Libertarians believe that individual liberty is compatible with virtually any moral code. However, politics is the application of morality into a social context. To separate the two is to place liberty on a foundation that cannot support freedom. In a piece titled, “Native Americans Had a Lot More Private Property Than You Think,” Daniella Bassi, an assistant editor at the Mises Institute, provides an illuminating example.
Bassi gives numerous examples of tribes that took actions often associated with property ownership. Many northeastern tribes practiced controlled burning to clear forests of underbrush. Other tribes periodically moved their hunting grounds so that they would not deplete food sources. These tribes, she argues, had a legitimate claim to property rights in the areas that they managed.
Admittedly, rational property owners manage their land carefully to avoid depletion and improve productivity. But those actions are alone not what constitute a claim of property rights. If we are to analyze this issue objectively, then we must consider the full context. In this instance, that includes looking at the nature of native American cultures. The “why” determines the “what.” Why these actions were taken determine what they really mean.
Native American societies were collectivist—the individual was subservient to the tribe. The individual’s interests and desires were subordinate to the dictates of the chief or the elders. Native American cultures did not recognize individual rights, including property rights. Individuals were expected to act on the demands of those leaders, regardless of the individual’s own desires or judgment.
In contrast, individual rights protect the freedom of individuals to act on his own judgment without interference from others. Property rights protect the freedom of individuals to act on their own judgment in the realm of production and trade. There can be no property rights without individual rights.
Property rights are founded on a morality of rational self-interest. Property rights protect the individual’s freedom to pursue his values on his terms, so long as he respects the freedom of others to do the same. This freedom was denied to individuals in native American cultures.
What then, of the actions that many tribes took in regard to resource management? As Bassi argues, these actions are consistent with homesteading, and thus legitimize a property rights claim. On the surface, this claim is true. But we must look below the surface—we must consider the full context.
The actions taken by many tribes was communal management of “the commons.” Though tribes usually claimed exclusivity to a particular area, use of the land where a tribe hunted and gathered was shared by everyone within that tribe. Such arrangements have been used throughout history and are often called common property regimes (CPR), which Wikipedia defines as
a particular social arrangement regulating the preservation, maintenance, and consumption of a common-pool resource.
In a CPR, the individual does not own the resource—indeed, nobody owns the resource—but is allowed to use it according to the demands and dictates of the group. He can’t use the resource as he thinks best, but only as the group permits. Collectively, the group decides the use of a resource.
Bassi’s argument is founded on a superficial view of the actions taken by native American tribes. She sees some similarities between those actions and the actions taken by a property owner, and concludes that native Americans recognized property rights. This argument is plausible only if one drops the context and looks only at isolated facts. That is what Bassi does. And it is what Libertarians do when they claim to support liberty while denying its moral foundation.