Outline for the Allied Social Sciences Associations conference

Natural Law Requires Respect of Public Property Rights

Natural phenomena emerge in the cosmos according to natural law. Moral precepts are natural laws of social interaction. We are challenged to create a sustainable and just global civilization. This requires respect of basic moral principles.


Public property rights are a type of basic human right that must be respected. They include a collective right to decide limits to environmental impacts. This right implies the corresponding moral duty to create systems of governance that define limits to humans' environmental impacts such that they are consistent with the will of the people at large.


Civilizations thrive then collapse because they grow beyond what the natural environment can sustain. Economies boom and bust because they grow beyond what their resource bases can support. This seemingly cyclical but also chaotic instability is the same phenomenon seen at different scales of space and time. Fees on the taking or degradation of natural resources could moderate human economic activity, to keep it in line with what the larger environment can sustain. Equal sharing of the fee proceeds would buffer the downward slide of a shrinking economy, since the entire human population would continue to receive a modest income from shared natural resource wealth, separate from income from work, investments or family inheritance. A floor on the loss of human confidence that causes business contractions would be created. Spending in support of basic human needs would continue. The part of the economy devoted to meeting such needs would be insulated from the worst vicissitudes of the business cycle.

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