Property Rights as the Foundation of Civilization: Why the State Fears Honest Questions

Roman law left us not merely legal formulas — it left a fundamental distinction that defined the entire trajectory of European civilization. Dominium — property rights over a thing, concrete, tangible, protected by courts. Imperium — the right of power, abstract, all-encompassing, protected by force. All subsequent European history is the history of tension between these two principles, an attempt to find balance between the right to possess and the right to rule.

When this balance holds — cities flourish, trade prospers, universities and parliaments are born. When imperium begins to devour dominium — we see what modern historians carefully call "centralization," but what should really be called by its name: expropriation. Alienation. The transformation of property owners into subjects, citizens into objects of governance.

The third year of full-scale war in Ukraine. A time when philosophical abstractions about the balance of rights suddenly become questions of physical survival. When discussions of "property rights" cease being academic exercises for civil law scholars and transform into the question: what, exactly, are people dying for? What precisely is a soldier in a trench defending — the ground beneath his feet or a construction in politicians' heads?

And this is precisely why it's worth asking an uncomfortable question usually avoided: what actually happens when the state needs not property owners, but patriots?

How a Four-Year-Old Child Understands Rights Better Than Adult Ideologues

A four-year-old child possesses clearer legal consciousness than most adults lecturing about social duty. "This is mine" — here is the most perfect definition of property rights, ius in rem, that can be given. No civil law textbook will formulate it better. "Don't touch" — here is the essence of a vindicatory claim, a demand for protection of possession. "If you take it, I'll take it back" — here is the natural right to self-defense, ius defendendi, about which Cicero already wrote.

Simple. Intuitive. Works universally — from a sandbox in Kyiv to a sandbox in Tokyo.

But the state — and this is a fundamental thing — is built on a different foundation. The state speaks the language not of the concrete, but of the abstract. Not "your right to this specific plot of land," but "our land." Not "your property right protected by Article 321 of the Civil Code," but "your sacred duty." Not "protection of specific property with a specific cadastral number," but "service to the Fatherland."

And here begins linguistic alchemy — the transformation of legal precision into rhetorical magic.

What is "Fatherland" from a legal perspective? Try drafting a contract where the subject is "love for the Motherland." Try defining in a lawsuit an object of violation called "national dignity." Try describing in a writ of execution a recovery for "failure to fulfill patriotic duty."

Impossible. Because these are not legal categories — they are literary images. Useful for poetry, unsuitable for legal relationships. And precisely in this unsuitability lies their function.

Substitution Number One: When Duty Precedes Right

Imagine a court hearing. The plaintiff stands and declares: "The defendant violated my property right to a land plot." The judge, as required, asks: "Provide the court with a document confirming your right." The plaintiff responds: "There is no document. But I have a moral right. My ancestors lived on this land. I have a sacred connection to this soil. I have historical justice."

What will the judge say? "Petition denied." Because the court operates with legal categories, not metaphors. Because "moral right" without legal formalization is not a right, it's a wish. Because "historical justice" is a good thing for a museum, not for enforcement proceedings.

Now let's transfer this logic to patriotic discourse.

A person who has no legal title to land — neither ownership, nor lease, nor easement — is told that they have a moral obligation to die for this land. A person who doesn't own a single share in an enterprise, not a single stock package, not a single right to profit, is told about the sacred duty to defend the "national economy." A person who has nothing that could be transferred to heirs according to Articles 1216-1303 of the Civil Code is told about duty to future generations.

Look at the structure of this construction. This is not jurisprudence — this is an inversion of jurisprudence.

Because in normal legal order, a fundamental principle works: rights generate duties, not vice versa. You have property rights to an apartment — hence the obligation to maintain it in proper condition, pay utility bills, not violate neighbors' rights. You have rights to use a land plot — hence the obligation not to harm the soil, not to deplete the fertile layer, to observe environmental norms. First arises the right — concrete, legally formalized, protected by court. Then from this right logically flows the duty.

Patriotic discourse works in reverse: first duty, and right — maybe, someday, if you survive, if you deserve it, if you don't ask too much. First debt to the state — and the right to have something of your own will appear later, as a reward for loyalty.

This is not merely a rhetorical figure. This is a fundamental substitution of the logic of legal relations. This is the creation of a parallel reality where a person exists not as a subject of law with protected interests, but as an object of duty with undefined status.

The English Lesson: When Property Is Discussed Honestly

The 1640s. Kingdom of England. King Charles I needs funds for war with Scotland. He wants to introduce new taxes. Parliament refuses to approve taxation without guarantees of representation. A conflict begins that will escalate into civil war.

