Why must private property rights be publicly provided?
I have been thinking about this question for a while now. Most political economic theory takes it for granted that property rights have to be created and enforced by a government, and I certainly agree, but I have not heard a clear and concrete theory for why private action will not create a system of property rights. It seems intuitively obvious, but it is difficult to come up with a clear explanation. What is the market failure?
Does anyone have an explanation? Has someone explained this before?
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July 26, 2007 at 12:23 am
cdfox
The private provision of property rights makes no sense — those who would like to buy the rights would have nothing with which to pay the “rights providers” (police, courts, etc.). Of course, as a practical matter, some de facto property rights exist because of fear of retaliation and just the time and effort spent physically taking things from other people, though history shows that these rights are hardly strong enough. It seems that coercion is a fundamental part of human existence, and markets arise for the most part (certainly the more complex forms) only when a particular sort of monopoly coercer, a government, decides to enforce property rights. The more extensive sort of property rights that governments grant are a good, but their private provision would need to depend on the naturally occurring, weaker rights, and I’m not sure that could work.
August 1, 2007 at 9:07 pm
What type of good are private property rights? « Good Morning, Economics
[...] August 1st, 2007 in economics by jsalvati A little while ago, I asked why private property rights have to be publicly provided. The question centers around what type of good private property rights are. I think I have an [...]