WEBVTT NOTE Property Classifications 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.080 Every human being alive in this world depends on property. Human life depends on it. In 2 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:15.360 fact, all forms of life depend on it. You and I can't live unless we are in a position 3 00:00:15.360 --> 00:00:21.860 where we can dominate our environment to some degree and extract from that environment the 4 00:00:21.860 --> 00:00:29.400 substances and the comforts and conveniences that we need in order to stay alive. Property 5 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:37.280 can exist in three conditions. It can be owned, it can be unowned, and it could be in a state 6 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:45.240 of conflict. What is property? I would like to describe it as anything that is subject 7 00:00:45.240 --> 00:00:51.440 to ownership. And I would like to make it clearly understood that property is one thing 8 00:00:51.440 --> 00:00:57.960 and that the ownership of property is something else entirely, and I am going to take up ownership 9 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:04.760 at a later time. First, let's talk about property and the various classes in which property falls. 10 00:01:06.440 --> 00:01:11.880 The first property that we think of, the basic property that we all have, is the property of 11 00:01:11.880 --> 00:01:18.440 the person and all of the attributes of the person. That is, the mental ability, the energy that you 12 00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:24.760 have, your talents and abilities, your time. All of these things relate to your physical being 13 00:01:24.760 --> 00:01:31.960 and this you own. You control yourself, you are responsible for yourself, you own yourself. 14 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:38.760 All additional properties, whatever else you may own, is merely an extension of your person. 15 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:46.840 Now, in considering the extensions of the person, we have first of all property that 16 00:01:46.840 --> 00:01:53.640 we would classify as belonging to the natural order. That is to say, the things that nature 17 00:01:53.640 --> 00:02:01.320 has provided the natural resources, the land, the water, the air, the metals, the minerals, 18 00:02:01.320 --> 00:02:07.080 the growing things such as plants, animals, all of the things that exist in this world, 19 00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:14.520 the world itself, could be viewed as a great big ball of property that can be owned. 20 00:02:14.520 --> 00:02:19.200 Now there are certain requirements, of course, before any part of it could be owned, but 21 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:25.100 But the whole thing is capable of ownership, and hence it is property, whether it is owned 22 00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:27.840 or not at a given time. 23 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:33.480 In addition to the natural order, we have what we would call the man-made order. 24 00:02:33.480 --> 00:02:39.920 The man-made order would consist of buildings, furniture, vehicles, clothing, food, tools, 25 00:02:39.920 --> 00:02:45.160 various comforts and conveniences that human beings have manufactured. 26 00:02:45.160 --> 00:02:50.580 We have, of course, in all these cases, gone to nature first. We have reached out into 27 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:56.840 the world about us and picked up properties that exist in nature, and then we have converted 28 00:02:56.840 --> 00:03:04.840 them to our very special requirements, and these too are a kind of property. This includes 29 00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:10.740 all of the various improvements that we might make to land, for example. In fact, as we 30 00:03:10.740 --> 00:03:16.300 When we consider property, we usually don't classify it in terms of the natural order 31 00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:23.300 and the man-made order. Rather, we classify it in terms of real property or personal property. 32 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:29.540 Now, real property would be the land and all the appurtenances to land, whether natural 33 00:03:29.540 --> 00:03:38.140 or man-made. Thus, real estate, so-called, would include land, which nature has provided, 34 00:03:38.140 --> 00:03:43.260 and Buildings, which men have provided, and all of the things in between, such as walks 35 00:03:43.260 --> 00:03:49.540 and driveways and wells and mines and growing crops, things that we have cultivated and 36 00:03:49.540 --> 00:03:55.860 put in ourselves, all of these that are attached to the land, that are immovable and become 37 00:03:55.860 --> 00:04:00.460 a part of the land, even though we may have provided them ourselves, we think of those 38 00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:05.380 as real property or real estate. 