryan| 3.26.09 @ 8:37AM
David,
A couple things about hunter-gatherers. True, there was a great amount of injustice done to the Native Americans, but a large portion of them weren't hunter-gatherers.
Also, hunter-gatherer populations tend to be VERY small by nature, without much population growth. Unlike developed societies, children are a net decrease on the resources (another mouth to feed) rather than a benefit (early in life for agrarian, later in life for a higher technological society - something few people realize).
Native Americans are also by no means merely victims - and their insistence on their victim status (and being kept there by the left) has also contributed to their own issues. People do NOT succeed by playing the victim and blaming others.
Your 90% prediction is WAY off, and will probably only happen due to a combination of disease, meteor strike, and nuclear war. Maybe.
Of course, one wonders if you believe in the myth of the "noble savage..."
PatriotRX| 3.26.09 @ 8:49AM
David,
Thank you for demonstrating what is horribly wrong with the public education system. You, are a beacon of fail, shining like a persistent and painful zit just begging to be set free of your fate.
Big Leo| 3.26.09 @ 11:17AM
Does anyone else find the prospect of Dave being turned out of his mother's cellar to gather roots and berries as entertaining as I do?
Big Leo| 3.26.09 @ 11:38AM
As DM puts it, the liberal-progressive who worships science and reason is against agriculture. The hunter-gatherer is the true inheritor of the earth, and the plight of the poor is nicely solved by killing them all. Medical coverage is no problem, since in a hunter-gatherer society most people die before they hit forty. And education is limited to this root good, this root bad.
"Oh brave new world that has such creatures in it."
bluecollarbytes | 3.26.09 @ 1:20PM
From the founding of Jamestown to todays' clamor for 'free' downloads, 'free' broadband internet, 'free' health care and guaranteed livings, human nature is stubborn when it comes to property rights. After all, it's not Their property being confiscated.
Taking private property through eminent domain actions, often for no other reason than to give politicians more play money, doesn't tend to bring much in the way of opposition.
Property rights are being replaced by 'the greater good' of a Leftist agenda. A large swath of the American public is already primed for the Change.
stewpified| 3.26.09 @ 1:26PM
DM you are wrong. When you use the term "genocide" it manages to fit your anti-capitalist, anti-growth worldview. In the Americas, the Indians populations were wiped out due to the Europeans UNWITTING transmission of diseases on their initial trips to the continent.
Upon return to the continent 100 years later, the Europeans saw very little remnants of civilization (i.e. development/agrarian) and thus the liberal "Europenas came here and wiped out the natives" myth took hold.
In fact, much of North America was developed, there were millions of citizens as societies organized around working "their" land. Now land ownership as we know it may not have existed, but it wasn't nomadic tribes that flourished, it was native populations that understood creating food surpluses lead to easier existances.
Read "1491" to learn about what archeologists have discovered instead of playing the same old hand that happens to fit your uninformed misguided worldview. Dumb lib.
Big Leo| 3.26.09 @ 2:18PM
What is often ignored in the encounter between the Indians and the European settlers, is that a large proportion of the Indian population intermarried with the whites, especially in the East. Even more, the Indians adopted European methods of agriculture, building, and clothing. This means that they is us, regardless of what side of the racial divide you fall on.
By the way, I use the term Indian because the Indians on the enormous reservation I lived next to were polled as to what they wished to be called. The largest vote was for Indian. Don't argue with me, go argue with them.
Steven| 3.26.09 @ 2:44PM
Property, freedom and money
Most people take for granted their comprehension about man's abstract concept of property. I use to think I knew what is really was until I've read this article entitled “ Do you own yourself” by Butler Shaffer who teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law.
http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/ownyourself.shtml
Property and freedom are related in the sense that they are mutually exclusive concepts in their application since as soon as one legitimately claims property right in something it automatically excludes same claims from others. So my freedom stops where somebody else's starts.
This brings two other related concepts that suffer from the same very limited knowledge from the masses: money and politics.
