Every legal system has some type of property rights scheme.
As I point out in my book, “Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) May 28, 2025
This pro-IP dude “Rock” says sarcastically “Yes because property rights are totally socialist”. My reply:
Every legal system has some type of property rights scheme.
As I point out in my book, “Protection of and respect for property rights is thus not unique to libertarianism. Every legal system defines and enforces some property rights system. What is distinctive about libertarianism is its particular property assignment rules—its view as to who is the owner of each contestable, conflictable resource, and how to determine this.” https://stephankinsella.com/lffs/, ch. 2, p.14: also ch. 4, p. 47; ch. 14, p. 361; ch. 23, p. 630; ch. 25, p. 691.
On this see Jeremy Waldron, The Right to Private Property (Oxford 1988), p. 37-38: “I now want to say what distinguishes a system of private property from other types of property systems. Some jurists give the impression that by making out a case for the establishment of some system of a case for the establishment of some system of settled rules about material objects, they have thereby refuted socialism. This is a mistake. A socialist system, as much as a system of private property, is a system of rules governing access to and control of material objects. A case for private property must relate to what is distinctive about this type of system, and not merely to the concept of property rules, something to which socialists and capitalists have a common commitment. Marx, for example, regarded it as obvious that all forms of society requires some system of property: ‘That there can be no such thing as production, nor, consequently, society, where property does not exist in any form, is a tautology. … But it becomes ridiculous when from that one jumps at once to a definite form, e.g. private property.”
So what makes libertarianism unique is not that it has property rights—but that it assigns them fairly, objectively, and consistently as private law always has: to the first occupant (homesteader) of the resource, or to the person who acquired it by contract from a previous owner. Those are the principles of justice of a libertarian, free market, capitalist order. Socialist systems are those that assign property rights in other ways.
If you call a right to income a property right, yes, you now have a socialist property rights system since you have to take property from those who acquired resources by original appropriation or contract. This is what socialism is.
As Hoppe explains, while socialism typically refers to state or collective ownership of the means of production, its essence is the “institutionalized interference with or aggression against private property and private property claims”. https://hanshoppe.com/tsc/, p.2. Thus if you advocate assigning property rights in way that violates the original appropriation or contract principles, you are advocating socialism, son.
This happens if you are not careful in identifying what types of “things” can be owned—that is, can be objects of property rights. Not every “thing” that you can name is a possible object of property. There is a reason for this. The reason is that patterns of information–ideas, recipes–do not exist independently but are always just the impatterning of an underlying substrate or medium. You cannot have a car owned and its color too. Someone owning “red”–a universal–would own all red things. It would abrogate your ownership rights in your car. Things that exist independently–conflictable things–can be owned. They can be objects of property rights. Things that are just features of or patterns embedded in those things cannot be owned independently. I have explained all this in my book, but people like you are too stupid and haughty to read and too impatient to forebear from unburdening your half-formed thoughts onto the world and thereby inadvertently advocating the socialism you thing you oppose.
In any case, not every “thing” you can think of in your little imagination is an ownable thing. As pointed out by legal philosophy James Penner, “If property is a right to things, we must provide some characterization of the things that can be property.” James E. Penner, The Idea of Property in Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), ch. 5.
And as I have pointed out, thinks like ideas literally cannot be owned. This is because patterns, information, ideas do not exist independently but only as the impatterning of an underlying physical thing or substrate, such as a piece of paper, which already has an owner according to principles of original appropriation or contract.
That is why it is impossible to own information or ideas, and the attempt to do so only amounts to reassigning property rights in existing material things, in the form of an negative servitude—a nonconsensual negative servitude, which is which is what makes the servitude a form of theft, a taking of property rights. It’s what makes IP socialistic, son.
Thus, as I explain in “Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes” https://c4sif.org/2011/06/intellectual-property-rights-as-negative-servitudes/… and the section “IP Rights as Negative Easements” in “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15 of my book), information or knowledge (recipes, in general), as a non-scarce, non-conflictable thing, cannot be owned; any law purporting to assign property rights in such things is just a disguised reassignment of property rights in existing conflictable resources (money, factories, printing presses, etc). It is theft. It is socialism. It is evil.
This is because all property rights are enforceable rights in material, scarce—conflictable—resources, the type of (causally efficacious) scarce means that human actors can possess and manipulate and employ to causally interfere in the world. It is not that assigning property rights in information or knowledge is wrong, but that it is impossible.42 Force cannot be applied to “ideas” or information, but only to scarce resources. Any IP right is just a disguised reassignment of property rights in existing scarce resources. See my book, ch. 15, Part IV.B, LFFS; and Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes https://c4sif.org/2011/06/intellectual-property-rights-as-negative-servitudes….