39 00:04:05.380 --> 00:04:11.820 Other properties that are movable we call personality or personal property, and this 40 00:04:11.820 --> 00:04:18.180 of course would include anything that is movable that is not fastened to the real estate one 41 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:23.800 way or another such as of course furniture, clothing, vehicles of various sorts, and the 42 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:32.000 other things that we use in everyday living including food and soft goods such as clothing. 43 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:38.560 We have various ways of classifying property, but in the end, however we classify it, the 44 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:46.640 same general conditions pertain, that is to say, we as human beings depend on it. 45 00:04:46.640 --> 00:04:52.640 We have to be able to dominate it and control it for our own consumption, or we cannot stay 46 00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:54.640 alive. 47 00:04:54.640 --> 00:05:00.540 Now there are certain special classifications of property that are very interesting. 48 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:05.720 For instance we have the ownership of intangibles. 49 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:11.740 Now that provides a very difficult kind of ownership but it can be attained. 50 00:05:11.740 --> 00:05:18.960 It is of course any time that you own anything the ownership is dependent upon the nature 51 00:05:18.960 --> 00:05:22.200 of what it is that you're trying to own. 52 00:05:22.200 --> 00:05:26.420 You cannot contravene the nature of the thing itself. 53 00:05:26.420 --> 00:05:32.840 For example, if you own an animal, even though you have ownership of it, you would probably 54 00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:38.280 have to also have a cage, especially if it's a wild animal, you'd have to have a place 55 00:05:38.280 --> 00:05:44.080 to contain it because if you didn't, you couldn't control it. 56 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:49.020 It would get away from you and it wouldn't do you any good to own, say, one of the lions 57 00:05:49.020 --> 00:05:54.900 in Africa at the present time unless you had some way of having access to that particular 58 00:05:54.900 --> 00:05:59.780 and some means of controlling that lion in your own favor. 59 00:05:59.780 --> 00:06:04.100 So that is another element we'll get to later. 60 00:06:04.100 --> 00:06:10.660 I merely mention that in the control or in the ownership of intangibles we have such 61 00:06:10.660 --> 00:06:13.740 things as air, for instance. 62 00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:20.260 Now air is a tangible thing in one sense, but it's sort of intangible when we think 63 00:06:20.260 --> 00:06:21.780 in terms of ownership. 64 00:06:21.780 --> 00:06:28.020 Actually, in order to own air, what we do is we package it in containers. They're usually 65 00:06:28.020 --> 00:06:35.400 called tanks. It's a particular type of container. And when we put the air in a tank, we can 66 00:06:35.400 --> 00:06:40.920 work with it as a property. Now if we don't have the air in the container, it's pretty 67 00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:45.420 hard to think of it as a property because it's just available for anybody. Now the same 68 00:06:45.420 --> 00:06:53.260 One thing would relate to other types of intangibles, such as odors or sounds. We usually call odors 69 00:06:53.260 --> 00:06:59.740 perfume and we call sounds music. These are things that can be owned. But there are special 70 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:05.600 characteristics here that would have to be applied if they are to be owned. You can even 71 00:07:05.600 --> 00:07:10.720 own an idea. Again, it's very hard to but it could be done. And there are such things 72 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:28.400 Another very special classification of property is the property of a contract or an agreement. 73 00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:33.600 Naturally, the characteristic here is that a contract or agreement is never owned by 74 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:35.080 one person. 75 00:07:35.080 --> 00:07:39.360 There must always be two or more, because that's the nature of the property. 76 00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:45.800 And an interesting thing to keep in mind here is that you never own the contracting party. 