CHAPTER VIII

OWNERSHIP AND SOCIAL RELATIONS:

THE MORAL FOUNDATION

MANUEL B. DY, Jr.

            Many of the problems facing individuals, families, commu-nities, societies and nations, especially in the Third World, have to do with property in its many forms. Modernization has made the pro-blem more complicated even as different ideologies propose con-flicting approaches to its solution. The task of this paper is to clarify the problem first by establishing the philosophical foundation of the right to ownership, secondly by explicating the evolution of property to its present form in the context of modernization, and thirdly by deriving some moral principles from the social reality of ownership. This paper will not attempt to examine the merits and demerits of the different juridical systems to regulate ownership for the "juridical order should be adapted to the evolution of social reality rather than adapting reality to the established juridical order."1

THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATION OF

            THE RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP

            The human person is an embodied spirit. In becoming oneself, the human person has to interact with outer nature in order to survive and care for his or her corporeal existence. The person’s bodily exis-tence depends on access to the goods of the earth, to calling material things one’s own. Property simply refers to one’s "relationship to earthly goods in a very general way."2 Because ownership is based on the very nature of the human as embodied and contributes to one’s being a person, it is an inherent right. All humans have the right to a share of earthly goods sufficient for themselves and their family.3

            This right involves the power of disposal by use, consumption, sale, donation, bequest; the right to the fruits of property; the right to make property a source of gain; and the right to restitution.4

            Because ownership is so intimately linked to the human per-son, the right of ownership has often been identified with private property. In this regard, natural law ethics dictates the institution of private property as an extension of the human person because the person by nature desires property, has dispositions to help friends, and has responsibility towards creative future development as one tends to propagate oneself in the family.5 The term "private", how-ever, can include also group property, the state’s collective owner-ship, and that of a federation of states.6 To equate ownership with private ownership must take into consideration the ambiguous cha-racter of possession and the social dimension of the human person, thereby limiting the right to private property.

            Possession or "having" is an ambiguous reality. As an embo-died spirit, the human person expresses oneself in the material world, one’s spirituality assuming a particularized form in matter. Because the material world is limited and "having" shares in the unique value of the person, ownership rights include exclusiveness and particula-rization.

            However, the human being can be so possessed with having things as to reduce his or her being to having and to identifying him or herself with material things from others. One’s possessions come to so possess one that he or she becomes spiritually impoverished and is alienated from others.7 For material goods to enrich a person spiritually, ownership must take into account the social dimension of the person.

            A person’s being is a being-with-others. A person can become him or herself only in relation to others in the interpersonal and social realms. The right to ownership must be placed in this context as an instrument by means of which a person is able to relate to others and to recognize their own right to live as human persons. "In using them, therefore, man should regard external things that he legitimately possesses not only as his own, but also as common in the sense that they should benefit not only himself but also others."8

            Thus, the right to private property is not absolute, but limited. It is "subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone."9 It is limited by the right also of others to possess a guarantee for their existence.10 "No one is justified in keeping for his exclusive use what he does not need, when others lack necessities."11 "There is a social duty essentially inherent in the right to private property,"12 namely, the just distribution of earthly goods in the service of the common good. This duty falls on the leaders of the community or on the state. They must institutionalize property in order to maintain social and individual survival, and take measures for a just distribution of material goods according to each person’s fundamental right to live as a human person.13

THE EVOLUTION OF PROPERTY

            Property takes many forms: private, public, personal, cor-porate, familial and communal. A historical sketch of ownership14 will show the distinctness of modernization and the complexity of the problem of ownership vis-a-vis human social relationships.

            Primitive man knew no distinct concept of private or individual property in contrast to the collective or public. The primitive world-view, being mythical, did not isolate one’s own individual autonomy from that of the family and tribe and from nature as whole, which is the sacred "property" of higher divine powers. The person, family, tribe and nature constituted one organic whole, and as such there was no question of dominion over nature and no strict right of owner-ship. The utensils and ornaments used in daily life did not really point to individual rights.

            Roman civilization initiated a differentiation of the family from the tribe. The familial community became the most important unit, an economic and political unit together with the state. The head of the family, the pater familiae, assumed almost absolute and total control over the persons and things of the family, his authority emanating from sacred tradition. Everything belonging to the family, including the cults and temple gods, was called the "patrimony" entrusted to the pater familiae who could not disinherit his children. Hence, the Romans still did not recognize any absolute right of private property, but only of familial property.

