5 - An Essay on the Right of Property in Land, William Ogilvie, 1782

Summary

Ogilvie builds his argument on two foundations: natural right and utility. The argument from natural right owes its conceptual framework to natural jurisprudence, and Ogilvie was no doubt familiar with classic seventeenth-century treatments of property within that tradition, such as those of Pufendorf and Locke. Ogilvie's treatment, however, is more radical and egalitarian than theirs. Property right can be derived either from occupancy or labour. The right of occupancy is a right to a share of the earth equal to that enjoyed by all other ‘occupants’, that is to say, individuals, members of the human race (subsequently, Ogilvie slips into interpreting ‘individuals’ as male heads of households) (93n). This right is a recipient right – a right to receive what is necessary for the maintenance of life. A right to receive subsistence is also asserted by Locke in the opening sentence of his Chapter 5 on property, but Locke does not infer from it a right to receive an allotment of land. Both Locke and Ogilvie begin by stating that the earth was originally given to all humankind (Locke says by God, Ogilvie does not mention the donor). But whereas Locke interprets this to mean an original situation with no individual holdings, from which private holdings were subsequently carved by labour, Ogilvie supposes an original or natural situation of equal, privately cultivated, privately enjoyed shares (7).