S´ıntesis de polinomios

The second ideologically motivated misconception which significantly influences the property rights debate concerns the nature of the relationship between the individual and society. The libertarian conception of the radically independent individual, who, detached from any social context or need for cooperation, is solely responsible for her success and entitled to all of the gains from her endeavours, has been remarkably influential. However, the degree to which our own achievements and ability to function is dependent on social cooperation and context is much greater than this simplified view suggests. The actions of others, the nature of the laws and institutions in our society, and the state of knowledge and information we have access to all significantly influence and partially determine what we will be able to do and accomplish during our lifetimes. As Walzer expressively observes, it is a central fact about our associational life that,

over much of its range, it isn’t the work of that liberal hero, the autonomous individual, choosing his or her memberships, moving freely from group to group in civil society. Instead, most of us are born into or find ourselves in what may well be the most important groups to which we belong – the cultural and religious, the national and linguistic communities within which we cultivate not only our identity but character and whose values we pass on to our children (without asking them). Our membership in these communities is also likely to determine, or at least influence strongly, our standing in the social hierarchy and our central or marginal location in social space. […] The room is more limited, our movements more predictable, the difficulties we encounter more common to ourselves and our fellows, then liberal theorists have been ready to admit. (2004:

x – xi)

The idea of the radically independent individual is problematic because it encourages some to unreflectively assume a sense of absolute entitlement, even when much of what they own was not the result of personal effort. It also tempts individuals into ignoring the plight of others who were not responsible for the detrimental circumstances they were born into and might not have had meaningful opportunities to escape them. When assessing social outcomes, the importance of empirically accurate information, or at least a credible and defensible interpretation of real-world phenomena, should not be underestimated. Different notions of the extent of an individual’s dependence on society often underlie deep disagreements about the claims of justice in contemporary societies, which means that we need to confront the question of the appropriate understanding of the relation between the individual and society (Taylor, 1985: 291). Because this chapter explores the appropriate conception of property rights, this section briefly motivates why the libertarian picture of the radically independent, self-made individual is incorrect, and argues that the idea of absolute entitlement that is based on this view is similarly unfounded.

The idea that individuals are completely responsible for the extent of their entrepreneurial achievements and financial success becomes dubious when it is placed within a historical context. The relationship between societal development and individual life chances is neatly articulated in William Rosen’s book, The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention, which shows that, even though farming and settlements date back to 10 000 BC, “by any

quantifiable measure, including life span, calories consumed, or child mortality, the lived experience of virtually all of humanity did not change much for millennia after the Agricultural […] Revolution spread around the globe” (2010: xv). The average per capita GDP in real terms, which gives some indication of human productivity, remained virtually unchanged for seven thousand years, with people living no better in the seventeenth than the seventh century (Rosen, 2010: xvi). The “worldwide per capita GDP in 800 BCE - $543 – is virtually identical to the number in 1600” (ibid).

By all measures of human welfare individuals are substantially better of today than they were before 1800 in every region of the world. While some individuals were obviously relatively better off than others in the past, the difference between individual situations was less extreme than it is today. The historical context a person finds herself in is a much greater determinant of an individual’s overall life outlook than personal achievement. To illustrate this point, at 35 years, individual life expectancy in 19^th century France is 25 years less than that of someone born in the Republic of Congo in 2000 (Rosen, 2010: xvi). Even the smartest, most innovative and hardworking individual living in the 18^th century would have faced worse prospects than an average individual representative of the entire living world population today. This strongly suggests that a significant component of an individual’s life prospects is due to societal features beyond her control. The levels of knowledge accumulation, technological progress and infrastructural development that exist at the time when we are born significantly influence our life prospects in ways that we cannot deny or claim personal responsibility for, and because these advances depend on the social cooperation and individual contributions of current and past citizens, it would be reasonable to argue that we owe a debt to society and should contribute to it in return.

