Friday, 31,10.97
My dearest Khalid,
I can imagine how you enjoyed the last two lectures; they surely sent icy winter chills down your spine; at least, they are still much more warm-hearted than the freezing pangs of the coming Canadian winter.
The Concept "Property" in Royal English
But, let us heat up our praxical engine, and let the theoretic spark plugs illuminate the brain. Now let us see what the good old British, including Adam Smith, and "The Wealth of the Nations", and the Commonwealth, tell us in Royal English exactly what "Property" is:
it is that which is proper to any person or thing, a quality that is always present, a characteristic: an essential detail, any quality, propriety, fitness, that which is one's own, the condition of being one's own, a piece of land owned by somebody, the right of possessing, of employing, ownership, an article required on the stage, a mere tool, the cat's paw, personal identity, individuality, etc.
As usual, now you know exactly what property is all about, and we can conclude our lectures, and can take a happy, democratic nap, dreaming about everlasting global peace and globalized prosperity.
EIGENTUM: PROPERTY: MY VERY OWN
eigen, own
But, let us make some general remarks with reference to Property.
Let us see, what the German thinkers say about this Concept. They call
it "Eigentum". Eigen-
is own; own in the double sense, something which is your
own, your very special own, and also something which you
own, which you possess as your very special own. This can be formulated
as follows:
My
Own a n d What I Own.
-toum, -tum, relation, condition
Hence, Eigentum is what is your own, and that which you own, as your own possession and belonging. -tum, or earlier even -toum, in German, denotes a Relation (Verhaeltnis), a condition, circumstance (Zustand); it follows that Eigentum is proprietas (Latin); as far as the individual is concerned, for example, the worker, the first level of his proprietas is his physical body, his physical or manual labour force. Then, his proprietas extends itself to his immediate environment, to those things which he immediately uses daily, with which he acts, with which he reproduces his own "personality"; these things which compose his proprietas can range from clothes, to ear-rings, watches, work-tools, furniture, home, computer, car and weapons; they can be means of production, but not necessarily so.
My Propietas, My Personality, My Darling
These things are closely bound up with a person, they can barely be separated from him. In ancient patriarchal "civilizations", these things were so connected up with the male person, that they even accompanied him to the grave; he was not buried, until all that he directly owned, was taken with him as his property into the World Beyond. There even have been cases in what they call the "Indian Culture", where the widow of a dead Sikh had to be burned alive to accompany her lord to "Nirvana". Today, in the marriage laws, you can still see how "My", how "My Dear", how "My Darling", how this concept of property functions, especially when it comes to divorce, to division of goods, of property.
Property as "Power of Domination"
In the political and legal field, Property encompasses the Power of Domination of an individual or group or social class. This legalized power can be related to a thing, to a slave, to a wife, to a mine, to land, to parts of Mother Earth, to resources of Mother Nature, and it concerns the "Right", the "Property Right" to use it, to kill it, to throw it away, to exploit it, to torture it, in accordance with the whims of the owner.
The Will to Exploit Property & Its Legal Recognition
Of course, the modern proprietor does not take his "own" to the grave; it simply becomes inheritance, it can be passed to the family clan, to the Mafia kinship, to the "Commonwealth" of a class, of an Empire. Here two moments are relevant: firstly, the will of the proprietor to exploit his possession, and secondly, the recognition of this by the legal community. He needs the guarantee of the State to use and abuse his property, he needs a property right to enjoy his goods.
"Rational Moment of Property"
Of course, German philosophers, like Hegel, drive these moments to the extreme. For Hegel, e.g., Property even falls in the realm of: "what is real, is rational". He speaks about the "rational moment of property"; what is rational is not to satisfy individual or basic needs, but that the owner of private property as a "free being" objectifies himself in his property, and as such he becomes a "Real Will". Here already we see what is perverted "rational labour", we identify its Hegelian "philosophic" context; also, we can note with precision who are the perverted "rational labourers" and who and what exploit perverted "intellectual" and "manual" labour.
Thus, "what is rational, is real", what is the rational moment of property, now becomes the real moment, the real will of the person, the real owner of private property; in the case of capitalists, it becomes private property of the means of production. For Hegel, it is rational that every person possesses Property; but it is accidental how much and what he possesses; it could be only labour force, or only Capital, but it could also be both together.
The Patriarchal Property Avalanche
The major victim of the patriarchal property avalanche is Nature: Nature as cosmic, physical resource; Nature as human body, as manual labour, as labour force. This "common", "private" or "collective" Property had at first to be acquired by force, by hook or by crook, by armed robbery (Colonization) and by the Grace of God (Christianization).
After the conquest of Nature and the Human Body, in our times, the "Berlin Conference" set in to divide up the Human Body and Brain, the Human Intellect, and to grade it up as "Intellectual Property" of the inheritors of colonial property of the Cecil John Rhodes Empire. Hence, we pass from the Grace of God to the "Trust in God", to the Rational Dollarization and Globalization of Natural, Physical and Intellectual Resources, to the Information Highway, to the Highway Robbery of History, in the name of "Rights", "Intellectual Property" and "Intellectual Property Rights".
Next time, much more.
Love,
Franz.