SEMINAR MEMBERS RESPOND
 Ilgin Yorukoglu
The Collective Responsibility and the Right to Detroy One's Property
March 17, 2009
Jose Alvarez writes, “…the West has given very real effect to the Universal Declaration’s right to property; of all the rights in the Universal Declaration, that right is probably the one that is most credibly enforced internationally, particularly in defense of the rights of foreign investor.” He appropriately talks about how “that Straightjacket,” which is enforced by everything from IMF conditionality to threats by the U.S. Congress to deny aid, includes adhering to human rights standards (and especially the right to property) as the new de facto “standard of civilization.”
None of us here would argue against the right of women and men to own property (especially when women’s rights, for example, to land ownership and inheritance, are being denied in many, many cases) - my concern lies somewhere else which I can’t quite name yet. To talk about “ownership” when talking about basic human rights, I guess, just does not “feel” right (“not that there’s anything wrong with it!”).
But more: I think the overemphasis on the right to property might be also dangerous in the sense that the availability/legitimacy of use of other rights might depend on the property right. Look at the way the libertarian Murray Rothbard was supporting the privilege of the right to property in comparison to the other rights, back in late 1970s:
“Take, for example, the ‘human right’ of free speech. Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate ‘right to free speech’; there is only a man's property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.”
One becomes as human as the property one owns – or s/he claims to own.
If this relationship between the owner and the property is such a basic right and the owner is the sole authority on this right, what about the right to destroy one’s property, then? Why does it seem harder to think about destruction of one’s property (including, or perhaps starting with, one’s body) as a human right than owning that property? It is important to keep in mind that when one creates a list (list of rights, in this case) those that are not listed stay outside – owning a property is your human right, destroying your property is not your human right.
What about land occupations for landless workers, particularly those in Brazil? The clash between some principles within this list of rights become apparent when we think about the right to food, and the right of access to land that flows from it, and how these clash with the property rights of landowners. Think also about water privatization debates which again reveal a clash between the basic human right to water and major corporations which negotiate with states and the World Bank on their ownership and commodification of water.
One might say, as an answer to “what’s property got to do with humanity,” that the “human-related,” or moral side, of this particular right might be related to a simple need to have a roof above; i.e. having a home. Besides, everyone “naturally” already owns properties, starting from one’s personality, thoughts, opinion, one’s body, religious belief, and so on. This also might make it easier to link property rights to other types of rights explained with, for instance, articles 18 (religion), 19 (expression), 20 (association), and, of course, 27 (intellectual property-related). And I think all this ties well with Michael’s important question about having rights based on one’s membership to communities. Isn’t that another property, actually, to a certain extent: identity as one’s property?
What is more, many justify the property right as a human right by linking the discussion to the issue of “social contract” in the sense that the belief in ownership is what makes theft or rape or murder not only a crime but also “immoral,” which, in turn, prevents these and similar acts. So in order to protect the social contract, this argument suggests, and for the sake of the society in general, the property right becomes important. I do not even want to believe that what prevents people from such acts is merely that they think it would be “immoral” to do so, and that this can be explained with the right to property. Perhaps what we should do is that instead of the current understanding of “human rights” we should start talking about the collective responsibility – the state intervention, for instance, when needed, not through the abuse of human rights discourse, but for the sake of collective responsibility.
This, actually, will serve better when it comes to the destruction issue as well, especially if the subject of the matter is an intellectual/artistic property – if the Rockefeller Family members were more responsible, perhaps they would not have destroyed Diego Rivera’s mural, just because he happened to insert Lenin’s image! (Rivera's work, by the way, is also in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, co-founded by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.)
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