            With the breakdown of the family structure at the time of the Roman Republic, individual rights of ownership began to appear along with contractual obligations on the basis of property. Individual rights of ownership were restricted by the state which gradually assumed totalitarian power. Soon the individual with his power of private ownership came to fall under the absolutism of the state during the Byzantine empire.

            The Germanic tribes, however, were able to resist the au-thority of the state and revived the old dominium structure, but with the landlords exercising power over their domain and vassals instead of the old patres familiae. Since agriculture was the main economic activity, the seignorial system developed. The feudal lord owned the land and its inhabitants; the vassal used the land and rendered service to the lord. The lord in turn might stand in the relation of a vassal to higher lord. What existed during this time was not really a socialistic property right, because the individual and group con-stituted an organically undifferentiated whole. This was no different from Roman dominium except that the Germanic feudal system admitted more vertical relationships beyond that of the family.

            Beginning in the 12th century the growth of commerce and industry added various horizontal corporate bonds to the vertical relationships of the feudal system. Towns, guilds and market asso-ciations gave birth to social property with rights and restrictions crisscrossing those of the feudal system. The craftsman’s power to dispose of his workshop and his products was restricted by the regulations of the town and guild. Individual rights were confined within the autonomous, undifferentiated social group.

            The Renaissance and the Reformation gave birth to a new economic life beyond that of farm and craft, namely, to commercial capitalism. The work relationship was no longer tied to a bond of loyalty to the lord or guild but to a free contract; production grew to satisfy not only existing needs, but the desire for profit. This gave rise to individualism which would reach its height in the French Revolution. The merchant was offered new unrestricted possibilities for trade in goods and money, and acquired the right to dispose over his property. This individualistic spirit broke the established bonds and led to the idea of individual and absolute ownership of goods and capital, even of immaterial goods such as intellectual products. When capital began to be used to buy land, a problem arose as to which was superior, "direct dominium" represented by the ruler and the state or "dominium of use" represented by the bourgeois capi-talist. The French revolution eventually eradicated all forms of superior and inferior ownership and recognized as sacred and inviolable the right of civil private property.

            This individualistic ethos was one of the factors leading to greater industrial development and to the rise of modernization.

MODERNIZATION

            Three features have characterized modern society: techno-logy, bureaucracy, and socio-cultural pluralism.15 Underlying all these is an infrastructure of what Max Weber calls rationality. Ra-tionality defines the form of capitalist economic activity, bourgeois private law, and bureaucratic authority; it is linked to the institu-tionalization of scientific and technical development.16 The various sectors of society are subject to the criteria of rational decision. This includes the industrialization of social labor, and penetrates such other areas of life as urbanization, technification of transport, com-munication, etc.

            As a consequence, old legitimations are replaced by seculari-zation, "a process whereby sectors of society and culture are re-moved from the domination of religious institutions and symbols;"17 religion becomes privatized. Concomitantly there is a split between the private and the public, the personal and the functional spheres of life, resulting from increase in the size and specialization of insti-tutionalized structures.18 These features of modernization have a number of property and social relations.

            First, the rise of science and technology and their institu-tionalization have led to the treatment of property as a form of social capital. Science and technology have made of contemporary eco-nomic activity a matter of specialized labor and common effort. The whole "apparatus of production represents a social capital and is by its structure orientated to the economic interest of many."19

            Secondly, with regards to the bureaucracy prevalent in mo-dern institutions, whether of government or enterprise, the manage-ment and control of production require many abilities and skills that the individual owner may not have. Rationality demands social management to counteract the arbitrary control of the owner. As a result, there arises a separation between ownership and use or power.

