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Introduction to radical capitalism – Part 3 By Chanda Chisala In this segment, I will address only one point made by a reader. If we wish to run away from the consideration that implementation of these ideologies is not mixed but 'pure' then we have to idealize the situation and there is nothing negative about that. In fact Mr. Chisala seems to want to take that route. However that route will need structure too. It will need to invoke philosophical questions that are general enough and yet specific to help address the comparison between the -isms. Mr. Chisala invokes the property ownership issue as the key philosophical question to guide him in his idealistic interpretations of capitalism. It is not an appropriate philosophical question because it is too specific and not general enough. The real philosophical question that could help resolve things for either side is the question of 'individual Vs. societal rights'. -Bwana. Bwana is right: I have taken the property ownership route and not the “individual versus societal rights” route in my argument for capitalism. Is there any reason I have done this? Yes. And I believe it is the only valid “route” to take, as I explain below (or at least it is much more valid than the approach he suggests). At Zambia Online we have had one recurring problem many times: a debater submits a contribution with some swear words and personal insults aimed at other debaters (or at the president!). The Webmaster warns that individual that this is not permitted on this web site. The debater then defiantly replies that his right of freedom of speech entails that he can speak in whatever way he wants. Now I ask the question: who is right between the web master and that debater? Can the debater ‘speak’ in whatever way he wants since he has the right to express himself freely? Everyone knows that the simple answer here is that this person does not have a right to say whatever he wants to say as long as he is on Zambia Online, which is not his property. The property owner can determine what rules will be followed by those who decide to use his property for the purpose that he specifies. This is common sense, obviously. When someone borrows your car, you can tell him “do not drive as far as Kafue in my car”. Although he generally has the right to go where he wants to, he can not do it in your car if you set that limit. This is because the car is your property, not his. I think we can all accept that. I have heard of people who say to their parents, “I am now an adult; you should not control what time I come into the house – I should come in whenever I want to because that’s my right, and you are infringing on my human rights by imposing a curfew on me.” But as long as you are living in their house – their property – you will have to follow their basic rules on the use of that property (their house)! But this shows us therefore that rights are not arbitrarily derived. You can not speak about rights divorced from property. The reason you have the right to say what you want to say is because your mouth and your mind belongs to you and to no one else. However, if you are going to use a particular private medium to express yourself – like the Post newspaper or Zambia Online – you are going to be bound by the rules of the property owner or owners, even if you do not agree with them. Property ownership is therefore the absolute foundation of rights and nothing else. Therefore, in choosing between discussing capitalism from either the route of “rights” per se or “property ownership”, I choose the latter because the former is meaningless without property ownership. Notice that you can never establish who has a particular “right” between two conflicting claims in any particular context without advancing the idea of property ownership. Now, when you realise the necessity of this critical foundation for the discussion of rights, you see that “societal rights” is a meaningless concept (even if it is zealously taught in social sciences). Society does not own any property, only individuals do. Society does not own a life, a mouth, hands, a mind, etc. These are properties of actual individuals. Therefore only individuals can have rights. A manufacturer should be stopped from carelessly polluting the air, not because of societal rights but because of the individuals who will be actually harmed when they inhale that air. And if harm has already been done, it is only those individuals that are harmed that can sue him and not the whole of “society.” The manufacturer does not own these individuals’ bodies so he should not be allowed to harm them with his chemicals. There are so many people today who just invoke arbitrary rights without such recourse to logic and reality, which is why we have great confusion in society today, with rights being randomly granted to anything, from animals to trees to God and to just about anything else. Without integrating the factors that make the whole concept of rights viable, such irrational arbitrariness is inevitable. In our upcoming constitution, we can already see this evidence of divorcing rights from an irrefutable foundation (property rights) which can be derived from common sense, as we have shown. We have had people suggesting all kinds of special rights based purely on their feelings of sympathy. Thus we are going to have special rights for the poor people, for example, which government will be obliged to meet by forcefully taking some property from those who are less poor. There are no special rights that anyone can claim. Every human being has certain inalienable rights and these are built on the foundation of the principle of property ownership and not on whim or sympathy. This is why the dichotomy of “individual rights versus societal rights” is a false one based on a similarly false reification of society. And it is why the acceptance of property rights leads logically to the absolute acceptance of capitalism and the absolute rejection of socialism and all its variant or resultant forms that reject the sovereignty of the individual in his own life and over his own property (communism, fascism, etc). Read also: Part 1 | Part 2 | To comment on this article, go to ARTICLES COMMENTS FORUM | Back to Zambia Online |