Chapter 1: Why “Property” - Foreign Military Studies Office - U.S. Army

government of duties pertaining to it under the social contract.Although Leavenworth County extracts a property tax, most of whichflows to local education and road maintenance, it goes unquestionedthat the sheriff and court meet a primary responsibility to affirm andprotect Horace against trespass. This may seem too obvious tomention, except that today, in many countries where aid organizationsattempt to create property, they begin with an argument aboutimproving the tax base. By neglecting to emphasize the duty of thegovernment rather than the duty of the possessor, these effortsimplicitly paint the “rule of law” as the power of government, ratherthan as a civilizing agreement the government is obliged to service.They fail to establish and underline the government’s duty of conflictresolution as the first reason for surveying and registering land. At anyrate, the example of Leavenworth County, Kansas is offered as aspringboard -- to place land ownership first in a US context beforelaunching toward foreign lands. It recently came to the author’sattention that as late as mid-2005 no accurate accounting of people hadbeen made in Iraq, that no comprehensive system of individualidentification had been instituted and that property records wereformalized in a very small percentage of the country. There is nomistaking the direction in which this argument leads: no hope shouldbe wasted on the idea that Iraq will become a democratic and peacefulland, proofed against the excesses of radical charismatic elements, ifthe time-proven institutions of conflict resolution and control of wealthare not established. Unless the society can know who owns what,history and logic tell us that there is no hope, despite whateverimmediate electoral exercise succeeds or whatever piece of physicalinfrastructure gets built. Lawfulness is based on good evidence asmuch as on good rules.The MarketThe process of buying or selling residential property in theUnited States can be exciting, tedious or both, but it is never withoutpaperwork. Many of us have experience in the matter, but few have33