On property rights

Matthew Yglesias asks why conservatives and liberals sometimes come down in unpredictable ways on the issue of property rights. For example, conservatives want to treat the atmosphere as a commons into which anyone with a factory can spew carbon emissions while liberals want to assign property rights; on the other hand, liberals want to treat the spectrum as a commons while conservatives want to assign property rights.

To borrow an idea from Robin Hanson, I think it’s useful to think about political conflict in terms of valorized figures. On the right, you see a lot of valorization of businessmen. On the left, you see a lot of valorization of pushy activists who want to do something businessmen don’t like. Formally, the right is committed to ideas about free markets and the left is committed to ideas about economic equality. But in practice, political conflict much more commonly breaks down around “some stuff some businessmen want to do” vs “some stuff businessmen hate” rather than anything about markets or property rights per se. Consequently, on the left people sometimes fall into the trap of being patsies for rent-seeking mom & pop operators when poor people would benefit more from competition from a corporate behemoth.

I think it's simpler than that. Conservatives approve of property rights when people who look like them currently have the property rights. They approve of the commons when people who look like them currently enjoy the benefits of the absence of property rights. Liberals? We're crazy enough to think first of the public good.