77 00:07:45.800 --> 00:07:50.160 You have a property in the contract itself, but that's all. 78 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:55.880 This is a point, incidentally, that needs some elaboration, I suppose. 79 00:07:55.880 --> 00:08:03.320 Many husbands, for example, look at their wives as though they own the wife. 80 00:08:03.320 --> 00:08:06.460 In fact, our language sort of lends to this assumption. 81 00:08:06.460 --> 00:08:09.780 We speak of my wife or my husband. 82 00:08:09.780 --> 00:08:14.240 And may I say that the wives are just as good at making this error as the husbands are. 83 00:08:14.240 --> 00:08:20.460 We look at the opposing spouse and we say, well, that's mine, as though it was a property. 84 00:08:20.460 --> 00:08:26.820 Actually, the property is in the agreement or the contract that exists between them. 85 00:08:26.820 --> 00:08:31.780 And although this may come as a shock to some, may I assure you that you do not own your 86 00:08:31.780 --> 00:08:32.940 spouse. 87 00:08:32.940 --> 00:08:38.460 You have a property in the contract or the relationship that exists between you, but 88 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:41.540 you do not have a property in the opposing party. 89 00:08:41.540 --> 00:08:47.820 I could point out that this is also a problem that often appears in employment situations 90 00:08:47.820 --> 00:08:54.420 where sometimes employers act as if they owned their employees. 91 00:08:54.420 --> 00:08:55.740 They don't. 92 00:08:55.740 --> 00:09:04.220 The only property involved is an employment agreement in which the two parties involved 93 00:09:04.220 --> 00:09:12.980 have contracted mutually, one to exchange money or some other recompense for so much 94 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:19.100 time and energy and service or brain power, whatever it is, and the property is in an 95 00:09:19.100 --> 00:09:26.060 An expectation of this exchange occurring, and it is not, in the person of the opposing 96 00:09:26.060 --> 00:09:27.060 party. 97 00:09:27.060 --> 00:09:28.260 The same thing works in reverse. 98 00:09:28.260 --> 00:09:33.460 Many employees think that they own their jobs, or maybe that they own their employers. 99 00:09:33.460 --> 00:09:35.900 Actually, they do not. 100 00:09:35.900 --> 00:09:40.780 All that they have is the property interest in the contract or the agreement that has 101 00:09:40.780 --> 00:09:42.180 brought them together. 102 00:09:42.180 --> 00:09:48.780 This could even be extended to the family situation where we have children. 103 00:09:48.780 --> 00:09:52.940 Many times parents act and think that they own their children. 104 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:53.940 They do not. 105 00:09:53.940 --> 00:09:56.100 The children own themselves. 106 00:09:56.100 --> 00:09:59.140 Even from tiny tots, they own themselves. 107 00:09:59.140 --> 00:10:04.220 And all that we have here is a relationship that is a property, but you don't own the 108 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:05.460 other party. 109 00:10:05.460 --> 00:10:10.040 And I think it's probably true that many children, notably young people growing up, sometimes 110 00:10:10.040 --> 00:10:14.740 Sometimes think that they have ownership of at least a part of dad's income, or maybe 111 00:10:14.740 --> 00:10:21.440 they think that they own their parents. Actually, they don't. Again, the property exists at 112 00:10:21.440 --> 00:10:26.400 the level of the contract or the level of the agreement or the relationship, and it 113 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:31.920 is not the ownership of the other party as such. So that's a very special thing to keep 114 00:10:31.920 --> 00:10:39.560 in mind when we are thinking and talking in terms of property and who can own it. 115 00:10:39.560 --> 00:10:42.760 By the way, who can own property? 116 00:10:42.760 --> 00:10:48.000 Well, any human being we view as a property owner. 117 00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:55.160 In fact, we would state that thinking in terms of rights, the basic right that we have is 118 00:10:55.160 --> 00:10:59.480 the right of each person to be a property owner. 119 00:10:59.480 --> 00:11:05.320 Often we've had a kind of an argument between the people who say, well, the trouble is that 120 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:11.080 A lot of people go around talking all the time about property rights, but they never consider 121 00:11:11.080 --> 00:11:17.240 human rights. Actually, the only right that exists is the human right. Property has no 122 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:24.300 rights at all. It's human beings that have rights, but every human right is a right to 123 00:11:24.300 --> 00:11:31.120 a property. And that's really what we're talking about there. So anyone who has a right 124 00:11:31.120 --> 00:11:37.000 has a right to own property and this would be any human being in the world. Beginning 125 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:42.860 with the tiniest infant at birth, he can own property. He definitely can, although maybe 126 00:11:42.860 --> 00:11:48.000 he doesn't understand the concept. It is entirely possible. In fact, I have known of cases where 127 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.800 infants at birth inherited large fortunes. They are the owners of the property. Clearly 128 00:11:53.800 --> 00:11:58.880 they don't know how to manage it or even that they have the property and yet they are 129 00:11:58.880 --> 00:12:03.960 are the owners, and they're very real owners, not just in a legal sense, but in a moral 130 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:10.680 sense, they are the owners of the property. Any human being can own property. Therefore, 131 00:12:10.680 --> 00:12:17.200 it follows that on the basis that we're setting this up, no human being could rightfully own 132 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:22.880 another human being. You can contract with another human being, but you don't own the 133 00:12:22.880 --> 00:12:28.680 other member of the same species. In this connection, it might be a good thing to point 134 00:12:28.680 --> 00:12:36.640 find out that property is so necessary that even other species undoubtedly make use of 135 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:43.280 it and have, possibly instinctively, a manner of dealing with property. 136 00:12:43.280 --> 00:12:48.520 It's very interesting, but recently studies have been done in this area, and I'm particularly 137 00:12:48.520 --> 00:12:55.480 impressed with a work by Robert Ardrey entitled African Genesis, and then a subsequent work 138 00:12:55.480 --> 00:13:02.780 of Money, the Territorial Imperative, in which he takes up the property behavior of various 139 00:13:02.780 --> 00:13:11.900 types of animals, birds, fish, and even insects. And here he establishes that all living entities 140 00:13:11.900 --> 00:13:19.780 do have a kind of territory over which they exert dominion, and this is essential for 141 00:13:19.780 --> 00:13:30.580 As a matter of fact, in this connection, always the property concept seems to inhere within 142 00:13:30.580 --> 00:13:39.400 a given species. For example, I have a dog. In my judgment, the dog is my dog. I'll let 143 00:13:39.400 --> 00:13:44.880 you in on a secret. I don't think my dog agrees with me. I think my dog thinks he 144 00:13:44.880 --> 00:13:49.360 I think he thinks I'm his property. 145 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:51.760 Have you ever watched a dog's behavior? 146 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:58.520 Right around the eye there is a little gland that secretes something that has a very sharp 147 00:13:58.520 --> 00:13:59.960 odor to another dog. 148 00:13:59.960 --> 00:14:04.980 You and I don't detect it with our noses, but the dogs do. 149 00:14:04.980 --> 00:14:10.360 And when a dog wants to demonstrate that he owns someone, he marks him. 150 00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:14.040 Have you ever had a dog come up and rub his eyes on you? 151 00:14:14.040 --> 00:14:19.560 So that he sort of marks your trousers or your stockings or maybe your furniture or 152 00:14:19.560 --> 00:14:22.320 something with his face? 153 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:23.320 That's what he's doing. 154 00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:25.520 He's putting a scent mark on you. 155 00:14:25.520 --> 00:14:28.440 He does it sometimes to infuriate another dog. 156 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:34.600 For instance, if I, who have a dog, and I'm sure my dog has marked me, but my dog marks 157 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:40.760 me all the time because I've got a little boxer and she comes up and just tells me every 158 00:14:40.760 --> 00:14:42.260 day that she owns me. 159 00:14:42.260 --> 00:14:47.620 She demonstrates this and she looks to me for her subsistence, of course, but in process 160 00:14:47.620 --> 00:14:53.940 I'm hers. If I call on a friend who happens to have another dog, then this dog marks me 161 00:14:53.940 --> 00:15:01.000 too so that when I return and my dog gets to sniff of my trousers, well, my dog just 162 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:06.260 bristles because clearly there's been a property violation. Another dog has put in a conflicting 163 00:15:06.260 --> 00:15:10.500 claim on me and my dog doesn't like that. He resents it very much. 164 00:15:10.500 --> 00:15:17.960 And curiously, you know, just how this works out, I don't know, just how rational animals 165 00:15:17.960 --> 00:15:22.880 may be and how they figure these things, I'm not able to determine. 