Significant progress in the living conditions of humans also cannot be attributed to the achievements of solitary individuals. The best explanation for the improvement of human lives, as Rosen argues, comes from the democratization of invention (2010:

xxiii): The notion that “ideas are property” provided ordinary citizens with the incentive to invent, and these multitude of incremental improvements enabled the development of the first steam engine, which “incorporated hundreds of other inventions, both small and large,” in its design (Rosen, 2010: xxiv, xxii). The immense progress that was made from the 18^th century on originated due to “a unique

combination of law and circumstance (which) gave artisans the incentive to invent, and obliged them to share the knowledge of their inventions” (Rosen, 2010: xxiii).

Regulation and social cooperation played an essential part in establishing a favourable environment for technological progress and advances in knowledge. In addition, the popular idea that significant improvement is mainly due to exceptional individuals who act in isolation has also been disproved. In “The Myth of the Sole Inventor”, Mark Lemley illustrates that “the canonical story of the lone genius inventor is largely a myth” by referencing the circumstances under which scores of noteworthy new inventions occur (2012: 709). As Lemley summarises,

surveys of hundreds of significant new technologies show that almost all of them are invented simultaneously or nearly simultaneously by two or more teams working independently of each other. Invention appears in significant part to be a social, not an individual, phenomenon (2012: 711).

It is clear that the establishment of a regulatory system precedes the potential profits any individual can enjoy from her invention. Without legislative enforcement of ownership, the development of ideas is not a lucrative endeavour, since creations can easily be duplicated without any regard for the person who made the initial design.

Even the ability to make substantial profits from an invention is greatly dependent on the establishment of an extensive infrastructural framework for production, transport and communication. Accordingly, the existence of a well-functioning government and an organized society plays an important and fundamental role in establishing the market conditions that enable individuals to achieve great things and make considerable profits. The state, which can thus be regarded as the ‘silent partner’ in every business enterprise, takes its rightful share through taxation (Fried, 1995: 237).

One way of conceiving of the relative productivity of the individual and the state would be to compare the wealth that Bill Gates has accumulated in the United States to what he might have accumulated if he grew up in a rural part of Burundi. A recent book by Brian Miller and Mike Lapham, entitled The Self-Made Myth and the Truth about How Government Helps Individuals and Businesses Succeed (2012), tries to show how wealth is really created by presenting prominent affluent business leaders’

accounts of the important role that public investment and support played in their success.

Individuals do not have any claim to exclusive income from their endeavours, but have to contribute to the maintenance of the system that enables and contributes to their success. Taxes are essential to the creation of property rights, which do not exist independently of the tax system, and taxes therefore cannot violate property rights (Murphy & Nagel, 2002: 58). The governmental tax system “is an essential part of the background which creates the legitimate expectations that arise from employment contracts and other economic transactions,” and should thus not be viewed as an illegitimate constraint on free individual pursuits (Murphy & Nagel, 2002: 37). The fairness and desirability of the tax system should be assessed with reference to the property and wealth distribution that develops as a result of it, and not the inverse. An individual’s wealth is dependent on the legal order of her society, which means that the nature of government laws raises questions of justice. Every wealth distribution, including the existing one, requires moral justification and should be assessed in terms of the fairness of the system which generates it. As Murphy and Nagel neatly summarise this issue:

We cannot pretend that the differences in ability, personality, and inherited wealth that lead to great inequalities of welfare in an orderly market economy would have the same effect if there were no government to create and protect legal property rights and their value and to facilitate mutually beneficial exchanges. […] There is no market without government and no government without taxes; and what type of market there is depends on laws and policy decisions that government must make. In the absence of a legal system supported by taxes, there couldn’t be money, banks, corporations, stock exchanges, patents, or the modern market economy – none of the institutions that make possible the existence of all contemporary forms of income and wealth. It is therefore logically impossible that people should have any kind of entitlement to all their pretax income (2002: 17, 32; my italics).

The importance and pervasiveness of social organization is undeniable, and critics who reject the idea of ‘society’ are not offering a substantially different account of human interaction, but are simply refusing to acknowledge the fact that any rule or law, even one aimed at enforcing some form of restraint, requires the cooperation of all members of society for its successful implementation.

2. Justificatory Theories of Ownership and their Implications for the Practice of