            Thirdly, the socio-cultural pluralism of modernization has given rise to many varied forms of ownership and has broadened the function of personal property. As the modern person has assumed many roles beyond the confines of the family, ownership can take various forms: money, loans, foundations, trusts, joint ownerships, cooperatives, banks. With a pluralistic system of property, emphasis shifts towards the right to use, and "personal property becomes more and more as man acquires for his enjoyment rather than his work."20 There arises a distinction between the natural person and juridical person, which latter is more socially oriented. Personal property, however, retains its value insofar as it embodies family property and is used primarily for the sustenance of the individual and his family. But while in former times personal property was the only safeguard against the vicissitudes of life, modern man can now contribute funds for social security. Personal property is also important insofar as it gives one the material independence to develop oneself and to contribute to the community and society. In earlier times, personal property was the only means to personal development and status: now in modern society loans, grants and scholarships are available; society recognizes persons for their work rather than for their possessions. Because the family has gradually changed from a productive unit to a consumer unit, personal property consists mostly now of money and abstract titles of ownership which can be spent and used for a decent living and to provide education for one’s children.21

            Thus modernization with its rationality has brought about an awareness of the social dimension and responsibility of property and its problematic link with or separation from power.

            In sum, thus far our consideration of the evolution of property from primitive times to the present has centered on the role of own-ership and the increasing autonomy of the person. Modernization has focused on the social context of ownership. When this is joined to the philosophical foundation of the right of ownership the moral problem comes to light.

THE MORAL PROBLEM AND PRINCIPLE

            The moral problem regarding ownership has to do with justice, specifically or generally with social justice. The problem of justice with regards to property is the conflict between equality and equity.

            We have seen in the first part that the right of ownership is based on the person, his or her freedom and the task of becoming oneself as a unique person in relation to others in society. Being an embodied spirit, each one has the right to partake of limited and divisible earthly goods in order to realize this task of personhood. Justice is giving to each his or her due as a person. As to liberty, all persons are equal one to another, each being an end in his or herself.

            The problem of justice as regards property "is to give a meaning to equality of liberty,"22 because there is an inherent con-tradiction in the notion of equality when applied to resources that are limited or scarce. Equality has to take some form of quantitative equality with regard to material goods which each person has the liberty to enjoy. But liberty is also the power to gather, occupy, use, produce, consume and reproduce as one wishes, which causes inequalities to arise. The person

is not merely a passive recipient, a passenger in the ship of state, but actively responsible for his own efforts and actions; "his due" is not only his equal share of nature’s provision but all the products of his work or his services to others, or in the opposite case the penalties he may suffer for the injuries he may cause. This is the conflict between equality and equity.23

            Equality means that everyone starts with equal opportunities as far as material means of production and education are concerned. Equity, on the other hand, means that everyone reaps the rewards of his own efforts; this wealth is not equal but equitable, that is to say, proportionate to labor. "The conflict arises from the nature of our life in time and the build-up of causal sequences, and especially from the transition from generation to generation."24

            The conflict of equality and equity corresponds to two basic ways by which man relates to natural resources.25 The first has to do with power, with the ability of the person to do what he or she wishes with particular resources. Natural resources are not human creations and the fact that persons, families or nations own them is simply a matter of power. If we have to apply the equality of liberty, then justice means that either they have to be redistributed to each person equally or private property should be abolished altogether. The second has to do with labor that is mixed with land and materials. Because of labor, persons can advance a claim of equity to appro-priate them as their own. Justice in this sense is based on difference, on what Aristotle means by treating unequal persons unequally or equitably.26 The two types overlap and present us with the two horns of the dilemma of social justice.

            R.W. Baldwin contends that because it is difficult in theory or in practice to apply a justice of equality with regard to property, and because the notion of property flows so directly from human labor, primacy should be given to justice as equity.27 He enumerates the claims of equity as follows:28

            1. Property consisting of, or derived from, personal ability and effort, such as:

            a) ability, skill, and technology

            b) material property made or obtained from abundant                             resources

            c) income from self-made capital

            d) goods acquired in exchange for products of the owner’s                                 labor

            2. property combining personal effort with scarcity of resources. The greater the element of scarcity, the weaker the claim based on personal effort until personal effort and the related claim disappears.

            3. Property acquired by gift (not will) from the producer

            4. Property acquired by will from the producer

            5. Property inherited or received as gift from a person other than the producer

            6. Property appropriated by occupation.

On the other hand, the claims based on equality of liberty must consider the:

            1. the magnitude of differences

            2. degree of access

            3. degree of contact, and

            4. degree of responsibility.

