As we saw in the previous posting on this subject, quite a few people in the world don’t really know the legal definition of “person” . . . although they probably think they do. That can cause one or two (billion) problems.
What is a “person”? In Black’s Law Dictionary, “person” is defined as “A man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the right to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes.” The definition adds, “The word in its natural and usual signification includes women as well as men.”
Further explanation adds the concept of “artificial persons” such as governments and business corporations, that have rank or identity in society, even though they are not human beings. Then you have slaves, human beings that have no rank or social identity.
Legally speaking, then, the common denominator here, and the unconditional mark of a “person,” then, is something that has rights. If it has rights, it is a person. If it does not have rights, it is not a person.
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| George Mason: life, liberty, property |
Something can have rights only by nature or by grant from a person. All human beings are automatically persons because certain rights are part of what it means to be human, such as life, liberty, and private property. Nothing else can be a person — not even “humanity” — except by grant from human persons.
A right is the power a person has, to do or not do some act or acts in relation to other persons. All rights impose duties on others, so a duty is the obligation to do or not do some act or acts in relation to other persons. Only persons can have rights and duties.
All rights, especially natural rights, have two “parts.” There is, one, having a right, and two, exercising a right, and these are two very different things.
For example, all human beings absolutely have the right to be alive, to be free, and to be owners: the natural rights to life, liberty, and private property. At the same time, what someone may do with his life, freedom and what he owns — the rights of life, liberty, and private property — is necessarily limited and in part socially determined. Human persons have natural rights absolutely, but only have limited exercise of them.
This brings us to the confusion about private property. Many people today think that “property” means the thing owned. Strictly speaking, however, property is not the thing owned. It is the right to own, and the bundle of rights that define the exercise of the right.
To explain, the
right to be an owner is part of human nature itself. It is an integral aspect of that capacity to
become virtuous that defines us as human beings. The right to private property is therefore inherent,
absolute, and exclusive. That is, the
right to be an owner is without restriction, exception, or qualification, in
every human person, and owners may exclude all others from using what is owned.
In contrast, the rights of ownership, that is, the bundle of rights that define how an owner may use what is owned, are necessarily limited, socially determined, and inclusive. This is because society would dissolve in chaos if everyone did as he pleased with what he owned. The rights of ownership must take others besides owners into consideration — the concept of stewardship.
Thus, we see that the absolute and exclusive right to own, and the limited and inclusive rights of ownership are two essential and complementary halves of the natural right of private property.
The right to be an owner is absolute, but what an owner may do with what is owned is limited. Neither may the rights of ownership be defined in any way that effectively nullifies the underlying right to be an owner in the first place.
Denying persons their rights or permitting their exercise only as a grant from other persons or from some form of the collective, prevents or inhibits people from becoming virtuous, and implies they are not fully persons or persons at all: “[A] good action essentially perfects the performing the action.” (Wojtyła, “In Search of the Basis of Perfectionism in Ethics,” Person and Community, op. cit., 45.) This interferes with the meaning and purpose of life itself — which is to become more fully human. (Wojtyła, “The Problem of the Theory of Morality,” Person and Community, op. cit., 155.)
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| Klaus Schwab |
The question then becomes how and to what degree the proposed solutions and others inhibit or prevent people from reaching their full potential as human persons. Again, we stress the fact that these and other solutions — or at least elements of them — may be essential as expedients in the short-term. Problems arise when they are imposed as permanent, long-term solutions, as in the Great Reset.
As Klaus Schwab stated in his book, Stakeholder Capitalism (2021), the guiding principle at the heart of the Great Reset is “each stakeholder contributes what it can in stakeholder capitalism and receives what it needs.” (Klaus Schwab, Stakeholder Capitalism: A Global Economy that Works for Progress, People and Planet. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2021, 193.)
Thus, the principle of the Great Reset/Stakeholder Capitalism appears to be a restatement of the fundamental principle of the scientific socialism (communism) of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. That is, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” (Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program. Peking, China: Foreign Languages Press, 1972, 17.)
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| Karl Marx |
This principle is a good one for charity and as an expedient in an emergency. It acknowledges that all persons are in the same “family” and are morally obligated to help one another in times of need.
Ordinarily, such redistribution comes under charity and, because it is a moral obligation, must be strictly voluntary. When the situation is dire, however, duly constituted authority can justify a limited redistribution of wealth belonging to others.
In private property as understood in traditional natural law theory, the only people who have a right to the fruits of ownership are the owners, whether of labor or of capital. Thus, under natural law, income generated by labor goes to the owners of labor, and income generated by capital goes to the owners of capital. In a corporation, the term stakeholder was traditionally reserved for the owners of the corporation, i.e., the shareholders.
In today’s stakeholder capitalism, the term is expanded to include customers, suppliers, employees, and local communities as well as shareholders. This is intended to ensure that a corporation or other form of business organization takes factors other than the immediate and short-term interests of the shareholders into account.
While this may, in fact, happen, it is only at the expense of redefining private property, and thus natural law. Production (supply) and consumption (demand) are separated from each other. This is de facto redistribution and, as noted above, throws an economy out of balance.
The most subtle and yet serious problem, however, is that redefining private property — or any other right under natural law — effectively redefines what it means to be human and is thus a direct attack on the dignity of each and every human person.
#30#