166 00:15:22.880 --> 00:15:29.340 But perhaps you've noticed this, Audrey comments on it, and I myself have seen it. 167 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:34.780 I used to have a poodle, a cute little fellow, and actually I'm sure it was the butt of all 168 00:15:34.780 --> 00:15:37.260 the jokes of the other dogs in the neighborhood. 169 00:15:37.260 --> 00:15:41.400 I'm sure they used to talk about my poodle and joke about it because it was completely 170 00:15:41.400 --> 00:15:43.740 incapable of defending itself. 171 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:50.680 And my poodle would trot out sometimes away from my yard and then confront a larger dog. 172 00:15:50.680 --> 00:15:55.520 And immediately this other dog would just chase my poodle and it would come tearing 173 00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:59.040 back just to get on my own property again. 174 00:15:59.040 --> 00:16:04.500 And the minute it crossed the line, the boundary line of my property, a curious change would 175 00:16:04.500 --> 00:16:05.540 come over it. 176 00:16:05.540 --> 00:16:10.800 It would turn around, now filled with courage and bristling with indignation, and confront 177 00:16:10.800 --> 00:16:18.540 this larger dog who at this point seemed to sense that my poodle, in crossing the boundary, 178 00:16:18.540 --> 00:16:21.900 had now gotten into a superior moral position. 179 00:16:21.900 --> 00:16:27.700 And so the bigger dog would just pretend indifference, probably never saw my poodle before, and would 180 00:16:27.700 --> 00:16:32.920 trot off and take care of its business, and my poodle would be just as brave as one could 181 00:16:32.920 --> 00:16:33.920 imagine. 182 00:16:33.920 --> 00:16:41.320 And this occurred simply through passing a boundary, through crossing an invisible barrier, 183 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:45.520 apparently my poodle gained some kind of superiority. 184 00:16:45.520 --> 00:16:52.320 Now the interesting thing is, Ardrey mentions this, various animals seem to have this idea 185 00:16:52.320 --> 00:16:57.840 or this way of behavior, and you know we human beings do too. 186 00:16:57.840 --> 00:17:04.620 This has been even commented upon by men who work with wild animals such as lions and tigers 187 00:17:04.620 --> 00:17:12.320 and so on. They will say that if you go into a cage with a lion, you can behave pretty 188 00:17:12.320 --> 00:17:18.500 much as you wish. The lion will watch you, but he will not feel that you are a danger 189 00:17:18.500 --> 00:17:24.800 to him until you get within a certain radius of him. Now just where that is I don't know 190 00:17:54.800 --> 00:18:02.720 to property wherein we respect one another willy-nilly because we have to, you see. 191 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:09.640 Now, an interesting thing, and again I'm referring to Ardrey, whom I think is very 192 00:18:09.640 --> 00:18:10.960 interesting here. 193 00:18:10.960 --> 00:18:21.240 He tells of the behavior, say, of such things as crabs operating underwater who will possibly 194 00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:25.900 DIG A LITTLE HOLE THAT WILL BECOME THEIR HOME AND THEN OTHER CRABS IN THE VISCINITY WILL 195 00:18:25.900 --> 00:18:28.380 HAVE OTHER HOLES NEARBY. 196 00:18:28.380 --> 00:18:33.880 AND THESE TWO CRABS IN OPPOSING HOLES WILL THEN EXPERIMENT. 197 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:38.560 THEY WILL SORT OF TRESPACE ON EACH OTHER'S PROPERTY BUT THEN THEY'LL DRIVE EACH OTHER 198 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:43.760 BACK AND THEN THEY'LL DRIVE EACH OTHER FORTH AGAIN AND THEY GO BACK AND FORTH UNTIL THEY 199 00:18:43.760 --> 00:18:50.800 HAVE FIGURED OUT THE PRECISE HALFWAY MARK BETWEEN THEIR RESPECTIVE DWELLINGS. 200 00:18:50.800 --> 00:18:54.880 And then that becomes the boundary, although they don't make any marks on it. 201 00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:56.960 They know where that is. 202 00:18:56.960 --> 00:19:01.520 And then they seem to respect the boundary of the other party and they know, well, if 203 00:19:01.520 --> 00:19:04.060 they go over there, they're in the wrong. 204 00:19:04.060 --> 00:19:08.480 But as long as they stay on their own side of the line, everything is all right. 205 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.160 Now that seems to be a practice with human beings. 206 00:19:11.160 --> 00:19:18.520 It seems to be a practice with so many living species that it is surely more than coincidental. 