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Housing activists hold signs as they stage a demonstration in front of a home on the verge of being foreclosed on Nov. 22, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The conflict between property rights and human rights has entered a new chapter. It is a debate that goes back to the challenge by landowners and merchants behind the American Revolution’s war on British control over the colonial economy.
Only today, as those speaking in the name of the 99 percent challenge the super wealthy of the 1 percent (actually the 0.001 percent), there is a new battleground in what’s known as the housing market with as many as 14 million Americans in or facing foreclosure.
The defense of property rights is the holy of the holies for the propertied classes with a whole industry set up to enforce their claims of ownership.
We have seen how this plays out with the courts; run by, often bought off, and complicit judges rubber stamping claims by banks and realty interests even when laws are disregarded amid fraudulent filings, biased contracts, and phony robot signings. They control the marshals who seize your property, and constantly denigrate the real victims as “irresponsible.”
It’s not surprising any more to read about banks foreclosing on properties they don’t even own.
Rousseau’s Contract
Jean-Jacques Rosseau, who postulated the social contract that gives property rights a moral claim, would be turning in his grave if he knew of the many abuses that homeowners in the United States face daily.
According to one scholarly presentation I read, “In order to clearly present Rousseau’s views on property in the social contract, we must first define what he means by property. Property according to Rousseau is that which is obtained legally thereby purporting legitimate claim to ones holdings. Now we must consider what gives an individual the right to openly claim ownership.
“Rousseau points out that right does not equal might. In other words, having a right can never derive from force. A right must be given legitimately, which means it is attached to moral and legal code. This makes it contractual whereby the rights of one are applied to the rights of all.
“Once a right is established, it is beneficial and necessary for the individual to apply this right effectively for his best interests and those of the whole. This motivation is directed at the formation of community thereby creating a social contract between individuals that come together to act as a group.
“Now a combination of rights is formed whereby each individual is protected by the whole group that stands together as a community. The concept is that man standing alone is more vulnerable than many men united each in defense of the other.
“This condition makes it impossible for one to hurt an individual without hurting the whole group or for one to hurt the group without affecting each individual.
“There is now a social contract where individual rights are combined. In this case, it is in the best interest of the individual to give over his rights to the group since he has a more powerful protective base than standing alone.”
And yet many of us today do “stand alone:” in the commercial marketplace where borrowers are seen as suckers by lenders and fraud is pervasive; abuse, lying, and theft is built into the equation.
Now President Obama says that he will crack down on these abuses.
Crackdown
Now President Obama says, four years after the markets melted down and the subprime mortgages were exposed as a sub-crime that he will crack down on these abuses.
Hallelujah.
It sounds good, and you want to believe, especially because Obama has tapped New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has rejected settling with some banks engaged in massive fraud, as a top gun for the effort.
Now, the Justice Department has announced the details to the press, minus the official who will run the effort and who was “traveling” and couldn’t make the press conference.
Lanny Breuer is the official’s name, and before joining the department that calls itself Justice, was working for a law firm representing big banks, perhaps not a topic he wanted to answer questions about.
Attorney General Holder was there to reveal that there will be 55 people working on this full time, 30 attorneys and support people, and 10 FBI agents who first blew the whistle on “pervasive real estate fraud” back in 2004.
Yves Smith of NakedCapitalism.com who follows details like this closely was underwhelmed, writing:
“During the savings and loan crisis, Bill Black reminds us that there were about a thousand FBI agents working on the various cases. That’s 100 times the number of people working on a scandal that is about 40 times larger and far more complex.
“To put it another way, let’s say that this scandal cost the American public $5 trillion–7 trillion in lost home equity. That’s about $100 billion of lost home equity per person assigned to this task force. If someone stole $100 billion from a corporation, like say, if somehow Apple’s entire cash hoard, which is roughly that amount, suddenly disappeared, I’m guessing that the FBI would assign more than one person to the case.”
Ok, these are tough times and the government is pressed and the president is running for re-election with his “bundlers” (that is the people who raise the big money) pressing the flesh on Wall Street to find more 1 percent donors. Will this fundraising effort stymie his hell raising effort?
Stay tuned.
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