Political Theory

H09(b) - Equality and Community from Different Angles

Date: Jun 13 | Time: 08:30am to 10:00am | Location: 680 Sherbrooke St. West 391

Dispossession from Duties to Care for the Good of Each and All: Ryan Griffiths (McGill University)
Abstract: Grotius supposed that humans own the earth in common. Private property could be justified if the privatization makes more for all and enough for each. If I have a lot but refuse to give to the needy who have little or nothing, then I forfeit my right to my property. These needy people, or someone on their behalf, can take my property as punishment for violating the terms of my ownership of it. Privatization of what was common was only permitted if it supplied enough for each. Grotius used this argument to justify taking land from indigenous peoples in North America. First, their use of property could, it was believed, be shown to be less productive than Dutch agriculture. Second, they apparently refused to simply give their land to the Dutch. Thus, given that there are needy people and that they are not making more for all by their property practices they could be punished; their land could be taken by anyone on behalf of the needy and the good of all. Locke’s arguments are different, but not by much. How was this argument resisted? The task was to deny the common ownership premise and its attendant principle of the duty to be productive with what is by right common. It was Adam Smith who made this move, untethering property rights from duties, and it undergirds his underappreciated anti-imperialism. If a community justifies their property on a ground like stewardship, then failure to meet that threatens to justify their dispossession.