![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Property rights as applied to vampires
Aug. 3rd, 2009 08:15 amProperty rights with broad privileges of possession has a long societally beneficial history without such possession and use of property negatively affecting others. Historically, use of water of water flow (above and then below ground), migrating animals, and airborne contaminants are issues in which conflicts between the interests of individual possessors and the society around them were best been addressed by central authority balancing various interests. However, it is not immediately clear how the present body of law will address the possession of property by vampires.
While in terms of possession it is often in everyone’s best interest that possessor's have full rights of possession, it has been argued that nobody should have possession of property without end. In theory, it appears that like women, racial minorities, and other minorities, that in time vampires will have full legal rights in employment, marriage, freedom from harassment, safety, and possession & use of property. However, property law for living people is based on a finite lifespan. The concept of rule by “the dead hand” has been an openly addressed issue in property rights, with various rules of perpetuity in place to prevent property from being inefficiently utilized or controlled by those whose lives have expired. Many have raised these arguments that vampires are not alive therefore unable to possess property (at all) because of their “dead status.” If such a prejudiced decision were to be enforced it would only result in higher incidents of fraud as vampires would live on the “down low” to enjoy the rights of the alleged living, increasing costs of possession and transfer for all. For all intents and purposes of property ownership vampires are very much alive - they make rational decisions, they act in the physical realm, and they even have lawyers (the overlap is noteworthy). However, the problem is that a possessor who is vampire under many scenarios will not perish, therefore the ownership of the property could conceivably never change hands.
Some have argued the rule of perpetuity or some variant thereof would apply well to vampires, preventing ownership not by the dead hand - but the single owner for indefinite periods. However, the danger with indefinite possession was originally argued for rational and efficient use of property. For the current time, it appears vampires do indeed act rationally and transfer property in cases where it is to their benefit (and hence the efficient use of that property by others). With the fear of failure to transfer when it is efficient, some have argued to look to vampires as we do families - able to transfer property and wealth within their ranks so long as they are able, but always facing an actual transfer of some form every 50 to 100 years or so - at least opening the idea for consideration that the property might be transferred to another party for a different type of utilization. Expected tax revenues from the transfer of property which, if vampires can possess without transfer for hundreds or thousands of years, could take a significant toll on the governments coffers.
This is a situation that might be compared to something like a wealthy family compound - while remaining in the family, to do so it has been passed from a chosen heir to another (and therefore paid taxes and faced the possibility of transfer outside the family should it be better utilized by another party to the degree a transfer of wealth was inspiring to the family). I think in this line of thought we can best discuss the benefits vampire ownership might bring to property. For instance, it may be that vampires are more likely to act with a long-term view of their property, which could in turn lead to more responsible environmental considerations by vampire owners than those with a more predictably finite lifespan. It seems unlikely that a vampire would allow their property to be strip mined if they expected to live on it for over 1,000 years on average. This may or may not be true - perhaps a vampire could utilize strip mining funds while having the capacity to wait for the environmental effects of the action to erode and return to a sustainable habitat. Again, if we assume rational actors, there is no proven reason to think that a vampire would be any worse or better than a rational actor with an expected lifespan of 50-100 years.
The organizational model of ownership may work better for vampires than personal ownership law made for the traditional definition of the living. The living actor area of law also can fall to the organization area of law - organizations were never arguably alive, but became legal actors and possessors in the law long before vampires were known to be more than myths by the general population. Organizations as legal entities have been created, regulated, sued, and faced legal prosecution. Organizations have been treated as much like a black box as we might assume the vampire is - we don’t necessarily understand the inner workings, but information goes in and actions are taken in a way that appears rational. The organization can own property indefinitely, with a different value on property than those around it or not. It is not a non-owners business to worry about the decisions made - if a golf course is in a valuable area of land which has become urbanized and valuable, while some might think it is fantastic that we have open land that staves off development, others would moan that the land is worth more as housing or commercial buildings and cry foul - that the long-term owners are causing harm by not transferring the property for an economic interest that would best serve the population as a whole. However, these issues are easily addressed through zoning decisions and tax rates on property, with organizations being subject to the law and paying taxes in a different form than the resident or traditional living actor. I think the organizational model is well applied to vampires - perhaps society might keep the golf course if it had a thousand year view, and the nay-sayers would have denied New York City it’s central park legacy with such rationalization of the short-term view. The only thing left to add to the body of organizational law for vampires would be to deal with criminal prosecution; a subject for another writer.
