Suspended in The Air

 Today I am traveling.  Left the house at 5:00 a.m. to catch a 7:30 flight to Kalamazoo (I love saying that name) via Detroit.  I like to travel.  And by that I don't just mean arriving at a destination; I like the act of traveling.  Something about the journey suspends my sense of time and place.  I feel as I imagine a quantum probability wave would feel (if it could feel-talk about anthropomorphizing!) before it collapses.  Anything is possible.  Maybe it is the isolation of being out of touch with the usual sources of information (telephone, mass media, email, internet), but I suspect not.  I have had the same feeling when I fly with access to the internet and email.  Whatever the reason I really enjoy the sense of unlimited possibilities that unfortunately evaporates once I have arrived-even when it is a nice place like Kalamazoo.

Anarchy

Today I read an opinion piece by Sally Kohn writing in the Washington Post .  A little class warfare.  Ms. Kohn's vision of class warfare includes imagining

millions of Americans withholding mortgage payments to banks that refuse to adjust underwater loans. Imagine divestment campaigns to pressure public pension funds and universities to pull their money from the private sector and put it into government bonds. Imagine students staging sit-ins to protest teacher layoffs. Imagine families who have lost their homes squatting in vacant, bank-owned properties.  

Well.  Class warfare it appears involves the ability of an individual to determine that his need is greater than someone else's and act unilatterally to satisfy that need.  But, Ms. Kohn does not go far enough.  On what principled basis can Ms. Kohn separate the ownership rights of banks from the ownership rights of an individual?  Or, say, from a family that owns a couple of rental homes in a limited liability company?   On what basis would an individual who has lost his home be prohibited from squatting in a neighbor's home?  Ms. Kohn's imagination is much too limited then. 

  Imagine you and your family leaving your home on vacation and returning to find a group of squatters who had decided that they needed your home more than you did.  What is the difference?  Ms. Kohn has already decided that the principle of private ownership supported by state force based on the rule of law has no meaning.  (The reason she has to imagine millions of Americans squatting in bank owned properties is to flood the system and prevent by shear numbers the banks from employing state force to vindicate their property rights.)  On what principle is an individual's ownership interest different from a corporation's?    Moreover, the abolition of private ownership supported by use of state force based on the rule of law would certainly not abolish the practice of possessing property to the exclusion of all others, it would merely change the mechanism for enforcing the practice.  Can it seriously be doubted that a squatter in another's home (bank or indvidually owned) would resist being removed?

    I am reminded of an article I read recently (can't now find the link) about squatters in England.  The author had visited a home in which squatters lived and when he attempted to explore some of the rooms was told that he was not allowed to enter.  The irony was lost on the squatters.  If you returned to a home occupied by armed inhabitants exactly how would you go about removing them?

   Is the change from enforcement of property rights (because make no mistake that perfectly describes the squatters' resistance to being removed) from state force based on law clearly announced and thoroughly delineated to individual force based only on the possession of superior force really an improvement?

  Let's imagine further.  As long as we are imagining Americans refusing to make mortgage payments because banks won't forgive a debt, imagine banks refusing to pay millions of Americans' deposit liabilities not because they don't have the money, but simply because depositors won't negotiate a reduction in what they claim to be owed.  Imagine employers refusing to pay wages or online stores to send purchased goods. Imagine any private contractual obligation worthless because no legal consequence flows from refusing to perform.  You cannot have access to the courts in Ms. Kohn's imagined universe because state enforcement of property rights based on the rule of law has been eliminated. In that case, how does one live? 

   Perhaps Ms. Kohn has something more sophisticated in mind rather than the complete anarchy her proposal requires.  Perhaps she would propose that individual ownership or obligations are sacrosanct, but entity ownership or obligations are not.  Perhaps her system only is implemented if certain wealth or income disparities are demonstrated.  We don't know because she does not tell us.  But it's unfair you say to require Ms. Kohn to propose a completely different ordering of society in an Op Ed piece.  Not at all.  Ms. Kohn proposes to tear down our society in a paragraph.  She must at least give us a reason for thinking that the logical consequences of the actions she proposes are better than the present system.  But, that is asking too much of her.  Ms. Kohn's is an emotional argument; it is not based on any rational system.  Ultimately, it is an appeal to people's greed.  If you lack something you want take it from someone else.  Greed satisfied by force.  That sounds like the kind of society I want to live in.