In our first episode of the year, Matt speaks with Margaret Levi, distinguished political scientist, author, and professor at Stanford University. They delve into Margaret and her team’s groundbreaking work of reimagining property rights. The captivating discussion revolves around their approach's key principles: emphasizing well-being, holistic sustainability encompassing culture and biodiversity, and striving for equality. RadicalxChange has been working with Margaret Levi and her team at Stanford, together with Dark Matter Labs, on exploring and reimagining the institutions of ownership. This episode is part of a short series exploring the theme of What and How We Own: Building a Politics of Change.
Welcome back to RadicalxChange(s), and happy 2024!
In our first episode of the year, Matt speaks with Margaret Levi, distinguished political scientist, author, and professor at Stanford University. They delve into Margaret and her team’s groundbreaking work of reimagining property rights. The captivating discussion revolves around their approach's key principles: emphasizing well-being, holistic sustainability encompassing culture and biodiversity, and striving for equality.
RadicalxChange has been working with Margaret Levi and her team at Stanford, together with Dark Matter Labs, on exploring and reimagining the institutions of ownership.
This episode is part of a short series exploring the theme of What and How We Own: Building a Politics of Change.
Tune in as they explore these transformative ideas shaping our societal structures.
Read more in our newsletter What & How We Own: The Politics of Change | Part I.
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Further Reading Recommendations from Margaret:
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Margaret Levi is Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) at Stanford University. She is the former Sara Miller McCune Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) Levi is currently a faculty fellow at CASBS and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, co-director of the Stanford Ethics, Society and Technology Hub, and the Jere L. Bacharach Professor Emerita of International Studies at the University of Washington. She is the winner of the 2019 Johan Skytte Prize and the 2020 Falling Walls Breakthrough. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association of Political and Social Sciences. She served as president of the American Political Science Association from 2004 to 2005. In 2014, she received the William H. Riker Prize in Political Science, in 2017 gave the Elinor Ostrom Memorial Lecture, and in 2018 received an honorary doctorate from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
She earned her BA from Bryn Mawr College in 1968 and her PhD from Harvard University in 1974, the year she joined the faculty of the University of Washington. She has been a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University. She held the Chair in Politics, United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, 2009-13. At the University of Washington she was director of the CHAOS (Comparative Historical Analysis of Organizations and States) Center and formerly the Harry Bridges Chair and Director of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies.
Levi is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and seven books, including Of Rule and Revenu_e (University of California Press, 1988); _Consent, Dissent, and Patriotism (Cambridge University Press, 1997); Analytic Narratives (Princeton University Press, 1998); and Cooperation Without Trust? (Russell Sage, 2005). In the Interest of Others (Princeton, 2013), co-authored with John Ahlquist, explores how organizations provoke member willingness to act beyond material interest. In other work, she investigates the conditions under which people come to believe their governments are legitimate and the consequences of those beliefs for compliance, consent, and the rule of law. Her research continues to focus on how to improve the quality of government. She is also committed to understanding and improving supply chains so that the goods we consume are produced in a manner that sustains both the workers and the environment. In 2015 she published the co-authored Labor Standards in International Supply Chains (Edward Elgar).
She was general editor of Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics and is co-general editor of the Annual Review of Political Science. Levi serves on the boards of the: Carlos III-Juan March Institute in Madrid; Scholar and Research Group of the World Justice Project, the Berggruen Institute, and CORE Economics. Her fellowships include the Woodrow Wilson in 1968, German Marshall in 1988-9, and the Center for Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences in 1993-1994. She has lectured and been a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, the European University Institute, the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, the Juan March Institute, the Budapest Collegium, Cardiff University, Oxford University, Bergen University, and Peking University.
Levi and her husband, Robert Kaplan, are avid collectors of Australian Aboriginal art and have gifted pieces to the Seattle Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Women’s Museum of Art, and the Nevada Museum of Art.
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Matt Prewitt (he/him) is a lawyer, technologist, and writer. He is President of the RadicalxChange Foundation.
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This episode was recorded by Matt Prewitt.
[00:00:00] Matt Prewitt: Professor Margaret Levi. Thank you so much for, for joining me today. Great to talk to you.
[00:00:07] Margaret Levi: As always, Matt. Lovely to be with you.
[00:00:10] Matt Prewitt: So my first question is, why does property interest you? What brings you to this topic?
[00:00:16] Margaret Levi: Well, as I think, I've been, when I was Director of the Center for Advanced Study and Behavioral Sciences —"CASBS" as it's infelicitously known at Stanford, we had a big project on rethinking the moral political economy.