Rather than advocate solely for the organizational model of vampire ownership, I note a caution to maintain healthy debate on the issues and not accept our present knowledge as a constant. As of the time of this writing, the vampire population is still an unknown quantity, though all current estimates are beneath 1/10th of 1 percent (some far below, some arguing numerosity). As is faced with the immigration debate, vampires are notoriously undercounted, understandably so, as their status is not yet legally established and society wrestles with their rights and prejudices manifest. Only as vampires become an established and accepted part of our society will we ever know their population with any degree of accuracy. However, even assuming they are a tiny minority without numerosity, that isn’t so say they will always remain so. At the risk of sounding alarmist, I note that if a significant population of vampires were to grow - the way we deal with possession of property may not be efficient in the future. Even without large numbers, were vampires to live for thousands of years, their expanding property and financial “empires” could lead to societal strife akin to medieval Europe. The royal family vs. serf distinction led to the very foundation of property law which has evolved into our current transfer of wealth system in place these thousands of years, and arguably functions today. Not to sound dramatic, but were vampires to own vast amounts of land or a majority of it, we wind up in a situation where a few lords possess while others merely work as unequal partners on that land with no chance to accumulate wealth themselves - returning to the class warfare than gave us castles and shacks. Society has often faced waves of questioning of rational actors, from women, to race, and now possibly to human vs. vampire distinctions. I note that historically each "meaningful" distinction has fallen to objective data and rational debate, with prejudice always falling by the wayside in time - though the cost of prejudice by any ruling party only causing cost to both sides.
The current system is not necessarily the best final product as we encourage a continual process of law including evaluation, debate, and revision to address efficiency lost and gained. Rigorous debate and revision without irrational prejudice must be maintained to ensure future continuity of laws which efficiently serve all populations. Similar to government, the possession of property is a pillar of law upon which all of society, traditional human and otherwise, rests. The strongest pillar, without maintenance, will eventually erode, lean unevenly, and even crumble. Only through continual measurement, debate, and revision can a structure of the physical world and the law that guides it continue to exist for the future to appreciate.
While in terms of possession it is often in everyone’s best interest that possessor's have full rights of possession, it has been argued that nobody should have possession of property without end. In theory, it appears that like women, racial minorities, and other minorities, that in time vampires will have full legal rights in employment, marriage, freedom from harassment, safety, and possession & use of property. However, property law for living people is based on a finite lifespan. The concept of rule by “the dead hand” has been an openly addressed issue in property rights, with various rules of perpetuity in place to prevent property from being inefficiently utilized or controlled by those whose lives have expired. Many have raised these arguments that vampires are not alive therefore unable to possess property (at all) because of their “dead status.” If such a prejudiced decision were to be enforced it would only result in higher incidents of fraud as vampires would live on the “down low” to enjoy the rights of the alleged living, increasing costs of possession and transfer for all. For all intents and purposes of property ownership vampires are very much alive - they make rational decisions, they act in the physical realm, and they even have lawyers (the overlap is noteworthy). However, the problem is that a possessor who is vampire under many scenarios will not perish, therefore the ownership of the property could conceivably never change hands.
Some have argued the rule of perpetuity or some variant thereof would apply well to vampires, preventing ownership not by the dead hand - but the single owner for indefinite periods. However, the danger with indefinite possession was originally argued for rational and efficient use of property. For the current time, it appears vampires do indeed act rationally and transfer property in cases where it is to their benefit (and hence the efficient use of that property by others). With the fear of failure to transfer when it is efficient, some have argued to look to vampires as we do families - able to transfer property and wealth within their ranks so long as they are able, but always facing an actual transfer of some form every 50 to 100 years or so - at least opening the idea for consideration that the property might be transferred to another party for a different type of utilization. Expected tax revenues from the transfer of property which, if vampires can possess without transfer for hundreds or thousands of years, could take a significant toll on the governments coffers.