            In modern society, the conflict is not easily resolved because the problem of ownership is interlaced with the question of power in politics and diplomacy, and because, as we have seen, there is a ten-dency to separate ownership and control in the modern enterprise. The problem is highlighted by modern socialism which finds no justification for income derived from capital. For Marx, economic value springs only from work, and in an individualist, capitalistic society ownership of the means of production constitutes social power which enables the capitalist to exploit labor.29

            In a modernized society, however, ownership is not neces-sarily tied to control. But the point made by Marx still stands today, namely that labor too must be vested with social power alongside property and be on equal footing in directing the socio-economic process.30 Labor must be given an increasing role in the direction of production. Thus, the conflict between equality and equity as re-gards property is part of a wider problem of social power, the justice of power.

            The injustice of power consists in too much power being con-centrated in the hands of an individual or group to the detriment of the common good. Positively speaking, the justice of power is the responsibility of those in authority to serve the interests of the many under their governance. Social justice calls for social democracy where the differentiation of formal and material democracy applies to the realm of property. Just as in the individual person a distinction exists between the private and the public spheres, between the per-sonal and the functional, social justice requires that ownership so appropriate property, especially large possessions, as to create opportunities for work and renumeration so that the propertyless can acquire income and property. When it is within its power to do so, ownership should distribute the effects of social cooperation bet-ween property and labor through just wages, prices and interests.35 Hence, the sign of a just society is when medium-sized property becomes a common sight, and large-scale property and poverty are exceptions.36 On the international scale, as a matter of social justice less developed nations have a right to aid and support from more developed and affluent nations.37

            The path of social justice is not easy to define, much less to tread, but it is the only way for the economic wealth of a people to lead to genuine liberation in the socio-cultural sphere. In the words of John XXIII:38

The economic wealth of a people arises not only from an aggregate abundance of goods but also, and more so, from their real and efficacious redis-tribution according to justice, as a guarantee of the personal development of the members of the society, which is the true scope of national economy.

NOTES

            1. Martin G. Plattel, Social Philosophy (Pittsburgh: Du-quesne University Press, 1965), p. 295.

            2. Ibid., p. 295.

            3. Gaudium et Spes (Second Vatican Council, 1965), sec. 69.

            4. Johannes Messner, Social Ethics (London: B. Herder Book Co., 1964), p. 821.

            5. Ibid., pp. 822-823

            6. In the 19th century, there were practically no intermediary social organs between the individual and the state, which resulted in a polarization of "individual" and "collective," of "private" and "social". Martin Plattel, op. cit., p. 288.

            7. Ibid., p. 290.

            8. Gaudium et Spes, sec. 69.

            9. John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (1981), sec. 14.

            10. John W. Walgrave, Person and Society (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1965), p. 120.

            11. Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (1967), sec, 23.

            12. John XXIII, Pacem et Terris, par.23.

            13. John Walgrave, op. cit., p. 121. John XXIII, Mater et Ma-gistra (1961), par. 104. A.J.M.Milne, Human Rights and Human Diversity (Albany: State University of New York, 1986), p. 7.

            14. I am indebted for this part to Martin Plattel, Social Philosophy, pp. 318-332.

            15. Rubert Wuthrow et al, Cultural Analysis (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 55-56.

            16. Jürgen Habermas, Towards A Rational Society (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), p. 81.

            17. Rubert Wuthrow et al, op. cit., pp. 61-62.

            18. Ibid., pp. 58-59.

            19. Martin Plattel, op. cit., p. 296.

            20. Ibid., p. 297.

            21. Ibid., pp. 298-301.

            22. R.W. Baldwin, Social Justice (Pergamon Press, 1966), p. 102.

            23. Ibid., p. 15.

            24. Ibid., p. 102.

            25. Ibid., pp. 103-104.

            26. Ibid., p. 9.

            27. Ibid., p. 105.

            28. Ibid., pp. 105-107.

            29. Johannes Messner, op. cit., p. 829.

            30. Ibid.

            31. Martin Plattel, op. cit., p. 333.

            32. Ibid., p. 334.

            33. Johannes Messner, op. cit., p. 829.

            34. Martin Plattel, op. cit., p. 314.

            35. Johannes Messner, op. cit., pp. 826-827.

            36. Ibid., p. 830.

            37. John Walgrave, op. cit., p. 121.