For those who know it this next statement is a simple truth, but for the masses it is a joke since they never took the time to really study it: "money does NOT exist". I can virtually here people laughing, see how predictable people are?
This is a bold statement but nonetheless true as by definition any money of exchange (labor, property, gold etc.) is simply an agreement on some type of units to represent the perceived value of the given transaction between the parties where unitary profits should equal zero if the parties benefited equally in the transaction. The profit would therefore be the perception of being better off after than before the transaction. Of course that perception is unique to every man or women.
Therefore, if one can exchange his property for the same, money of exchange is not really necessary for commerce to function.
However, the type of money we have now which is called money of account because money of exchange has been outlawed since 1933 (HJR 192) as it would go against public policy. Any federal reserve note (or any note) is only that: a note which is by definition a promise to pay. It is an irredeemable currency. So in the world now, the magician politicians and theirs accomplices successfully deceived the people to believe that a debt title (which every note is) is a sound money of exchange. This distortion of reality using legal fiction has profound repercussions on the concept of property itself, after all, if debt could be equated with assets, what else can we distort? Is freedom equal to slavery? Is bankruptcy equivalent to prosperity?
As Butler Shaffer eloquently described, all political systems and nations in the world is nothing else than a system of legal plunder (see Bastiat "The Law") where the tools for justice are used to steal people's properties, which means that government is nothing else than a bunch of men and women doing business at the barrel of a gun, so well explained by Marc Steven.
http://astore.amazon.com/theamericansp-20/detail/061512299X
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7238921269249750961
So all the noise made by politicians is only to distract you from going to the roots, property is stolen using force therefore the main value of civilization as we know now is violence as as soon as somebody claims that you ought to obey else they put you in jail and steal all your properties etc., that somebody says nothing less than, you are my slave period. Think about it, is freedom promoted when violence is used to constrain you against you will and against your interests into something you do not agree with or cannot afford or entails a risk you do not want to take (such as forced vaccination)? I do not think so.
Now since all government are corporations (yes, go on Dun $ Bradstreet and search for USA or CANADA or any countries or cities), do we have psychiatrists to evaluate if that "corporate body" is not mentally ill? I don't think so otherwise war would not exist.
We have a long way to go the change society and I believe there would be no savior, so people who have placed all their hopes in the same basket are taking risks that only irresponsible people would make. They are betting.
Freedom and property go hand in hand and only the responsible will spend energy to preserve it, so to get it is simply an act of living it, you do it with your actions and the way you organize your life. People demonstrate that they want services (free lunches) more than freedom as freedom entails responsibilities, they repeat the classic line “there is no free lunch” but act as if they truly believe there is without thinking about the consequences of lying to themselves, so “let the one who want to be deceived be deceived” go hand in hand with the no free lunch truth.
Steven
Real American Patriot Fo' Real| 3.26.09 @ 2:51PM
Who ya' kidding? Republicans don't give a hoot in hell about the poor!!!!
BUAHAHAHAHA! This article is great comic relief, though? Ain't that right, fellow conservatives?!?!
I MEAN, GET A JOB!!!!
EFF THE POOR!!!
BUAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAH!!!
Hey, let's bomb em!!!!!!!!!!
Big Leo| 3.26.09 @ 3:10PM
Reading Unreal Patriot's rant makes me wish the moonbats would get together and decide whether we were rich parasites or trailer trash. This jumping back and forth makes them look stupid, and we wouldn't want that.
Marc Jeric| 3.26.09 @ 4:21PM
Here you go again, David Mathews - as Reagan said 29 years ago. A prime example of the product of teacher union goons schooling. Fortunately, he is condemned to a lifetime of disappointments in spite of his Abu Hussein from Kenya rule; but this desease will be cured in 4 years by a reality check. It took 70 years in the old USSR but however slow the cure did arrive!
Fred Z| 3.26.09 @ 6:23PM
Very strange that this article does not mention the work of Hernando de Soto.
Pingback| 4.25.09 @ 6:31AM
Doug Bandow » Blog Archive » Protecting Property for the World’s Poor links to this page. Here’s an excerpt: