Traditional arguments for private property are often based on the same principles (or lack thereof) as traditional arguments against private property. --'From each traditional theory of property as it makes believe; to each traditional theory of property as its make is believed in'.-- Given the principles, a difference in conclusions must be due to the empirical (also past-regarding) presuppositions the theorist selects, to inconsistences and/or to the ambiguity of the terms used. Expressions such as liberty and desert may also have the same emotive meaning or positive connotation for those using this language, they do not have any, or hardly any, descriptive meaning or denotation commonly accepted by the same people. Thus strictly speaking, it is the formulation of the principles which is the same, not so much their interpretations. Because of the actual discrepancies, reasons of liberty, desert, virtue, labor and utility may lead in practise to contradictory propositions on the value or disvalue of the institution of private property, or of property in general.

Perhaps the oldest argument for private property is the argument from first occupancy. It appeals to the right of the original discoverer and occupant to the exclusive use of what 'e discovered and occupies. Now, there is nothing self-evident in this findings is keepings dogma, but it has been argued that the idea that a discoverer or first occupant should be protected can be justified by a more general principle that possession as such should be protected. Yet, the argument would then be security of possession, something that is of secondary import for an occupation theory.

Whether the justification of first occupancy is ultimate, or whether it is a question of security, there is always a number of conditions which must be satisfied, such as the obvious condition that the thing occupied must belong to no-one (else). Vaguer is the condition that occupation would have to be actual. Some say that this is determined by the person's purpose in occupying the thing and 'er carrying out of this purpose at the time of occupation. (Note that such a condition is purely doctrinal and could only justify an intrinsic property right, that is, a property right intrinsic to a first-order doctrine.) Truly controversial may be the condition that the occupation must not extend beyond a person's share, when it is questioned what would be a person's share.

The classical 'simile of the theater' illustrates very well what kind of reasoning is definitely fallacious in this respect. According to this simile the world belongs to no-one (the theater is common for anyone who comes) but it is open for the first taking of anyone (the place someone sits in belongs to 'im from then on). When the theater fills to capacity, those who are left outside have no right to a seat. It was already objected to this long ago that the world (the theater) belongs to everyone and that those already in it have the duty to move over and make room. Such an objection immediately shows three fatal deficiencies of this theatrical representation of the world: (1) in a theater the size of a human, or other animal, body is significant and the size of the subdivision of the space of the theater (the seats) was determined by the size of that body; in the world at large the size of individual bodies is insignificant, and the issue of private property does not really concern the one square meter or so somebody needs to stand, sit or lie on; (2) if people could be left out of the theater, then the representation fails because all living people are already in the world and cannot be left out of it; and (3) in the theater birth and death are an exception (other than on the stage, maybe): so far as the public is concerned, it is supposed to take place outside the theater, but in the real world birth and death occur in it -- and how does this affect the seating arrangement and the share every living person has?

First occupancy is no argument for private property, not only because of deficiencies such as those of the simile of the theater, but also because it has to be assumed that that part of the world which is not privately owned, and which is accessible, would belong to no-one, rather than to everyone. A more ingenious attempt is to justify property on the basis of people's labor. But this never justifies ownership in a thing irrespective of its description (or 'to the whole thing'); it can justify at most ownership in the value a person's labor adds to a thing. Only if the thing a person works on was already 'er property before 'e began to work on it, may one conclude that the person, as a laborer, is entitled to the whole thing, not only the value added. This, however, requires another, (more) basic, justificatory principle or theory in addition to the labor theory. A defender of the labor theory may reply that the added value and the original thing the value is added to are inseparable. Since 'e does not recognize any ownership that is not based on labor, the original thing was no-one's and only the worker in question would have the right to use it. (Plain marble is not the community's property but no-one's and only the sculptor who has used it may do with the sculpture what 'e likes.) But, firstly, this inseparability is too vague a notion: for example, where does a sculpture start, and where does it end? What about a renowned artist for whom the whole world itself is a piece of art 'e is presently working on? And, secondly, the notion of 'adding labor' is an equally vague one (not to speak of "mixing one's labor with the thing", which is a metaphorical fright). If there is no criterion to establish the boundaries of a person's 'mixture', an internationalist proletarian could claim that 'e changed the whole world by doing one thing; or by 'committing' one act, for in the labor theory it is immaterial whether a person adds a value or a disvalue. Now, it has been granted that there always must be 'enough and as good left in common for others', but the value of this addition can only be assessed --again-- on the basis of another non-labor-, non-desert- principle (for example, that one ought to preserve 'mankind' or oneself).

