In late November, a federal judge in Fort Worth ruled that a Wichita Falls anesthesiologist and fossil enthusiast could keep the Tyrannosaurus bataar skull in his possession. The federal government had brought the lawsuit in an effort to return the skull to Mongolia, which claims ownership of the fossil.
Admittedly, this is a very esoteric topic and it might seem irrelevant to most Texans. But the issue goes to the heart of what property means, and thus, it can shed light on a topic that should be important to all individuals.
Mongolia claims ownership of the fossils. To claim ownership is to claim that something is one’s property, that one has the freedom to use, keep, trade, and dispose of that thing. In other words, the Mongolian government is claiming that the fossils are its property.
The basis of this claim is that the fossils were found within Mongolia’s geographic boundaries. According to a theory of property that dominates the world, anything found within a nation’s boundaries that isn’t private property is ipso facto the property of the government. This is the rationale behind nations around the world claiming ownership of the oil under the ground within its boundaries. It is the rationale behind the federal government claiming ownership of most of the land in western states. But this view is flawed because it ignores the nature and source of property.
Property is a value (something that one seeks to gain or keep) that is owned, and ownership means the freedom to control what happens to that value. But values do not exist without human action. Wild berries, game, oil, minerals, or anything else that nature provides are not values until someone takes action to transform them into values. Picking the berries, catching the game, or mining the minerals turns those resources into values–something that will sustain or enhance human life. And in the process of transforming those resources into values, an individual creates property.
But if no transformation has occurred, then no property exists. In this context, a government transforms nothing by planting stakes and declaring its dominion over that area. It has not transformed nothing into a human value. It has created no property. It has no legitimate claim of ownership.
In contrast, those who discover and make use of a resource do transform that resource into a value. This is true whether that resource is oil, gold, dinosaur fossils, or anything else. And those who transform a resource into a human value are the rightful owner of the property that they created.
A great amount of human suffering and turmoil would be eliminated with a proper view of the source and nature of property. The debate over dinosaur fossils is only one example.