What is this war about? What did Royalists and Parliamentarians argue about when they shot at each other at Naseby and Marston Moor?

About abstract love for England? About the national idea of Englishness? About the patriotic duty of subjects to the crown?

No. About an utterly concrete thing: who has the right to dispose of subjects' property without their consent? Can the king simply take what he needs, citing state interests? Or does the subject have protected property rights that the monarch cannot violate even under slogans of national security?

This was not a philosophical discussion. This was a battle for a concrete legal principle: imperium has no right to absorb dominium. Power cannot cancel property.

The result of this battle was not merely a change of dynasty or constitutional formalities. The result was the Bill of Rights of 1689. The foundation on which British civilization grew for the next three hundred years. And if you read this document carefully, it becomes obvious: at the center is not patriotism, but protection of private property from arbitrary power.

The English did not invent patriotic education — they invented legal inviolability of property rights. They did not create a Ministry of Propaganda — they created independent courts. They did not write textbooks "How to Love England" — they wrote laws "How to Protect Your Property from the King."

And this — not pathetic speeches about duty to the crown — made Britain a force that built an empire, survived Napoleon, and held the balance of power in Europe for two centuries.

Because a person who has legally protected rights to their property does not need ideological processing. They know what they are protecting. They see it every morning, opening the doors of their own home. They feel it with their hands, cultivating their own land. They pass it to their children, drafting a will with a lawyer, not with a party secretary.

They don't need to be taught to love the Fatherland. The Fatherland is a specific address in the land cadastre. It is a specific structure with a specific number in the real estate registry. It is that to which they have legal title, not emotional attachment.

From Property to Citizenship: Roman Logic Against Modern Amnesia

Classical Roman law — and this, let me remind you, is the system that defined all subsequent European jurisprudence — knew one fundamental principle: a full citizen (civis Romanus) is one who has dominium. Who owns property by full right.

A slave cannot be a citizen not because he is a bad person or belongs to the wrong race. A slave cannot be a citizen for a legal reason: he has no property rights. He himself is property. He cannot be a subject of legal relations because he himself is an object of law.

A freedman (libertus) has limited legal capacity not due to some moral defects. He has limited legal capacity because he has limited property rights. He can own property, but with restrictions. And his civil rights are proportional to his property rights.

Why did the Romans build this rigid correlation? Why couldn't everyone simply be declared citizens based on moral qualities or patriotic feelings?

Because Roman law understood: citizenship is not a state of soul. It is a legal status. And legal status requires a material foundation. Property rights are not merely an economic category, they are the basis of legal subjectivity.

Look at what it means to have dominium in the legal sense:

You can conclude a contract because you have something to offer as the subject of the contract. You can go to court with a claim because you have something to protect. You can provide collateral because you have something to pledge. You can draft a will because you have something to transfer. You can be a guarantor because you have something with which to answer for debts. You can be a party in complex legal relations because you have assets to secure performance of obligations.

A person without property is a person outside most legal relations. They have nothing to present to court. They have nothing to transfer to heirs. They have nothing to use as collateral. They can sell only their body — as labor power on the labor market. They exist in legal space not as a full subject, but as a marginal figure with limited legal capacity.

And such a person — legally powerless, without a single legal title, without any property interests protected by law — is called upon to "love the Fatherland." Told about "sacred duty." Explained about "debt to generations."

The question is simple: debt for what? Obligation to defend what exactly? To love what concretely?

The Honesty Experiment: If Truth Were Told in Legal Language

Let's conduct a thought experiment. Let's try to translate patriotic rhetoric into the language of precise legal definitions. Without metaphors, without high words, without abstractions — only what can be written in a court decision.

Instead of: "Every citizen has a patriotic obligation to defend the Fatherland."

Legally precise: "Every person, regardless of possession of property rights, is obligated to risk life and health for the sake of protecting legal titles of other persons to real estate, movable property, property rights and intangible assets located on state territory, even if they themselves do not possess any of the listed rights."

Instead of: "The state carries out patriotic education of youth."

Legally precise: "The state forms in persons under the age of majority psychological readiness for self-sacrifice in the interests of persons owning means of production, land, natural resources and other assets on state territory, through a system of educational institutions financed from taxes paid including by persons who do not own property."

Instead of: "The warrior fights for the future of his children."

Legally precise: "A person risks life to ensure conditions under which persons owning property can transfer this property to their heirs in accordance with inheritance law norms, while the person risking, having no property, will have nothing to transfer to their heirs, even if they survive."

Instead of: "The nation is a community of historical destiny."

Legally precise: "The nation is a totality of persons where part owns titles to property, and another part, not having such titles, is obligated to defend these titles from external encroachments under threat of moral condemnation for lack of patriotism."