And what we meant by that was the political economic structures that, inform our society and really regulate it. But every political economy since the time of Adam Smith has had several features that I think are. Quite important to emphasize. One is that they all have some underlying set of values implied in them.
And those shift over time as time changes. A lot of [00:01:00] the kind of thing you're thinking about in regard to liberalism is the same kind of problem of what are the, underlying values here. The other thing is that political economic structures tend to take on a life of their own. And so often a population tends to think of them as natural when, in fact, they're socially and humanly constructed and should be, subject to change as the needs of the population changes and as the populate, who counts as citizens or voices becomes more inclusive. So you think of the beginning of the 18th century and women, people of color of all kinds, slaves, unpropertied, had no voice. And, now all of us do, so– at least to some extent, maybe not equally, but certainly, much more than was true then.[00:02:00]
And one of the crucial aspects of any political economic structure is who owns property? What kinds of rights does property ownership convey? How does it affect the economic system, but also how does it affect the political system and the social relations? And as we move into the deeper into the 21st century, we become much more alert about how it affects– how those property relationships affect things like sustainability of the earth and the planet and all of its biodiversity, and how it affects sustainability of variety of cultures that seem to be under threat, not just Indigenous cultures, though all cultures in some sense have those kinds of peoples may have some indigeneity involved, but all kinds of cultures that have been developed over time that are that have become part of the way people live. [00:03:00]
[00:03:01] Matt Prewitt: One thing that stands out to me, and I think to many others, when we're talking about property and ownership is that these institutions sometimes fade into the background and seem like they seem like unchangeable or sort of immovable premises in the way that our political systems, the way that our economic systems are set up. But I think, and I suspect you agree that if you look closely, if you look more closely, they actually have evolved quite considerably over time.
[00:03:36] Margaret Levi: Quite a lot! Let's, I mean, the most apparent example, of course, is slavery, which was a property right. People had the right to own other people. There are very few places in the world, or even people in the world who would think any longer that slavery is legitimate. They may practice it, but they [00:04:00] know that it's not either legal or legitimate, anywhere.
That was not true 200 years ago, or even 100 years ago, in many places, even 50 years ago, in some places. So that's a property right that has changed a lot. If we think about even ownership of land or housing, just think of all the rules and regulations in advanced industrial liberal democracies that affect what we can do with our own land and with our own houses: how they can be built, how they can be sold, how they are managed.
Just a whole bunch of things that relate to it. Fire safety, health safety. We think about, our labor as a form of property that we can buy and sell a very Marxian notion, but a notion that's gone back well beyond that [00:05:00] and well into the present that there are certain kinds of controls over our own labor, our time, the products of our labor, the skills that we bring into the labor process, the use of tools, all of that has evolved in terms of what regulates it, who owns it, what ownership even means of labor. So we no longer are quite the characters in the Marxian tale of the workers with our heads down going into the factory.
We might have to fight and struggle with the employers, but there's a fight and a struggle going on. So that's already a transformation of what we mean by even ownership of labor. So all of those things have evolved and, we go into other forms of ownership and property and they've, all evolved, I'd say.
[00:05:59] Matt Prewitt: [00:06:00] When you think about the evolution of property and ownership over time, there are clear examples where it seems to have taken a good turn, like some of the examples you just gave. There might be other examples where it has evolved in an unwelcome way, where these institutions have taken wrong turns. I'm curious if you have thoughts about what drives those kinds of historical processes and, and maybe what, what are some of the wrong turns that you think are the current institutional landscape have taken to get us where we are?
[00:06:39] Margaret Levi: Well, I'm a social scientist. So part of my answer will be that it's a multivariate problem. there's not a single variable that explains all of that, but there are some, I think very strong factors.
One is profit, which has [00:07:00] always been at issue in the history of property. Who's going to benefit from its improvement or its ownership or a way to do that. And the way that takes form in the 21st century, certainly in a country like the U.S. has to do with all kinds of financial instruments and banks and a complex set of factors.
That humans like us have very little control over. It's a set of institutional arrangements as well as some individuals who are profiting quite largely, but, and government rules and regulations that have affected financialization that make housing, for example, almost unaffordable. There's no reason for housing to be unaffordable.
Most of the factors that go into housing, the costs have reduced, in terms of building a house, and there are all kinds [00:08:00] of ways in which we have government insurance that should enable us to afford mortgages and other kinds of things. Not everyone, but a lot of us. And there's no reason why social insurance of various kinds should not be providing housing for those who can't afford a mortgage or a rent.
