Much of Chapter XIV is dedicated to discussing what contracts are, how they come to be, and when they are valid or void. Chapter XV talks about enforcing contracts.
Even though he is talking about the state Hobbes is also discussing two fundamental concepts of business: contract and property.
I) Contract is how we trade rights as well as tangible goods and services. Remember in the state of nature we have a right to all things – including each other. Contract is how we stipulate what rights we are giving up. In simplest form, a contract for us to trade $1 for a can of soda is an agreement that I will relinquish my right to the $1 in exchange for you relinquishing your right to the soda. It is also notification that once we sign I will now claim the soda as my property and you will do the same with the money. This is the difference between trading and stealing. In stealing you get the good, but never the corresponding right to the good.
II) Notice, in this account, that property is a necessary part of contract. If something is not mine, I cannot trade the right to it. Contract depends on property.
On both I and II Hobbes is in agreement with modern theorists and practices. In fact, I know of no real debate concerning these two points.
Bill
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3 comments:
Can service be considered property, in the sense that the time the person spends performing a service and the resulting outcome has value as property does?
This presents both a legal and philosophical question. Philosophically, the property would most likely be your body and the external things you owned that enable you to provide the service.
I am not sure about legally.
I think it is fair to say that property is usually something that exists in some form of physical manifestation (even intellectual property must reside on some medium).
It also sounds a bit odd to say you own a service. So I would be inclined to say they are different - but I am willing to say there is more to be said on both sides.
BK
I would say that a person as part of having property in themselves also by extension has a property right, not in the service per se, but in their own skills and abitities to provide that service. That raises a related issue just what is the "product of a service"? Sometimes the product of a service is something tangible (a completed tax return), but often it is something intangible. That is why there are laws to protect the rights of owners of intangible property including tax laws that prescribe the tax accounting treatment for various types of intangible property. The best example of this is termed "goodwill". A going business, over the passage of time, will develop a reputation for high quality products or SERVICES. This "thing" becomes the property of the business and is part of what is sold when an established business is sold. That is why buyers often pay more for the going business than the net value of those assets being sold. I would say that services are not true property in an of themselves, but an instrument (the labor) employed as a means to beget property both tangible and intangible.
C. Emrich
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