Abstract
Hume’s theory of property is founded upon an analysis of human nature in the context of permanent economic scarcity in all societies. This paper addresses seven questions to Hume about possessions and the nature and origin of property. Hume’s answers reveal the salient features of his liberal and individualistic theory of society. The paper concludes with a discussion of the creative destruction (Schumpeter’s term) described by Marx and Engels as a basic characteristic of industrial capitalism. It ends by pointing out a basic error in Marx’s account that Hume had no difficulty avoiding.
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Notes
- 1.
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), xvi.
- 2.
T, xvii.
- 3.
T, xix. The way Hume’s philosophical anthropology is grounded in experience is illustrated by this passage: “The practice of the world goes farther in teaching us the degrees of our duty, than the most subtile philosophy, which was ever yet invented.” T, 569. So let us not exaggerate the gap between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in Hume’s philosophy. Wittgenstein might have learned from Hume that our ‘language games’ reveal not only verbal usage but also the variety of moral obligations.
- 4.
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals in Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), 197. “Our property is nothing but those goods, whose constant possession is establish’d by the laws of society…” T, 491.
- 5.
EPM, 183.
- 6.
Although Hume’s philosophical anthropology is not itself an example of historiography, nevertheless, he points out that “the study of history confirms the reasonings of true philosophy…[by] shewing us the original qualities of human nature…” T, 562.
- 7.
One of Hume’s overall philosophical aims was to undermine the fictions and myths of traditional metaphysics. We can see that in this remark about property: “this quality, which we call property, is like many of the imaginary qualities of the peripatetic philosophy, and vanishes upon a more accurate inspection into the subject, when consider’s apart from our moral sentiments. ’Tis evident property does not consist in any of the sensible qualities of the object.” T, 527.
- 8.
“the suppos’d state of nature…a mere philosophical fiction, which never had, and never cou’d have any reality…” T, 493.
- 9.
EPM, 304.
- 10.
F.A. Hayek, “The Legal and Political Thought of David Hume,” reprinted in Hume, ed. V.C. Chappell (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1966), 340.
- 11.
“‘tis only from the selfishness and confin’d generosity of men, along with the scanty provision nature has made for his wants, that justice derives its origin. T, 495.
- 12.
EPM, 183–190.
- 13.
See Hume’s essay “Of the Original Contract,” in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), 465–487.
- 14.
EPM, 309n.
- 15.
John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government in Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (New York: Mentor Books, 1965), par. 27.
- 16.
Locke, par. 30.
- 17.
Hume notes that mixing one’s labor is too narrow a relation to account for occupation or first possession: “There are several kinds of occupation, where we cannot be said to join our labour to the object we acquire: As when we possess a meadow by grazing our cattle upon it.” T, 505n.
- 18.
EPM, 309n.
- 19.
EPM, 201.
- 20.
Although Hume was a childless bachelor, he knew about children: “every parent, in order to preserve peace among his children, must establish [the rule for the stability of possessions.]” T. 493.
- 21.
EPM, 203.
- 22.
EPM, 196.
- 23.
Hayek has discussed the emergence of spontaneous orders in many places. See especially Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume One:Rules and Order (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), Chapter 2. Also see the very important book by Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
- 24.
EPM, 306.
- 25.
EPM, 193.
- 26.
EPM, 193.
- 27.
EPM, 193.
- 28.
EPM, 194.
- 29.
“Of Commerce,” in Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1987), 265.
- 30.
EPM,194.
- 31.
See Ludwig von Mises, Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949) for an economic theory founded on fixed laws of the human mind.
- 32.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950), I, 36.
- 33.
Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1962). Chapter Seven is entitled “The Process of Creative Destruction.”
- 34.
Schumpeter, 82–83.
- 35.
Here is an interesting example I recently came across. In 1959, Cuba was about 25% more prosperous than Portugal. In 2009, Portugal is more than twice as prosperous as Cuba. (cafehayek@gmail.com, August 5, 2010) To illustrate the general decline in poverty in societies which have sustained a relatively free market order over time, in their paper “The Level and Trend of Poverty in the United States, 1939–1979,” Christine Ross, Sheldon Danziger, and Eugene Smolensky report: “Poverty, officially measured, fell from 40.5 percent of all persons in 1949 to 13.1 percent in 1979.” (in Demography, Vol. 24, No. 4, Nov., 1987, Abstract, p. 587. One would not expect such changes in societies whose market system has been compromised by government intervention or extreme amounts of corruption.
- 36.
For an excellent discussion of how crises increase the state’s degree of control over the economy, see Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).
- 37.
The Chinese communist leader, Deng Xiaoping, discarded the anti-capitalist mentality when he enunciated what could be the motto of industrial capitalism: “It is good to be rich.” It was not envy but emulation that captured his imagination. For a discussion of the role of envy in human life see Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).
- 38.
Here is an incisive summary of Hume’s views on this issue: “Hume’s great trinity of spontaneous conventions, ‘the stability of possessions, its translation by consent and the performance of promises’ satisfy the enabling condition for society to exist. Each convention is brought forth by an equilibrium selection mechanism, a ‘game’ whose solution is payoff-enhancing, advantageous to the players.” Anthony De Jasay, “Ordered Anarchy and Contractarianism,” Philosophy, Vol. 85, no. 333, July 2010, 401–2.
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Landesman, C. (2013). Some Remarks on Hume’s Account of Property Including One Cheer for the Communist Manifesto. In: Stacy, H., Lee, WC. (eds) Economic Justice. AMINTAPHIL: The Philosophical Foundations of Law and Justice, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4905-4_1
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