But the ways in which those things have evolved and the kinds of profit motives that have evolved around that have made it. And the interests, who makes big profit off of real estate, has, undermined, I think, some fundamental property rights in housing. If you think about most democracies, owning a house is like, or having at least the right to shelter is, an incredibly important piece of the rights of citizenship. It gives rights. It gives protections. It [00:09:00] is a crucial thing. And yet that has clearly deteriorated. The homelessness problem is immense. The unaffordability problem is immense. The problems that current housing regimes create for sustainability of the planet are immense.
So I see that as a clear deterioration. As an example,
[00:09:23] Matt Prewitt: Yeah. You've put forth a sort of a scheme of desiderata of or of, goals or values that, a scheme of property or ownership, should, should advance. And I want to get to that in a 2nd, I'd like to get into some of the details of, what you're saying there.
but before we get to the desiderata, I wonder if you could also say a few things about the, current property regime in the sense of, what does it get right? What, [00:10:00] what, are some of the things. In the way that we formalize property today that you think are worth preserving.
[00:10:08] Margaret Levi: Well, one of the things that's obviously worth preserving is staying very firm that people are not property.
And I think that we're making some progress backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards on the extent to which we define our labor as property and the kinds of protections that we, as individuals have over that, and I think those things are good things. They often depend on collective actions, unions, organizations of various kinds, but there's certainly been an advance and I would bite hard to preserve that, You know, human trafficking is a scandal, but it's recognized as a scandal, something that might not have been true not that long ago. So we're making some advance again on these kinds of ways in which forced labor, [00:11:00] are, being treated. I think those things are all good.
The advances, not the scandals. I'm trying to think of other domains in which I think there's been some progress. Well, I think there's been some progress in thinking about, not everywhere, but many, states in the United States, some countries around the world have really taken seriously protecting, regions of their countries for protecting biodiversity for protecting wildlife for protecting the land for protecting the water. I think the scandals over water rights right now, and the concern, around the Colorado River and other places all around the world. In fact, there are issues around, how do we, actually create a, an appropriate property rights regime around [00:12:00] resources like water, and there are others, we've got to protect the air, the quality of the air is another one. And that's where certain kinds of property rights and certain kinds of regulations and certain kinds of rules can really make it a positive difference. And whether we've achieved that, I would say no.
But we're certainly thinking about that. there's an awareness of Indigenous claims. As you know, I spend a lot of time in Australia and work very closely, and am involved with a variety of ways in which Indigenous people of Australia are making, reclaiming, their rightful sovereignty and stewardship over land and water. And that's happening in Canada. As we know from our friends at, Dark Matter Labs. And, as we know, from many other instances, and that's a positive thing. [00:13:00] We, have we solve those problems? No. Are we in the midst of a lot of controversy about the right way to think about it? Do we think about rights of nature? Do we think about Indigenous sovereignty in all the regards in which Indigenous people are asking for sovereignty? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I'm very happy that those questions are now part of our discussion.
[00:13:25] Matt Prewitt: This may be a bit of a tangent, so we can also return to it later.
But, I'm also curious what you think about the idea of formalization because it seems to me that one of the major themes and sort of modern property rights is, the formalization of people's, dominion over this or that and, that is, of course, a double edged sword, right? Because the formalization can, and give you security against, undo interference.
It can also give you security against, [00:14:00] or it can also, allow people to exert more dominion than they really ought to have in a way that, prevents larger-
[00:14:11] Margaret Levi: My home is my castle.
[00:14:12] Matt Prewitt: Yeah, so I'm curious. And I know that a lot of thinkers about property, and others have viewed formalization of property rights as a really important, way of securing, people's interest from undo interference. I'm just curious if you have-
[00:14:37] Margaret Levi: I think this actually leads us into the desiderata because in order to think about formalization, I'd rather not think about how it's been thought of and what it has done, but rather to think about where it should come in to the equation.
And I think that is more of an open question than looking at the history of formalization. I mean, it's achieved certain things that are [00:15:00] great and it's made, created problems that are horrible, just as you said, it's got it's a double edged sword. But if we go to the desiderata that I and my team are developing, I think that helps us to think about formalization.
So, as you know, Chris, Dan, Emily, Russell and I are trying to think through what are the kinds of goals that we want to achieve and that some kind of property rights regime might help us achieve and those, include well being, which is more than economic growth as defined by GDP, it's actually things that we've already talked about, people should have well being includes a whole variety of things that talks about all the people, not just some abstract, figure of economic growth, but do people have housing? Do they have food security? Do they have, the [00:16:00] capacity to get the kind of education or skills that they need in order to function in the world? If they're very young, or if they're disabled, do they have the kind of protections or very old and frail? Do they have the kind of protections that they need to survive?
