Inherently, property rights are a natural right--this is my food that I hunted, this is my chair that I made. Taking those from me is morally wrong; it is a natural right for me to possess things that I crafted/accomplished with my own hands, alone.
But beyond that it gets gray: land property is not a natural right unless maybe it manages to fit into the above category; that is, if I have farmed that land, or cleared the forest for my animals. My owning a house that some construction company built is a social convention. And once I start adding transactions into the mix, it is also no longer a natural right: if I hunt extra food, and exchange it with the guy who built an extra chair, that gets outside the realm of natural rights and into the realm of social convention. I don't have the natural right to trade my items with others, whether the balance of the exchange be favorable to one, both, or neither of us--I only have the natural right to take care of myself without interference.
|