A reasonable limit on property rights

Randy Hillier and Scott Reid’s proposed amendment to include property rights in the constitution has led to a torrent of posts on property rights at the Volunteer. Given that this is likely going to be an ongoing theme, I thought it would be constructive to clarify my own position on what I believe is a reasonable limit on property rights. I would not presume to speak for all the Volunteer’s contributors, but I suspect that most of them would agree with this post. If any do not, I expect that they will happily tear me apart in the comments section.

The reasonable limit on property rights is the same limit on all our rights; that is you have the right to do what you will with your own property except when it interferes with the rights of others. The way that this is applied to your right to free speech, as an example, is that you cannot spread lies about someone that harms their livelihood and you cannot threaten someone with violence. This is hardly controversial. I have never heard of a libertarian, conservative, welfare liberal, or socialist that would disagree (at least in principle). This concept, which enjoys such a broad consensus, when applied to property rights would appease most of the concerns voiced by opponents to the Hillier/Reid amendment.

To give you an example to how this would work, I will draw upon a scenario that came out of a discussion in a previous post. A commenter who objected to the Hillier/Reid amendment invented this plausible scenario: someone buys a substantial amount of land at a cheap cost. They then agree, for a fee, to allow individuals, companies, and governments to dump toxic waste on that land. Given that toxic waste has to go somewhere this is not necessarily a bad thing but under the commenter’s understanding of property rights there would be no way for the government to enforce environmental regulation.

The reality is that a properly constructed property rights regime would make any environmental regulation redundant. Consider if the owner of the land makes no attempt to prevent toxins from getting into the water supply and the air. This would make the surrounding properties uninhabitable for living and most commercial uses. The landowner is effectively damaging other landowner’s rights to using their property. The owner of the toxic dump would be forced to pay compensation for the value of the damage land, possible future gains that has been lost, and any damage done to their bodies. The cost would be so inhibitive (more so than some regulatory fines) that a wise entrepreneur would take steps to prevent environmental damage.

It is admittedly not always easy to judge when someone’s rights are interfered with. One interpretation of legal history suggests that jurisprudence was invented to find a way to mediate competing rights. Ensuring that everyone’s rights is acknowledged and respected is at the core of what most people consider fairness and justice. Ensuring property rights would therefore not lead to the wild anarchy of independent landowners, but instead would bound society closer together in a mutual recognition of rights.