This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G
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PRIVATE PROPERTY, FREEDOM AND POWER Constanza Salgado Muñoz Presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Edinburgh 2019 1 Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows Leonard Cohen, Everybody Knows 2 ABSTRACT / LAY SUMMARY This thesis aims to shed light on a central aspect of private property: the limits that it imposes on the freedom of non-owners and its potential implications. To the extent that private property does not depend on the physical connection between the owner and the object, accumulation becomes normatively possible because one can be an owner of more things that one can physically hold or protect from others. The situation that private property enables is not only that people may have no opportunity to acquire and be an owner, but more importantly, that it may leave people without the possibility of satisfying their needs by using objects that otherwise would be available for everyone’s use. In the first part of the thesis, I examine three different justifications for private property produced within the liberal/libertarian canon. I will use these accounts to investigate what follows for a justification of private property from considering its passive side of the property relation. The general idea is that a justification of private property demands consideration of the interests of non- owners: of their unfreedom and its potential implications regarding the justification of a private property system. In the second part of the thesis, I intend to demonstrate that private property not only gives freedom to owners but also may give them power. There is certainly a sense in which private property always gives power to owners. Private property gives to owners the power to pursue aims that otherwise would be either impossible or very difficult to achieve. However, great unequal distributions of private property may give to owners not only power to, but also power over people. Given the fact that accumulation may leave individual needs unmet, private property becomes an important power resource. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to show that in its capitalist articulation, private property gives a dominating power to owners in two main spheres: the economic and the political spheres. This task turns to be more difficult than it 3 might superficially appear to be, as political philosophy does not provide an adequate general framework for thinking about private domination. 4 DECLARATION As per the Assessment Regulation (n 34) for Research Degrees at the University of Edinburgh, I confirm: (a) That this thesis has been composed by me; (b) That the work contained in this thesis is my own; (c) And that it has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. Constanza Salgado Muñoz Edinburgh, 9 September 2019 5 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT / LAY SUMMARY .......................................................................................... 3 DECLARATION .................................................................................................................... 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE MAIN ARGUMENTS ................................... 11 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 11 2. Defining private property .............................................................................................. 12 3. Justificatory arguments for private property .............................................................. 16 3.1. Why does private property need justification? ................................................... 16 3.2. Private property and the passive side of non-owners ........................................ 18 3.3. Private property, freedom and distribution ......................................................... 21 3.3.1. Freedom as property ........................................................................................ 21 3.3.2. Distributive considerations in Kant’s justification of private property .... 24 3.4. Labour, distribution and common good-based arguments ............................... 26 3.4.1. Labour and distribution ................................................................................... 26 3.4.2. A common good-based argument .................................................................. 27 4. The power of capitalist property .................................................................................. 29 4.1. The dominating power of capitalist property ...................................................... 29 4.1.1. Dominium as power over people ................................................................... 29 4.1.2. Defining capitalist property ............................................................................ 31 4.2. The problem of domination .................................................................................... 34 4.2.1. Domination in the mainstream liberal tradition .......................................... 34 4.2.2. Domination as a wrong .................................................................................... 36 4.3. The limits of capitalist property ............................................................................. 37 4.3.1. Capitalist property in a justification of private property ............................ 37 4.3.2. Capitalist property and the ambivalence of law .......................................... 40 CHAPTER 2. PRIVATE PROPERTY, NEGATIVE FREEDOM AND LIBERTARIANISM ............................................................................................................. 45 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 45 2. Property right-based conceptions of negative freedom ............................................ 46 2.1. Negative freedom and private property............................................................... 46 2.2. The libertarian approach to the relation between freedom and property ....... 47 2.3. The moralized understanding of freedom ........................................................... 49 3. The pure negative freedom approach .......................................................................... 51 7 3.1. Important features .................................................................................................... 51 3.1.1. Freedom as physical possibility ...................................................................... 51 3.1.2. Freedom as an opportunity concept ............................................................... 52 3.1.3. The neutrality of the pure negative conception of freedom........................ 54 3.2. Freedom, inabilities and incapacities .................................................................... 56 3.2.1. (In)ability and (un)freedom ............................................................................. 57 3.2.2. Freedom and its conditions of exercise .......................................................... 59 4. The freedoms that private property constraints ......................................................... 60 4.1. The unfreedom of non-owners ............................................................................... 60 4.2. Capitalism, private property and freedom ........................................................... 64 4.2.1. Money, markets and freedom: property as a particular distribution of freedom ......................................................................................................................... 64 4.2.2. The (un)freedom both to work and to decide what to produce ................. 68 4.2.3. Property and (re)distribution .......................................................................... 72 CHAPTER 3. PRIVATE PROPERTY IN KANT’S FREEDOM AS INDEPENDENCE ............................................................................................................... 75 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 75 2. Kant’s justification of private property ........................................................................ 76 2.1. Physical possession .................................................................................................. 79 2.2. Intelligible possession .............................................................................................. 79 2.3.