The Principle of Private Property

If I were a member of any discrete group – such as might be identified by the kinds of racial, ethnic, religious, lifestyle, or cultural uniqueness that would provide a target for violence from others – I would become the most vocally insistent advocate of the principle of privately owned property. It has become axiomatic, in our politically-structured and dominated world, that only by relating ourselves to some collective grouping large enough to be able to influence the political system to our advantage, can we find protection from arbitrary violence. Such groupings cannot be so large as to prevent our separation from others (e.g., “mankind”), for politics depends upon division among people, setting up inter-group conflicts that politicians and other state officials promise to “balance” in the interests of social order.

We have been conditioned to accept as an article of faith that “in unity there is strength.” Carl Jung, among others, has helped us to discover just how vulnerable our lives become when we identify with such abstractions. When we transfer the direction and responsibility for our lives to others – particularly to the institutions that are eager to have such powers – we fuel the madness and destructiveness that dominates our world. As Nietzsche so well expressed it: “Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.” History teaches us – provided we are willing to learn from it – that in “unity” we are made vulnerable to attack from others. Empowering others with the authority to centralize decision-making and obedience over us creates a jugular vein that makes us susceptible to collective aggression.

It has long been assumed – particularly among persons conditioned in the political mindset – that individual liberty and social order are conflicting values that can be harmonized only by a willingness of people to submit to governmental rule. I have spent decades reading and contemplating the works of philosophers of both authoritarian and libertarian persuasion and find a general – albeit not universal – sentiment supportive of the idea that “some” individual liberties must be restrained in the more widely-shared interests of an orderly society.

More