This is a situation that might be compared to something like a wealthy family compound - while remaining in the family, to do so it has been passed from a chosen heir to another (and therefore paid taxes and faced the possibility of transfer outside the family should it be better utilized by another party to the degree a transfer of wealth was inspiring to the family). I think in this line of thought we can best discuss the benefits vampire ownership might bring to property. For instance, it may be that vampires are more likely to act with a long-term view of their property, which could in turn lead to more responsible environmental considerations by vampire owners than those with a more predictably finite lifespan. It seems unlikely that a vampire would allow their property to be strip mined if they expected to live on it for over 1,000 years on average. This may or may not be true - perhaps a vampire could utilize strip mining funds while having the capacity to wait for the environmental effects of the action to erode and return to a sustainable habitat. Again, if we assume rational actors, there is no proven reason to think that a vampire would be any worse or better than a rational actor with an expected lifespan of 50-100 years.
The organizational model of ownership may work better for vampires than personal ownership law made for the traditional definition of the living. The living actor area of law also can fall to the organization area of law - organizations were never arguably alive, but became legal actors and possessors in the law long before vampires were known to be more than myths by the general population. Organizations as legal entities have been created, regulated, sued, and faced legal prosecution. Organizations have been treated as much like a black box as we might assume the vampire is - we don’t necessarily understand the inner workings, but information goes in and actions are taken in a way that appears rational. The organization can own property indefinitely, with a different value on property than those around it or not. It is not a non-owners business to worry about the decisions made - if a golf course is in a valuable area of land which has become urbanized and valuable, while some might think it is fantastic that we have open land that staves off development, others would moan that the land is worth more as housing or commercial buildings and cry foul - that the long-term owners are causing harm by not transferring the property for an economic interest that would best serve the population as a whole. However, these issues are easily addressed through zoning decisions and tax rates on property, with organizations being subject to the law and paying taxes in a different form than the resident or traditional living actor. I think the organizational model is well applied to vampires - perhaps society might keep the golf course if it had a thousand year view, and the nay-sayers would have denied New York City it’s central park legacy with such rationalization of the short-term view. The only thing left to add to the body of organizational law for vampires would be to deal with criminal prosecution; a subject for another writer.
Rather than advocate solely for the organizational model of vampire ownership, I note a caution to maintain healthy debate on the issues and not accept our present knowledge as a constant. As of the time of this writing, the vampire population is still an unknown quantity, though all current estimates are beneath 1/10th of 1 percent (some far below, some arguing numerosity). As is faced with the immigration debate, vampires are notoriously undercounted, understandably so, as their status is not yet legally established and society wrestles with their rights and prejudices manifest. Only as vampires become an established and accepted part of our society will we ever know their population with any degree of accuracy. However, even assuming they are a tiny minority without numerosity, that isn’t so say they will always remain so. At the risk of sounding alarmist, I note that if a significant population of vampires were to grow - the way we deal with possession of property may not be efficient in the future. Even without large numbers, were vampires to live for thousands of years, their expanding property and financial “empires” could lead to societal strife akin to medieval Europe. The royal family vs. serf distinction led to the very foundation of property law which has evolved into our current transfer of wealth system in place these thousands of years, and arguably functions today. Not to sound dramatic, but were vampires to own vast amounts of land or a majority of it, we wind up in a situation where a few lords possess while others merely work as unequal partners on that land with no chance to accumulate wealth themselves - returning to the class warfare than gave us castles and shacks. Society has often faced waves of questioning of rational actors, from women, to race, and now possibly to human vs. vampire distinctions. I note that historically each "meaningful" distinction has fallen to objective data and rational debate, with prejudice always falling by the wayside in time - though the cost of prejudice by any ruling party only causing cost to both sides.
The current system is not necessarily the best final product as we encourage a continual process of law including evaluation, debate, and revision to address efficiency lost and gained. Rigorous debate and revision without irrational prejudice must be maintained to ensure future continuity of laws which efficiently serve all populations. Similar to government, the possession of property is a pillar of law upon which all of society, traditional human and otherwise, rests. The strongest pillar, without maintenance, will eventually erode, lean unevenly, and even crumble. Only through continual measurement, debate, and revision can a structure of the physical world and the law that guides it continue to exist for the future to appreciate.
