In her essay,"The Cashing-In: The Student 'Rebellion,'" Ayn Rand makes this statement: "No rights of any kind can be exercised without property rights. It is only on the basis of property rights that the sphere and application of individual rights can be defined in any given social situation. Without property rights, there is no way to solve or avoid a hopeless chaos of clashing views, interests, demands, desires, and whims."
Based on what we have learned and discussed this semester, do you think Rand is correct in claiming that property rights are the heart of all individual rights?
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Certainly, if we define property as broadly as does Locke (Life, Liberty, and Estate) or as deeply as does Hegel (a desideratum of the development of identity), something like Rand's observation would follow.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as a free-market fundamentalist she defines property rather narrowly and stiputatively as the private ownership and control of everything. In this instance, then, the view that property is a fundamental right is a prior, ideologically based normative commitment, rather than an inferential discovery. It's a rather neat trick of circular reasoning, beginning with an expansive, received definition and then shifting deftly to a narrower one to draw out one's preconceived conclusion.