CCLXXVIII – All Ownership Is Derived From The Sovereign

Or, The Sovereign & Property, Part 3 of 3

In Part 1, we discussed duties owed to the sovereign by the subject. In Part 2, we discussed some of the duties owed to the subjects by the sovereign. Here, we bring it all together with the idea of ownership.

Ownership is a lesser order of authority than sovereignty. To be sovereign obliges all the people and their property to be subject to the authority of the sovereign. To be an owner obliges only the thing owned to be subject to your authority.

Private property is an element of natural law, this means that it is proper to Man to have property of his own. What this also means is that it is proper to the sovereign to permit private ownership. Communism attempts to abrogate the private property aspect by returning all property to the sovereign; yet communism demands that the sovereign retain the duty of custodianship to the people and administer all that property for the good of the people. This is disordered not only because it abrogates private property but because it doesn’t change the relationship of the people to the sovereign. The sovereign does have a duty of custodianship to provide for the needs of the people, private property means, in other words, that people have a responsibility to determine the best way to satisfy their own needs. Currency permits this dynamic: The sovereign cannot be everywhere therefore the sovereign delegates authority via tokens which the people can use to acquire property which the sovereign ought to be providing for them.

However, the sovereign ought to provide because the sovereign has authority over all property. All property is subject to the Sovereign. Every inch of land, every ounce of raw material yet to be mined, every unit of processed goods which completed manufacture–all of this property is subject to the sovereign.

So this is the punchline: All ownership is derived from the Sovereign. Just as the Sovereign can delegate authority of West Scootland to the Duke of Scootland, the Sovereign can delegate authority of this computer I am writing on to me via ownership. The Duke rules West Scootland as a representative of the Sovereign, not as owner of West Scootland. I rule over this computer not as representative of the sovereign but as owner of it. In the former case, the Duke and West Scootland remain subjects to the Sovereign, but the Duke administers the province on the sovereigns behalf. In the latter case, the Computer and I remain subjects of the sovereign, but I can dispose of the property in whatever way best suits my needs.

The principle that describes this phenomenon is subsidiarity, the principle that problems should be solved at the closest possible level to the problem. The problem I have is that I need food, clothing, and shelter. Subsidiarity suggests that it would be inefficient for the sovereign to solve this problem for me, I must solve this problem for myself.

What is interesting to me is that implicit in all this is the virtue of an Aristocracy. Aristocracy, like the Sovereign, have a custodial duty to the people. Contrast this with Bureaucracy, who have a duty of efficiency to the Bureaucracy itself. Aristocracy have an obligation to treat people as people and to be the caring face of the sovereign. Bureaucracy have an obligation to administrate with profit motive, which we’ve already established does not imply public good.

I don’t know if these arguments make me a monarchist–it would be interesting to take this perspective and analyze our democracy with it; also to see what controls are necessary to prevent a monarchy/aristocracy from becoming a tyranny.

AMDG

CCLXXVII – Fun Sized Aristocracy

Or, The Sovereign & Property, Part 2 of 3

I mentioned I’ve been watching Downton Abbey and it has been an interesting peek into the world of turn-of-the-century British Aristocrats. In the early episodes there was a lot of talk about the “house” or the “estate” and the nearby town but it took me a while to realize that the main family were politicians. To be an Earl is a sufficiently foreign concept to me that it is meaningless, but I know what it is to be a Mayor. The patriarch of the family in the TV Show is the Mayor of a town, and when he dies his heir will be the Mayor. He didn’t choose that life but he has that life and he must rise to the occasion for the good of the residents of the town over which he is Mayor.

The premise here is that in order to be a good Mayor he has to take his responsibilities seriously, and in order to ensure that he remains a good Mayor he has to make sure his kids understand the responsibilities and are capable of taking them seriously, too. The order of precedence is something like this: His kids must understand how to take care of themselves, how to take care of their family, how to take care of their subjects, how to take care of their community, how to take care of the state. More or less in that order.

In Part 1, I talked about how subjection is a higher order of authority than ownership, for both Sovereign and Subject. This means that it is a higher responsibility, even to be a subject. To put it this way, a subject of the Mayor has this order of precedence: They must understand how to take care of themselves, how to take care of their family, what duties are owed to their sovereign, how to take care of their community, how to take care of the state. Because they have no subjects themselves, they must be good subjects to the sovereign.

Implicit in the relationship between Sovereign and subject is a custodial relationship. The Sovereign must care for the needs of the subject, the subject must entrust themselves to the care of the Sovereign. These are lessons we don’t need an aristocracy to teach: teaching kids to be good subjects while simultaneously demonstrating being a good sovereign is important. It’s a fun-sized aristocracy you can enjoy at home, caring for your home the way a Mayor or Earl might care for a city or demesne.

An important part of all this which was mentioned in the previous article but is worth repeating: As subject, ones property must be disposed to the good of the Sovereign, or at least to the good of the order of precedence discussed earlier. Again, if we assume money is the delegated authority of the sovereign to make exchanges to provide necessities, then accumulating money is wasteful and the accumulation of luxury is disordered because it uses the sovereign authority to provide more than necessities and fails to provide for ones community or to return what is not needed back to the sovereign.

This is why wealth is a stumbling block to faith: luxurious wealth represents pride, usurping the authority of the sovereign to gives oneself the accidents of sovereignty. If we fully entrust ourselves to the care of the sovereign, accumulating excess is a failure in trust that the sovereign will provide.

This is why sacrificial giving is extremely important. Remind yourself that what you have is not yours, and you owe a duty to those around you.

AMDG