This Theory On Property Will Make You Think

In this clip, Ryan Cooper explains what “propertarianism” is? It's the idea that the more claim you have to property, the more access you have to the state's monopoly on violence.

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Image Credit, Mark Buckawicki

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Sam: What it means to own something in this country is who has the greatest claim to the state's monopoly of power or violent authority. And you talked about “propertarianism”. What is that term?

Cooper: That is a term I stole from Ursula K. Le Guin in the novel the dispossessed. just kind of like the sound of it. Thomas Piketty has a similar word prop “propertarianism”. But I like mine better or Ursula K. Le Guin's. but the idea there is that you know this is about you know as Piketty says the sacralization of property. Treating property is a sort of sacred object that can't be you know fiddled with that that like you know has to be the sort of foundation stone of the entire social order. You know, an obviously appealing idea for rich people who own lots of property. but yeah I think you know property is almost the most interesting part to sort of dig into the socially constructed nature of all economies. Because I mean if you think about it you know at a certain point as certain surely you know in prehistory or before human beings even existed there was no property at all. like anyone was free to go wherever they wanted. and you know at least I mean you might be eaten by a jaguar or something. but you didn't know there wasn't a sort of system of fences that would tell you that this piece of ground is mine, that piece of ground is yours. you know that these were invented. and you know you think like everything in the world, all the objects, all of the pieces of computer equipment and stuff that we're using to talk to each other right now, all that is made out of natural stuff that you knew once was not the property of anybody. who had to be dug up out of the ground. you know it was created in a supernova billions of years ago. and so you know when you're when you look at how property came to exist in the first place it was not at all subtle about it being a violent taking from the rest of people. I mean that you know you just read some history going back you know as far as history goes. And it's just one group of people conquering and killing the other group and taking their land. you know and often enslaves their population. and that you know is how property came to be in this country. there was you know there were people were living here some of them had sort of like quasi territorial systems but nothing like a modern property register. you know sort of collective ownership you might say. but then we came in and we killed all those people and we set up, you know, on almost all of the land a system of property. and it's just built from the foundation of the politics of raw violence. the sword and the club. You know what property is and what it always has been. You set up a system where you say this is mine and if you disagree you try to take it from me. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to enjoin you in the courts or I'm going to get the police to come and drag you violently off of my property. and so property is access to the state's violent capacity. to its police and its soldiers. you know that you have a property register and you know you can you can access that you can call 9-1-1 and you will get people to respond you file a lawsuit and you get the state to respect your lawsuit.