Justifying Private Property (The Problem of Private Property, Pt. 6)

I will warn you--this post is a doozy.  Even by the preposterously lengthy standards of my posts for the past three weeks or so.  But as thoroughness is intrinsic to what I’m trying to do here, I’m not sure of any way around it.  The long and arduous trek, however, does yield some real fruit at the end (or at least I think it does...it's quite possible I’ve taken a wrong turn on the way there, in which case the fruit will probably end up being rotten, and I rely on any readers to tell me if this is so).  If you’re the impatient sort, you could just scroll to the bottom for the interesting bits, and see if they make any sense out of context.

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The Origin of Private Property (The Problem of Private Property, Pt. 5)

After a long hiatus to focus on Hooker and McCormack, I’m finally getting back to my series on the problem of private property.  Unfortunately, it will still be some time before I start trying to provide any answers to that problem.  At this point, there is still a lot of problematizing to do--explaining why we can’t simply take private property for granted and why it makes a difference how we explain it and justify it.  Having in part 1 then addressed the ambiguity in the definition of private property, in part 2 (and a follow-up) addressed the facile appeal to the eighth commandment as providing an account of the justification of private property, in part 3 the problems that the New Testament raises for private property, and in part 4 borrowing from Kathryn tanner a description of the distinctively modern understanding of private property, I will in the next two segments attempt to classify the range of possible explanations that may be offered for the origin and justification of private property.  

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The Modern Understanding of Property (The Problem of Private Property, Pt. 4)

I realized that before I go further in the property series, in which I frequently allude (generally critically) to “the distinctively modern concept of private property”--in contrast not only to other concepts of property arrangements, but also to premodern or non-Western concepts of private property relations, I ought, perhaps, to say just what I am referring to.  After all, a fish doesn’t know it’s in water, and it’s hard for us, all brought up in this paradigm, to recognize it as a distinctive concept at all, or to discern its unique shape. 

Thankfully, however, Kathryn Tanner has done the job for me.  Near the outset of her phenomenal essay “Economies of Grace” (from Having: Property and Possession in Religious and Social Life, ed. by Charles Mathewes and William Schweiker), she offers a thorough and lucid sketch of what in particular is meant and implied by the notion of private property in the modern West: 

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Propertied Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles (The Problem of Private Property, Pt. 3)

In the previous post in this series, I sketched the common appeal to a “Biblical defence of private property,” and then addressed the first and chief pillar of that defence--the eighth commandment.  Now I will take a look at the remaining components of this appeal: “God’s approval of private property is further demonstrated by the approbation given to so many wealthy men throughout the Scriptures--from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Job and Solomon to Joseph of Arimathea, Barnabas, and Lydia.  In the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles never call the institution into question, but on the contrary, they presuppose it and bolster it, whether through parables that feature wealthy landlords, or through the case of Ananias and Saphira, where Peter tells them that they were completely free to sell or keep their lands as they saw fit (Acts 4:4).” 

So, first, what do we learn from the fact that many patriarchs and other godly people in the Bible were blessed with great wealth and seem to be approved in their use of it?  Well, it could of course be asked in response: what do we learn from the fact that many people in the Bible were condemned for their great wealth and their use of it?  Private wealth is clearly an ambiguous good, as the case of Solomon makes clear: the king is not supposed to amass private wealth, but God blesses Solomon with it anyway, but it helps lead him away from God and involves the oppression of his people.  But the fact that God blesses his saints with rich private possessions does at least establish one important point contra Proudhon and his ilk, who believed “property is theft”--there is nothing inherently wrong with private property, it would seem.  However, does it tell us much more than that?  Does it tell us, to ask again the questions I put to the eighth commandment, about of the origin of PP?  The basis for it?  The conditions of its legitimacy?  Does it tell us whether PP is the only appropriate system for property, whether it is a biblically mandated institution?  Does it tell us whether PP is an imprescriptible right, or merely one “right” among others, which under various circumstances should be constrained or even abolished in favor of other considerations?

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"Thou Shalt Not Steal" (The Problem of Private Property, Part Two)

In Christian circles, if ever any question is raised which seems to constitute an attack on private property (as almost any attempt to critically discuss the subject seems to PP’s jumpy defenders), the response is likely to go something like this: 

“Well, the Bible speaks very strongly and highly of the importance and legitimacy of private property.  (Often at this point, the very peculiar language of a “sacred right” or a “sacred institution” is used.)  A defense of private property is built right into the Ten Commandments, with “Thou shalt not steal,” and the rest of the laws show a great concern for the rights of property-holders.  God’s approval of private property is further demonstrated by the approbation given to so many wealthy men throughout the Scriptures--from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Job and Solomon to Joseph of Arimathea, Barnabas, and Lydia.  In the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles never call the institution into question, but on the contrary, they presuppose it and bolster it, whether through parables that feature wealthy landlords, or through the case of Ananias and Saphira, where Peter tells them that they were completely free to sell or keep their lands as they saw fit (Acts 4:4).”

Now, to those accustomed to take the institution of PP for granted (which is to say, almost every modern western Christian), this argument seems amply satisfactory.  But a closer look at the components of this case shows that they prove very little of what they are called upon to prove.  In this post, I’ll address the eighth commandment, and in a following post, the rest of this argument.

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