Similarly, Penner observes: “the ownership of incorporeal property can be regarded not as a right to some abstract object of property, but rather as a complex right (mediated via a complex private property system) to those same old material resources, which are ultimately the basis of wealth even now.” What this means is that there can’t really be rights to incorporeal things; it’s really a complex way of describing rights to material things. Just as the force of the state always comes down to actual, naked force applied to physical, human bodies or owned resources, just as all laws amount to force, just as ballots really mean bullets, in the end–so all property rights are rights to use force to manipulate and control the physical things (scarce means of action; resources; conflictable things) that people use and thus all property rights in so-called incorporeals or things like IP, ideas, patterns of information are really just control rights to physical things! This is really not that hard for anyone sincere, honest, and intelligent enough to just listen–to someone who knows more than you, and tha’ts in the end your problem–your unwarranted confidence and cockiness, your unjustified pride and arrogance. Driven, no doubt, by insecurity rooted in your own inadequate education or mental capacity which is probably the fault of your mediocre parents who no doubt sent you to some humdrum public school.
In other words, genius, what you are proposing is socialistic since you are advocating nonconsensual negative servitudes over existing material resources already owned by existing owners in accordance with principles of original appropriation or contractual title transfer. This is simply theft, and an abrogation of the capitalist, private property system, i.e. it’s socialism or at least socialistic, since it’s an institutionalized interference with private property rights.
Don’t mess with me boy. And stop running around like a punk advocating socialism.
***
Followup:
“You say property rights are about exclusion, not use—but that’s a false dichotomy. The right to exclude is a use right.”
The right to exclude give you the ability to use–in most cases. Your ownership of your body gives you right to use it to college stamps or to take up…
— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) May 28, 2025
“You say property rights are about exclusion, not use—but that’s a false dichotomy. The right to exclude is a use right.” The right to exclude give you the ability to use–in most cases. Your ownership of your body gives you right to use it to college stamps or to take up jogging or any number of things but it’s stupid to say you have a right to go jogging and a right to college stamps blah blah blha. All these are implied by your exclusive right to your body. “Property isn’t just the ability to say “no”—it’s the moral authority to decide how a thing is used, no idea what you mean by moral authority but note your slight of hand here: I did NOT say “ABLITY TO SAY NO” I said RIGHT to say no! I distinguish fact from norm, unlike you monists. ” by whom, and under what conditions. That includes both use and exclusion.” You are double counting. I dont have a right to prevent you from using my body AND a right to use it. it’s the same thing. ” You claim that your inability to use your own gun to murder someone isn’t a restriction on property rights, but a restriction on action. But here’s the problem: property rights exist precisely to define which actions are just. ” that’s not a problem. That’s the PURPOSE of property rights. the point is your property rights are not a limit on my propety rights, they are limit on my actions. “They are moral claims over control” whatever that means “—use and exclusion” Oh, use AND exclusion! Wow, you can hae both! I own my home AND the right to grow a rubber tree in it! AND I have the right to paint it yellow! And another right to paint it blue! “—grounded in ownership.” No. the rights to use/exclude are not grounded in ownership. It’s what ownership IS. what property rights ARE. ” When it comes to intellectual property, you’re avoiding the core issue: If someone creates something that didn’t exist before—a book, a design, a formula—they’ve used their time, effort, and rational faculty to transform reality.” so? ” That creation, once made objective, can be reproduced infinitely—but that doesn’t make it free to take. ” It’s not being “taken” its’ being copied, genius. If you dont want someone to see what you are doing or learn from you or emulate you, don’t teach them. Keep your ideas to yourself if you want. But if you make information public others might see it and learn from it and use it to guide their own behavior. And I already explained to you that creating something is not the source of rights. you are too stupid or lazy to read I guess. Learn to read. c4sif.org/2010/09/locke- c4sif.org/2009/11/rand-o “Saying “your rights over your physical tools are absolute, but the creator’s rights over the product of his mind are not” is special pleading. You’re drawing an arbitrary line that treats physical production as sacred and intellectual creation as fair game for theft.” copying is not theft. For successful action you need scarce means protected by property rights (since they are conflictable) and also knowledge to guide your action. Property applies only to the former. I explain this all very clearly in c4sif.org/2025/05/proble Part III.A.3 “You try to equate IP with a “negative easement”—but preventing someone from using your creation without consent isn’t a trespass on their rights.” this is question-begging. My property right in my body and other resources gives me the ability to use it as I see bit as long as I do not invade your property rights. You saying that my ACTION of copying “your creation” means my property rights in my factory or printing press are limited assumes my action is “theft” because you have a property right in your “creation.” That is question-beggging, as you are assuming your conclusion. You are just asserting you own what you create. Why? Because you are confused about the source of rights. It’s not creation. I have explained thia already. See the article above, Part III.A.1. And this is exactly why I need to explain to you people why property rights don’t limit other property rights–you will use it confusingly and dishonestly to argue JUST AS YOU HAVE DONE HERE. I have seen your socialist tricks before, son. stephankinsella.com/2010/01/ip-and stephankinsella.com/2010/01/non-ag
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