Faith doing Justice

Differing concepts of property underlie debates

Differing views about private property ownership are at the heart of today's debates about such diverse questions as patenting life forms, environment degradation, stem cell research, widespread poverty, and even assisted suicide. The question is: Can anyone ever claim to own anything absolutely, even life itself?

This question relates to a first principle of Catholic social teaching: That the world is God's good creation, and we are called as God's agents to develop and maintain everything in right order for the good of all.

In Jewish and early Christian thought, private ownership of property was accepted, but as a trust from God. This stewardship concept modified private property rights with specific responsibilities and duties. Also, early Christians held some property in common. Along similar lines, Aristotle taught that the use of property should be partly common and partly granted to others by property owners. Aristotle's views were brought into mediaeval Christian thought by Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Later, Anabaptists turned to biblical roots for ideas about common property that Mennonites carried forward. Canadian First Nations voice similar opinions when they insist that their claim to the land was not extinguished when they signed land treaties with Europeans.

The Jewish and early Christian views about property were challenged by Roman jurists. They set law free from religious concepts, and moved away from clan or family as the basic social unit. Individual rights of ownership replaced communal rights. Contract law was developed, which included the owner's freedom to dispose of property.

This Roman approach is the basis of the property law that shapes both business dealings and economic theory in the English-speaking world, and therefore around the globe. The Roman emphasis on individual rights was given an even sharper edge by British theorists such as John Locke (1632-1704). For him, personal property included one's own life; and property should be protected even from such state interventions as taxes levied for a common good.

The prominence of the Roman, British, Lockean view of property is evident on many fronts, including the opinion that big government is taking too much out of the individual taxpayer's pocket. However, the older religious view is not dead, as shown, for example, by the Compendium on the Social Doctrine of the Church released 25 October at the Vatican.

"Christian tradition," it says, "has never recognized the right to private property as absolute and untouchable.... The universal destiny of goods entails obligations on how goods are to be used by their legitimate owners. Individual persons may not use their resources without considering the effects that this use will have; rather, they must act in a way that benefits not only themselves and their family, but also the common good."

Ideas about ownership are at the heart of many debates today. Do we safeguard fresh water as a common property, or allow it to be defined as a commercial commodity and sold for private profit? Should scientific discoveries (as distinct from technical inventions) be patented and treated as private properties? How long should crucial inventions, such as drugs for AIDS, be patent-protected; and how does the concept of stewardship apply to patents as private properties? Are we doing enough to reach the UN's Millennium Development Goals that express the right of all humanity to a fair share of the earth's resources, and aim at reducing absolute poverty by 2015 and eventually eliminating hunger and deprivation? Is even human life itself reduced to a disposable property by efforts to legalize assisted suicide?