[G. Adams]

This one follows from the RIAA thread, but I'm going to change the property, not the problem though, from music to medicine. This is just for context, feel free to reduce it simply to property. (And for clarity, property only refers to means of production)

Throughout the developing world there are horrific diseases ravging the people, in particular AIDS. These diseases, though not all curable, are usually treatable, and the suffering of afflicted eased. This requires medicines. These medicines are easily copied by pharmacists and then mass produced, providing such medicines cheaply, essential for the third world, yet this is being stopped because of property rights, in this case it is patents. When South Africa began creating its own AIDS drugs the US government, protective of its bourgois as always, put pressure on SA to stop, or aid would be cut. SA had to bow to the US, at the expense of its own citizens (hey, there's democracy and sovereignty out the window at America's behest once again). Now recently there has been a change and AIDS drugs can be copied in afflicted countries as long as they don't end up in western markets. Although this is obviously welcome, it is not because the pharmaceutical industry grew a conscience but because it was starting to get a dirty image (C4's documentary Dying for Drugs brought this problem to the front for at least a short while). This is only one disease among thousands that need to be dealt with, and the companies will certainly not give way on all of them, simply because it is not in their interests.

When I have raised this issue before some have argued that these companies require such extraordinary profits in order to fund research into new drugs. Tell me, what is the point of new drugs if they will only reach 1% of the human population? I would rather not have an aspirin that works a minute faster if I knew that malaria, TB, scarlet fever etc were being dealt with in the third world.

This is simply one example where property ownership benefits a small minority, in the form of profits, at the expense of the majority.

Also, briefly, the vast majority of people do not own any property, and the numbers are increasing. So property rights do not protect 'individuals', they protect a minority class of individuals. It keeps property away from the majority. And if you do not own property, you MUST work for those with it, or you will die of starvation. If you MUST work for someone else or die, in what way is this different from slavery? I pick and change my owners, but I MUST be owned or else.

I've said it before and I'll keep saying it till you believe me, man is enslaved to property, and thus for individuals to own property, man is enslaved to the owner. Unless we are going to give up on the progress of human liberty made throughout history, we are going to have to relinquish the idea of private property.