207 00:19:18.520 --> 00:19:27.400 Actually, what it means is that life depends on property. It means that if we are to survive, 208 00:19:27.400 --> 00:19:35.360 you and I have to be unmolested as consumers, because otherwise we can't make it. Our life 209 00:19:35.360 --> 00:19:43.020 depends upon our ability to consume. Man is this peculiar creature who not only consumes 210 00:19:43.020 --> 00:19:50.380 but produces and so we have to be very conscious and very aware of what all of this property 211 00:19:50.380 --> 00:19:56.300 business means and the very important factor of property boundaries. 212 00:19:56.300 --> 00:20:02.180 Now turning back to the idea of rights again, I've mentioned that the only right that exists 213 00:20:02.180 --> 00:20:09.220 is a human right and every human right is a right to a property of some sort. 214 00:20:09.220 --> 00:20:11.140 That's all that rights are. 215 00:20:11.140 --> 00:20:18.140 Now in the old days, when the idea of rights were first being talked about, the concept 216 00:20:18.140 --> 00:20:22.500 was that one, that is, that the owner has the rights. 217 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:29.660 But in these days, it was thought that the only one that had any rights was the king. 218 00:20:29.660 --> 00:20:36.420 Because you see, the concept was that God owned everything, and the king was the special 219 00:20:36.420 --> 00:21:06.420 Do you remember the old saying that was common in the Middle Ages and in the 220 00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:12.060 In the Dark Ages, the king can do no wrong. Of course the king could do no wrong. How 221 00:21:12.060 --> 00:21:18.180 could he do wrong? He owned everything. You can't do wrong with something you own, and 222 00:21:18.180 --> 00:21:24.740 the king, it was conceived, owned the realm and everything and everybody in it. So how 223 00:21:24.740 --> 00:21:31.200 could he be wrong? He couldn't be any more wrong than I would be if I had a sandwich 224 00:21:31.200 --> 00:21:44.200 It's my sandwich, and I can destroy it if I like. And if the king owns the realm, then he can do what he pleases with it, and he can do what he pleases with all of the people in it, because they're his too. 225 00:21:44.200 --> 00:22:12.200 In fact, in those days, when the king wanted to please someone, and wanted to honor him some way, he would make him a baron, or a lordling of some sort, and then he would grant to this baron, or lordling, some kind of property, which the baron would hold in what was called fee simple, or it became called as fee simple. 226 00:22:12.200 --> 00:22:18.720 In the early days it was called fealty, and that's where the term fee simple comes from. 227 00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:27.320 The baron would hold the land as though he were an owner, providing he gave total fealty 228 00:22:27.320 --> 00:22:28.840 to the king. 229 00:22:28.840 --> 00:22:35.880 That is to say, he had to be willing to kneel before the king and place his head in a position 230 00:22:35.880 --> 00:22:40.040 of subservience before the king, so that if the king wanted to, the king could cut the 231 00:22:40.040 --> 00:22:41.240 head off. 232 00:22:41.240 --> 00:22:43.240 And that meant total fealty. 233 00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:49.600 This is where the idea of divine rights came from, the idea that the king owned the whole 234 00:22:49.600 --> 00:22:55.320 shebang and he got that ability to own from the Lord himself. 235 00:22:55.320 --> 00:23:01.360 Now, when we got started with this country, we came up with a fascinating idea. 236 00:23:01.360 --> 00:23:09.120 That was that kings weren't a particularly bright or special group of people at all. 237 00:23:09.120 --> 00:23:16.000 They were just ordinary guys, and as a matter of fact, a lot of them were sort of sub-normal. 238 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:19.560 They weren't any better than others, they often were worse. 239 00:23:19.560 --> 00:23:23.320 And therefore, how in the world could they have any special rights? 240 00:23:23.320 --> 00:23:28.520 We came up with the idea that if it is possible for one man to have rights, that is, to be 241 00:23:28.520 --> 00:23:35.160 able to act without asking permission of anyone, that that same prerogative should belong to 242 00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:36.160 everybody. 243 00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:42.720 And therefore we came up with the idea that if it is possible for one man to have a right, 244 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:47.440 then it is equally possible for all men to have rights, and that means that every man 245 00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:49.400 can be an owner. 246 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:55.240 And so that was the idea that we had, that all men are owners and there is no such thing 247 00:23:55.240 --> 00:23:57.760 as divine rights. 248 00:23:57.760 --> 00:24:03.700 Now an interesting thing, we took that concept at the beginning of this country. 