How to cite this paper: Martin Rhonheimer, The Universal Destina- tion of Goods and Private Property: Is the right to private property a “second-tier” natural right? Austrian Institute Paper No. 38-EN (2021) Austrian Institute Paper No. 38-EN / 2021 Martin Rhonheimer The Universal Destination of Goods and Private Property: Is the right to private property only a “second-tier” natural right? he right to private property, says the an original Golden Age. This narrative entered encyclical Fratelli tutti, is a mere “sec- Christian theology through the influence of the T ondary” natural right, “derived from Stoa. Thus, in his famous 90th letter to Lucil- the principle of the universal destination of ius, Seneca reports of a time of the “carefree created goods.” It should therefore not “dis- possession of the commonwealth,” in which place primary and overriding rights” (no. one was “concerned for one’s neighbor as one- 120). Pope Francis refers especially to John self.” In this “most happily ordered world,” Paul II and some of the Fathers of the Church, however, greed seeped in. Possessive accumu- who held that “if one person lacks what is nec- lation of property by a few was the cause of the essary to live with dignity it is because another poverty of all others; that is to say, it was a person is detaining it” (no. 119). What was the zero-sum game. This was the Stoic narrative of context of this ancient Christian conception? the economically decadent state of the con- What did the tradition mean by “secondary temporary world, and it is still the basis of all natural rights”? Finally, has the Church’s social criticism of private property today. doctrine since understood the Rerum novarum The most important transmitter of this narra- derivation of the right to private property tive was Cicero, who probably knew it from from the principle of the universal destination lectures by the Stoic philosopher Poseidonius of goods as implying a relativization of the of Rhodes, but in no way was it used as a nar- right to private property in favor of a superior rative against private property. In De Officiis right of the community? (1, 7) he speaks of the doctrine of the Stoics, “what came into existence on Earth” is “to- gether for the benefit of humankind.” Even if The Ancient Roman Economy: A “by nature there is no private property,” Cic- Zero-Sum Game ero said, it has nevertheless come into being in The principle of the universal destination of the course of time through war and the result- created goods is unchallenged as a fundamen- ing power or through laws, treaties, agree- tal principle of Catholic social teaching. Its ment and lot; whoever does not respect it, roots are found in the ancient Greek myth of “will violate the legal foundation of the human community.” However, he said, in the use of Austrian Institute of Economics and Social Philosophy Möllwaldplatz 5/1 1040 Wien – Austria www.austrian-institute.org | [email protected] private property, each “should follow nature also titled De Officiis, who praised the “favorite as a guide, focusing on the common benefit.” view” of the Stoics” that all products on earth are created for the use of men and for their This was a nuanced position that was culti- general benefit, and are therefore common to vated by the ethos of the Roman nobility. After all. Unlike Cicero, however, he uses this doc- all, the Roman plebians—the large majority of trine to deprive private property of any moral citizens—were dependent for their survival dignity by referring to it as an — on regular, gigantic grain imports financed by usurpatio usurpation. And so, in his famous sermons the rich. Donating for the good of the people against the rich, the shrewd rhetorician calls was understood as a civic duty of the rich, but on them—the rich Christians: “You do not, af- it was also a matter of survival for a system ter all, give of your possessions to the poor, but based on power and patronage, which at the instead return what is already his” ( same time—less so in the East than in the Ro- De 12,53). man West—despised profit-making and trade Nabuthe while caught in a chronic economic downward This may very well have corresponded to the spiral. In this system, one could only be- reality of a “zero-sum economy” at that time. come—and remain—truly rich at the expense Ambrose knew what he was talking about and of others. The rich were thus all the more ea- where the wealth of the rich came from. He, ger to satisfy the people with bread and cir- who himself had put his wealth at the disposal cuses. of the Church of Milan—for example, by fund- ing construction of a basilica, now known as the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio—was con- Necessary Contextualization of the cerned with exposing the greed of the rich, to Ancient Christian Criticism of Wealth make them benefactors of the new plebs of his faithful, and to join both sides together as Clear traces of all this are present in the early united in the church. Christian critique of the rich and the associ- ated property ethic. Late antique Christian Similarly, two hundred years later, Gregory thinking about wealth and property was, as the Great acted as a talented “fundraiser” for Peter Brown points out in his monumental church-organized charity and wrote in his Pas- work Through the Eye of a Needle (2012) , the toral Care (III, 21): “When we give to the poor, idea of encouraging the rich to do what they we are not giving something of ourselves, but had always done. However, now it was no we are giving back what already belongs to longer out of patriotic civic duty, but to leave them.” Like Ambrose, he insists “that the earth their wealth to the Church, who instead were (...) belongs to all equally and therefore also now caring for the poor. In this way they produces food for all equally.” would acquire treasure in heaven and at the Such statements must be read in their original same time be protected from the moral dan- context. This is equally true (though for differ- gers of wealth. ent reasons) of statements made by John The first church leader to preach and practice Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, this was a wealthy descendant of a Roman sen- who came from Antioch. His ideal was not that atorial family named Ambrose, first a prefect of the Roman nobleman, but the first Chris- in the service of the emperor, then bishop of tians of Jerusalem, who shared their goods in Milan in 374. It was also Ambrose—with ref- common (cf. Acts 4:32-35). In his Commentary erence to his role model Cicero—in his work on the Acts of the Apostles, Chrysostom does not advocate organizing the Church’s Austrian Institute Paper No. 38-EN (2021) Page 2 provision for the poor with the help of the rich; also present in medieval scholasticism, the rather, he wants to put the entire society of By- right to private property has been considered zantium, whose poor he estimates at half of since the 19th century as a “secondary” natu- the total population, on a new footing: He calls ral right: not in order to relativize it as subor- for the wealth of the rich to be radically redis- dinate to “rights of the community,” but in or- tributed. All society, every household, should der to place it in the time after the Fall in terms become a monastery, where everything is of salvific history. But this understanding was common to all. To the objection, which he for- to be supplemented later by a second way to mulates himself, about where new means for understand this natural right as “secondary.” the supply of the people should come from However, it too did not lead to a relativization, once all the rich have distributed their goods, but on the contrary to a deepening of the jus- Chrysostom answers: Whoever does good, tification of the right to private property. God will not abandon him, one must only trust in grace and providence. To Chrysostom’s zero-sum economy is now joined the economy When the Franciscans Discovered of grace and miracles. Capital: Natural Law Property Ethics Clement of Alexandria saw it quite differ- in the Middle Ages ently—a century earlier—in his writing Quis The High Middle Ages, when commercial capi- dives salvetur? (13-14): If there were no rich, talism and banking began to flourish, saw a he thought, who would be able to support the different mindset from Christian antiquity. poor? It was not wealth, but greed and avarice There is hardly a trace in the theology of the that were the problem. Augustine too, was of a era of the Stoic founding myth of an original different mindset than Chrysostom: common commonality of all goods. The Roman zero- property only worked in small monastic com- sum mentality also seems to have disap- munities of volunteers, such as he himself had peared; rather, people thought of money as a founded; for society as a whole, he adopted “fruit-bearing capital.” The pioneers here Cicero’s point of view, but in a now Christian were, of all people, members of the Franciscan version: even if private property was not in- Order, emerging from the medieval poverty tended by nature, in the present state of movement, especially Petrus Iohannis Olivi man—i.e., after the Fall—it is the only way to (1248-1298).