It is claimed by some that the situation of people who are not able to appropriate anything anymore is not worsened by a system which allows the permanent appropriation of holdings. On this view the proviso 'that enough and as good are left over' would not be violated, and the sacredness of private property in an absolutist sense could still be justified. The underlying nonphilosophic considerations favoring private property are familiar enough: 'it increases the social product', 'it encourages experimentation', 'it leads to specialized types of risk bearing', 'it protects future persons' and 'it provides alternate sources of employment'. The argument from productivity is especially noteworthy: a society with private appropriation is far more productive. Assuming that these theorists do know exactly what they are talking about, this last claim that the recognition of private property is advantageous for the society or community concerned, is of an empirical nature. It may be true at one place and time, false at another place and time, and the empirical assumptions in question, altho characteristic for some ideologies, are not characteristic for ours (nor are the antithetical empirical assumptions in disfavor of private property in general).

More interesting in the present context are the one or more normative principles which seem to have entered such theories of property surreptitiously: increase in production and efficiency have either become ends in themselves or are means to some other, hidden end. (Even the anti-utilitarian's hidden end-state principle may thus turn out to be the maximization of happiness.) But if productivity and efficiency are acknowledged as ends in themselves or as important means to other ends, who assures us that individuals or private corporations are, then, still the best organs to guarantee productivity and efficiency or those 'higher' objectives (like happiness?). If the privatizer is lucky, they are; if not, a state without private property might do a better job. And if production is so important, why should only the entitlement to the produce of one's labor stimulate it and not the entitlement to the things one needs in order to be able to produce? The enthusiasm for the argument must evaporate altogether when those who are left with no private poperty in land turn out to prefer eating the fruits provided by nature and the freedom of going to a common beach to a society in which all the fruits of the land and beaches have been privately appropriated, and which not only produces ever more goods, but also ever more waste. Who has the right to deny them that preference in 'er calculations?

We have now arrived at arguments for private property from utility. They rest on the modal condition that purposeful activities require the use of tools and materials, on the need of clarity and harmony with respect to the use of things, and on the idea that the acquisition, possession and use of those things would be essential to the expression of people's personality. It has been correctly pointed out, however, that the absence of individual ownership rights must not be confused with the absence of the individual duties of care. It has also been said already that economic utility arguments may be given for a general justification of property rights, while being used to override them at the level of particular justification, but the rights would be normative in the former case and nonnormative in the latter (unless based on another justificatory principle). It is obvious that insofar as the thesis of property's utility depends on arbitrary or weak, empirical assumptions concerning property's influence on the total happiness of sentient beings or people, or their wants, desires or preferences, it produces its own antithesis of disutility. In either case the founding principle remains a doctrinal one which can solely explain the existence of intrinsic rights or the absence thereof.

Whereas utility arguments can only justify intrinsic property rights, pure arguments from liberty can only justify extrinsic property rights. When it is asserted that everyone has the right 'to act as a free personality', or that 'each is at liberty to do what 'e can do', this is an active, discretionary right correlating with the nonactivating duty not to interfere, or not to infringe the material liberty of others. Those speaking of 'political liberty', that is, a liberty guaranteed by the state, want to express that the argument from material liberty should support the incorporation of the moral liberties with respect to property into a legal system. The crucial questions remaining, however, are How big is the 'sphere of self assertion' a person needs in the external world?, What is an infringement upon a person's material liberty if this is to concern more than the 1 m² or so 'er body occupies, or more than the area 'e needs to preserve 'imself? and Is it possible to interfere justifiably with someone else's material liberty, and if so, when?. (Note that speaking of "the need of a sphere of self-assertion" in some absolute sense independent of the spheres of others and the room available implies that the foundation is doctrinal, and the right intrinsic.) Everyone agrees that 'people should not interfere unjustifiably', but the assertion of this analytical truth only shows that those who agree about this belong to the same speech community, not in the least that they adhere to the same, or even a similar, theory of property rights. And if freedom has some common descriptive meaning and is used as an argument for private property, there are those who take the liberty of declaring that the primary effect of property on a large scale is to limit this very freedom.

A variety of other arguments in favor of private property have been offered. One of them is that good things should go to good people. But the first good means something like making happy or improving one's situation, whereas the second good means virtuous or praiseworthy. It has been rightly argued before that it may be 'true that what is earned is deserved, it does not follow that what is unearned is undeserved'. Virtuousness or praiseworthiness is in this context a thoroughly doctrinal notion (as it may be assumed that it is not really meant to apply to those who do whatever they like, albeit without interfering with others). A related belief is that private property is necessary for the development of moral character. This is not more of an argument than the belief that communal or collective property is necessary for such a development. The institution of private property has also been scorned for its vicious effects on people's characters. Finally, those distinguishing organization from spontaneous order have insisted that private property is not only indispensable to society as a spontaneous order, but that historical experience shows that it develops with the advance of 'civilization', inclusive of large landownership and private property in the means of production. But then, historical experience also shows that large landownership and private property in the means of production can be abrogated by the advance of revolutions, whether 'organized' or 'spontaneous'.