249 00:24:03.700 --> 00:24:09.300 We had the idea of equal rights and yet in a very strange way we kept on with the old 250 00:24:09.300 --> 00:24:16.460 idea of the divine right of kings. We call it today eminent domain. It's a very interesting 251 00:24:16.460 --> 00:24:24.780 carryover from monarchial times. You see, eminent domain means the domain of his eminence 252 00:24:24.780 --> 00:24:32.000 or the domain of the eminent authority and what it means is that the king or whoever 253 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:40.000 is acting for him, can repossess any property for the good of the realm. 254 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:45.480 And so you'll find that same practice, which is a medieval practice, being exercised in 255 00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:51.560 this country today in violation of property rights, as we see them on the other hand. 256 00:24:51.560 --> 00:24:58.640 In other words, we say in this country that we have private property, but not if the government 257 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.200 wants the property. 258 00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:04.860 If the government wants the property, then it exercises eminent domain and it can take 259 00:25:04.860 --> 00:25:11.060 your property away from you on the theory that dates way back, you see, into medieval 260 00:25:11.060 --> 00:25:16.200 times that if the king really wants it, it really is his. 261 00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:21.060 Of course he has to pay for it, but he pays at a fee that he decides. 262 00:25:21.060 --> 00:25:27.500 And so we still carry that out today even though we profess to believe in private ownership 263 00:25:27.500 --> 00:25:32.940 of Property and in the idea that your property is really sacred and nobody can take it from 264 00:25:33.940 --> 00:25:36.140 Actually, we do both in this country. 265 00:25:36.140 --> 00:25:41.260 We have a concept of private property and the sanctity of property and property ownership, 266 00:25:41.260 --> 00:25:45.980 but then on the other hand we violate it and of course the state or the government is the 267 00:25:45.980 --> 00:25:49.620 primary agent of the violation. 268 00:25:49.620 --> 00:25:54.740 Now I want to get a little closer to the idea of ownership of property. 269 00:25:54.740 --> 00:26:00.700 I asked the question, who can own property, and specified that any human being can own 270 00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:07.620 property. But there are various ways in which property can be owned. Property can be owned 271 00:26:07.620 --> 00:26:16.940 by individuals. Property can be owned jointly. Property can be owned corporately. And property 272 00:26:16.940 --> 00:26:24.880 Property can be owned collectively. Now these are four different ways of owning property. 273 00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:33.000 When we have individual ownership, the conditions that pertain are simply these. An individual 274 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:40.320 will first of all value a property. He sees something that he values. I'm going to take 275 00:26:40.320 --> 00:26:45.900 up the question of value and just what that means at a later time. Let me simply stay 276 00:26:45.900 --> 00:26:53.860 Say now that he expresses a desire for value, for the property, he values it. 277 00:26:53.860 --> 00:27:00.160 The next thing that he does, having valued it, he ascribes its boundary, that is he learns 278 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:03.580 what the limitations of that property are. 279 00:27:03.580 --> 00:27:06.940 And all property is limited, beginning with the person. 280 00:27:06.940 --> 00:27:10.600 You own yourself and you are limited. 281 00:27:10.600 --> 00:27:13.800 You have a boundary that is comprised of your person. 282 00:27:13.800 --> 00:27:20.300 And so all extensions of your person are limited. So if you want to be an owner of something, 283 00:27:20.300 --> 00:27:25.980 you have to know what it is, how big it is. You have to precisely identify it. And so 284 00:27:25.980 --> 00:27:32.980 the question of boundary becomes uppermost. You value it, and then you ascribe the boundary. 285 00:27:32.980 --> 00:27:39.980 And then finally, once you have done this, then you take control of the property. There 286 00:27:39.980 --> 00:27:46.180 There are two ways of taking control of property, and I'm going to talk about that later on. 287 00:27:46.180 --> 00:27:52.420 This area of property and its importance can hardly be overemphasized. It's a very important 288 00:27:52.420 --> 00:27:58.140 area and we're going to have to spend a little time studying it because of its importance. 289 00:27:58.140 --> 00:27:58.940 Thanks very much.