Feel the difference? Legally precise. Morally unattractive. Rhetorically disastrous.

That's why abstractions are needed. That's why "high words" are needed that mean nothing in the legal sense. That's why patriotic education must begin "with mother's milk," "from kindergarten," "before school" — while the child doesn't yet know how to ask legally precise questions. While they don't yet know they can ask: "Where is my right? Show me the document. What is my legal title to what you're asking me to defend?"

The Alternative Model: What If Everyone Had Something Concrete?

Now let's imagine a different system. Not a utopia — a concrete legal model.

A state where every adult citizen has real, legally formalized, protected by independent court property rights to something concrete. A land plot with cadastral number. An apartment with address in the real estate registry. A share in an enterprise confirmed by entry in the commercial registry. Copyright to a created work. A share contribution to a cooperative. A depository account with securities.

Not abstract "all-people's property," which actually means no one specifically owns anything. Not theoretical "people's capital" existing somewhere in Marxism textbooks but not in registries. Concrete dominium with concrete legal title recorded in state registry, protected by Civil Code articles, secured by mechanisms of judicial protection.

Does such a person need a lecture about patriotic duty?

Think logically. They need an effective judicial system that will protect their right from violation. They need a professional law enforcement system that will stop whoever encroaches on their property. They need a stable legal state that guarantees inviolability of their title, predictability of legislation, execution of court decisions.

And when someone — whether internal violator or external aggressor — encroaches on this state, they will defend the state not from abstract duty before an abstract Fatherland. They will defend the state from concrete material interest. Because this state protects their concrete right to concrete property. And therefore, defending the state, they defend their own.

Simple. Honest. Without pathos. Works.

If tomorrow someone tries to disrupt court operations — they are interested in protecting the judicial system because the court protects their title. If someone tries to destroy property registries — they are interested in protecting registries because their right is recorded there. If someone attacks state borders — they are interested in defending borders because beyond these borders operates a legal system recognizing their property.

No need for talk about nation. No need for patriotic education courses. No need for solemn oaths. Only one thing is needed: that everyone has something to lose with destruction of the legal state. That everyone has a material interest recorded in the registry in preserving rule of law.

The Roman Lesson: When the Empire Lost Its Property Owners

The Roman Empire — this is often forgotten when retelling beautiful stories about legions and triumphs — did not fall when citizens lost patriotism. Rhetoric about virtus Romana, about "Roman valor," about "empire's greatness" worked right until the very end. Emperors continued speaking high words. Poets continued celebrating Rome's greatness.

The empire fell when citizens lost property.

This is a long process that began in the late Republic and concluded in the IV-V centuries. Concentration of land property in hands of several senatorial families. Transformation of small proprietors (possessores) into tenants (coloni). Binding of coloni to land — they are no longer slaves, but no longer free proprietors. They cultivate others' land on others' terms. They pass to descendants not property rights, but tenant status. They work not for themselves, but for the latifundium.

And what happens to their patriotism? What happens to their readiness to defend the empire?

Nothing happens. Patriotism disappears because the material basis of patriotism disappears. A person who has nothing of their own does not fight for the system. Because the system is not theirs. The empire is what belongs to others. Latifundia are senators' property. Taxes are what is taken away. War is what leads to even greater devastation.

When Goths, Vandals, Huns come to empire territory, they do not meet population resistance. Why? Because the population doesn't care. Because for a colonus on a latifundium there is no fundamental difference — who exploits him, a Roman senator or Gothic chieftain. Tax is tax, whether you pay it to the empire or to a barbarian king.

The empire is not held by abstract slogans but by concrete interests. When the majority of the population has no legally protected interests in preserving the status quo — the status quo is not preserved. When people have nothing to lose — they don't fight. Simply because they have nothing to defend.

Barbarians did not come to an empty place. They came to territory where the legal system no longer protected the rights of the majority. Where courts worked in favor of latifundium owners. Where the army became professional — that is, mercenary, not civic. Where legionaries defended not their land, but the land of those who paid them salary.

Rome's lesson is simple and brutal: civilization is not held by rhetoric about greatness, but by distribution of property. Not by patriotic education, but by protected legal titles. Not by loud words about duty, but by concrete rights of concrete people.

Returning to the Main Question

So, let's return to the beginning. To the question with which any honest conversation about state and citizen begins.

Why all these abstractions — Fatherland, Duty, Nation, Sacred Obligation, Historical Mission, People's Destiny — if precise legal categories exist?

