The reason so
many socialists insist either that they are not socialists, or that socialism
doesn’t involve the abolition of private property as a fundamental tenet, is
that they don’t understand property — private or otherwise. This, in turn, leads to a misunderstanding of
money and credit, and even of “personality,” i.e., having rights — keeping in mind that having rights defines
you as a person.
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| "Property" is the right to be an owner and the rights of use. |
Which segues into
a discussion on rights and socialism. That’s
convenient, because “property” is not the thing owned, as many otherwise
intelligent people think, but the right to own things, and the bundle of rights
that define how an owner may use things. Property is rights you have to and over things,
not the things themselves.
The socialist
understanding of rights is relatively simple.
The human race as a whole — humanity, the collective, community, State,
or however you want to put it — has rights, but individual children, women, and
men do not, except as delegated to them by the collective as necessary or
expedient.
And therein lies
the problem.
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| Aristotle: the general derives from the particular. |
You see,
“humanity” is an abstraction, and abstractions are human creations, at least
within the Aristotelian-Thomist framework.
Also known as “generalizations” and “ideas” or “ideals,” human beings
create abstractions to help them deal with reality. We can’t know everything in its entirety, so
we apply our reason to what we observe with our senses, and come up with a way
of classifying things so our brains can handle them.
This is called
“speculative reason” or “theoretical reason,” as opposed to “practical reason.” Speculative reason is based on generalities
and abstractions. Practical reason is
based on specific instances.
For example,
every animal we have come across that has four legs, fur, teeth, barks, and
slobbers all over our best shoes right before we need them has been called a
“dog.” This is practical reason.
We therefore
“abstract” from this evidence and form an “abstraction” by means of which
anything we come across that has four legs, fur, teeth, barks, and slobbers all
over our best shoes right before we need them we term a “dog.” This is speculative reason.
We usually refine
our abstractions as we grow older and gain experience, but that’s not the point
here. The point? That human beings go from the “particular” to
the “general” or the “abstract” when forming ideas. We do not go from ideas that are somehow born
into us and that exist before we are born.
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| "I'm a real dog, not an abstraction." |
We call that
critter a dog because it conforms to the general, abstract idea of dog that we
have put together from observing other, particular dogs, not because we already
have an inborn general idea of what a dog is and the beast conforms to
that. Real dogs exist before we can
create the abstraction “dog”; dogs do not come into existence because of a need
or use for something that conforms to the ideal dogginess. Dogginess has no existence independent of
actual dogs. Dogginess exists because
dogs exist, dogs do not exist because dogginess exists.
It’s the same
with natural rights. Particular people
do not have rights because the generalization/abstraction of the collective has
rights and grants them as needed or expedient to individuals.
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| "I'm Themis, dude. 'Justice' is my job, not my name." |
No, people have
rights because they are built in to human nature. We figure out what these rights are and how
to exercise them based on reason and observation, forming a general idea of
what our rights are. We then conclude
that all human beings have these rights because every human being we’ve come
across has them (at least, we should, if we’re thinking logically). Consequently, we say that “humanity” has
rights not because “humanity” is a thing with an existence independent of human
beings, but because it’s the easiest way of saying that every single human being
who has existed, exists, or ever will exist, has rights.
The bottom line
here is that rights exist because persons exist; persons do not exist because
rights exist. Rights derive from the
fact of individual, personal existence; personal existence does not derive from
rights. Consequently, the abstraction of
humanity only has such rights as derive from individuals; individuals do not
have such rights as derive from humanity.
Not according to
socialism, though. It is a fundamental
principle of socialism — and the primary reason that, e.g., the Catholic Church condemns socialism — that rights are
vested in the collective, in humanity, and not in individual human beings. In socialism, therefore, rights can be taken
away or redefined if, in the opinion of those in power, the common good or the
greater good demands it.
In socialism,
human beings only have such rights, or rights at all, if the collective (or
whoever claims to speak for the collective) so decrees, and rights can be taken
away at the will of the strongest. This
is what Pope Pius XI meant when he explained,
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| Pius XI: Socialism is bad. |
If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which,
moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on
a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true
Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory
terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist. (Quadragesimo Anno, § 120.)
Not that we need
to rely on what the Catholic Church says.
That’s just a handy “third party endorsement” of our reasoning as to why
socialism is, frankly, delusional. It is
based on an assumption that anyone who applies the principles of reason
consistently must reject as illogical.
So much for the
broad discussion, i.e., the Big
Reason why socialism is not a good model for the structuring of a society. It sounds good, of course, “From each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” but while
redistribution may be necessary in emergency situations, it cannot be
implemented as the usual way of doing things.
Why should I work so that you can eat? Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it in one of his
debates with Stephen Douglas,
That is the real issue.
That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor
tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two
principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood
face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to
struggle. The one is the common right of
humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it
develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and earn
bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in
what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the
people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race
of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical
principle. (Abraham Lincoln, October 15, 1858, Seventh Debate with Stephen
Douglas.)
But let's get down to particulars. Why private
property? Aren’t life and liberty more
important than mere things . . . oops, we mean, rights to and over mere
things? Why private property is so
important is something we’ll look at tomorrow.