Dominium — property rights. Clear definition in Articles 316-319 of the Civil Code. Possessio — possessory rights. Regulated by separate norms. Usus — right of use. Can be described in contract. Usus fructus — right to use fruits. Defined by easements. Ius abutendi — right of disposal. Fixed in legal acts. Ius defendendi — right of defense. Guaranteed by procedural norms.

All this exists. All this works. All this can be recorded, registered, protected in court.

Why instead of a "Patriotic Education" course not introduce a mandatory "Fundamentals of Property Law" course? Why instead of abstract conversations about Nation and State not explain to students concrete mechanisms of acquiring property rights, realizing property rights, protecting violated interests through court?

Why instead of "cultivating love for Fatherland" not tell how the land cadastre works, the real estate registry, the securities depository? How to draft a will. How to formalize inheritance rights. How to protect your property from illegal seizure. How to use the presumption of property rights. How to file a vindicatory claim.

Imagine a graduate who knows not the anthem by heart but the procedure for registering property rights. Who can not recite a poem about the Motherland but draft a claim for protection of violated rights. Who understands not the "sacredness of people's land" but the concrete mechanism of land easement.

Why doesn't such a graduate exist?

The answer is unpleasant but obvious: because then they will ask. Will ask concretely, in legal language, without possibility of answering with metaphor:

"Where is my property right? Show me the legal title. In which registry is my right recorded? To what specific land plot? What is my cadastral number? Where are the boundaries of my property? How can I protect this right in court? What is the inheritance procedure? Can I transfer this to my children?"

And an unpleasant thing will be revealed: they have not a single legal title. Land belongs to others. Enterprises are in other hands. Resources are in others' property. Capital is anywhere but with them.

They are an observer of others' property. Labor power on the labor market. Consumer on the goods market. Voter on the political promises market.

But not a proprietor. Not a subject of property law. Not a person with legally protected property interests.

And then the state faces a choice.

First option: give them real property rights. Land reform. Privatization. Redistribution. Create a situation where every citizen has property recorded in the registry.

Second option: honestly tell the truth. "You must risk your life for defense of others' property. You have nothing of your own, but your duty is to defend what belongs to others. Because you are a citizen. And being a citizen means serving the state, regardless of what this state gives you in return."

Both options are politically unacceptable.

The first — because it requires real redistribution of rights. Real, not declarative. With registration in state registries, not with promises in election programs. With transfer of concrete titles to concrete persons, not with talk about "all-people's property," which actually means "no one specifically owns."

The second — because it's too honest. Too direct. Too obviously exploitative. A person might agree to die for the Fatherland — this sounds noble. A person will hardly agree to die "for others' property" — this sounds absurd.

Therefore the third option is simpler: continue talking about the Fatherland. Cultivate patriotism. Tell about sacred duty. Operate with categories that cannot be verified through court and cannot be fixed in registry.

Simpler, more convenient, safer for those who already have titles.

Instead of Conclusion: Time for Honest Answers

This text does not end with a conclusion, because the conclusion is the personal matter of everyone who reads it.

But we can end with a question. Simple, concrete, legally precise.

What specifically are you defending when you're told about defending the state? What right of yours is violated when borders are violated? What legal title of yours is under threat when sovereignty is under threat?

If in response — a concrete document with concrete address, concrete entry in concrete registry, concrete right to concrete property — you don't need talk about patriotism. You need a working legal system that will protect your title.

If in response — abstractions, metaphors, high words without legal content — ask yourself: why? Why in the XXI century, in the era of civil law with centuries-old tradition, in times of electronic registries and judicial precedent, do we still operate with categories having no legal definition?

Perhaps because the honest answer is too inconvenient?

Perhaps because civilization of proprietors — where everyone has concrete rights to concrete property — is stronger than civilization of patriots, but requires real, not declarative redistribution of rights?

Perhaps because it's simpler to cultivate readiness to die for an abstraction than to create a system where everyone has something concrete worth defending not from duty but from interest?

The fourth year of war. A time when abstractions become dangerous. A time when rhetoric demands blood. A time when honesty is needed.

Roman law knew: dominium is the foundation. Everything else is superstructure. Civilization is held by concrete rights of concrete people to concrete property. Everything else is beautiful words covering either a working legal system or its absence.

Modern jurisprudence knows this. Every civil law textbook confirms this. Every court case demonstrates this.

Time to remind politicians too. Time to start speaking not about Fatherland in general, but about concrete rights of concrete people. Not about sacred duty, but about protected property. Not about patriotism, but about legal title.

Because civilization is not held by those ready to die for abstractions. Civilization is held by those who have concrete rights protected by concrete laws and know what exactly they defend when they defend the legal state.

Oleh Cheslavskyi — independent historian and analyst specializing in deconstructing imperial narratives.

Originally published at femida.ua