So, well-being is a multi– has to do with flourishing in a variety of ways and not just economic growth. So that's desiderata 1. Desiderata 2, which is really has two parts is sustainability. And we've talked about that a little already. So it's sustainability of the planet, its diet, its biodiversity, all of its species, not just its human species, but sustainability is also about various cultures.
Some of them Indigenous, some of them, cultures that are fighting for their lives right now in some of the wars that we're seeing around the world, whether we're talking about Ukraine or [00:17:00] Gaza and Israel, or we're talking about the Sudan. Those are fights often over cultural survival that are a little different than the fights over Indigenous survival, though sometimes those two merge into wars. So there's cultural sustainability and their sustainability of the earth and its biodiversity. And then the final, desiderata really is a harder one to measure and to describe, I mean, philosophers like Elizabeth Anderson can describe relational equality, or Debra Satz, but it's a complex notion and it really has to do with a regime of property that allows us to treat each other as equals to see each other as equals to have respect and dignity.
And so we're struggling with how to frame that. Exactly. But that's that seems to us a very important desiderata, for us [00:18:00] as, as a people, And that is affected by property rights and affects property rights. Okay, so then we get back to formalization. Where does formalization come into all that?
Well, some of those things can be formalized. You might want to formalize the right to education. For example, as a property right, in a sense, that enables people to develop the capacities, they need to be respected, to give respect, and to have the skills that they need in order to enable their own well being and the well being of those who they are, feel responsible for, or are interconnected with. So, all of their formalizations that can occur in other formalizations to get in the way of those desiderata, and then there are times, so there'll be some things that are clearly in a category that is a plus for formalization in order to [00:19:00] achieve the desiderata, things that will be clearly in a negative category to get in the way of achieving this desiderata, some of the financial instruments that we have developed as societies over time, and then there'll be things where their tradeoffs are going to have to be made, where the desiderata aren't necessarily always in everywhere in every moment compatible with each other. So, where do we want to make tradeoffs? And how do we want to do that? And that's where relational equality also becomes quite important because there has to be some kind of political mechanism that respects the plurality of voices that are there, and often greatly intensely held differences that people have and find solutions to that.
So there will be trade offs where formalization may be good for one part of the population, achieving onepart of its ends and not for another. And you just got to make some [00:20:00] choices. They're trying to find the best solution that you can.
[00:20:04] Matt Prewitt: I guess one question is, I'm curious about the decision to think about this problem through the lens of desiderata, which in a way is already almost a formalization, if you will, right?
To say that there are these sort of three categories of goods or values that we want property interests to, to vindicate. And correct me if I'm framing this wrong. But the, what I'm, I mean, the way that I understand formalizations and the sort of the-
[00:20:44] Margaret Levi: That's what I'm waiting for before I correct you to hear what you mean by formalization.
[00:20:48] Matt Prewitt: Well, well, I guess what I what when I think about formalizations, the way that I think about them is that they are, they are super valuable until you realize [00:21:00] their imperfections, they go as far as they go. And eventually you realize the limits of any formalization. And so I think formalizations are good, but before taking them on board, I like to be persuaded that they're really the best we can do, you know?
[00:21:17] Margaret Levi: Yeah, but I think we mean something slightly different by formalization. So what I mean, and what an economist generally means by formalization, or a political economist, would have to do with laws in place that give you certain kinds of rights that can be disputed in court, that give you right to certain kinds of contracts that, I mean, that's what formalization has generally meant in the property rights area who has a legal right to this. It's a legal formality. I don't think of values as formalizations. I think of them as something that will be constantly debated. Not subject [00:22:00] to the Supreme Court making a decision about which is right or not. It's got to be of a collective enterprise.
[00:22:11] Matt Prewitt: Well, in any case, what is it? I guess I'm curious what your, argument is for why these three values, then, are comprehensive. What? Why? Why shouldn't we be confident that these three desiderata sort of capture the territory of values?
[00:22:32] Margaret Levi: I think we throw them out there and have a debate. Gotcha. So we till we feel comfortable or enough of us feel comfortable to proceed on those grounds. But what they do for us analytically and is that they give us a way to rethink, and reimagine, and reclaim certain kinds of aspects of property, ownership, sovereignty, [00:23:00] stewardship, and to think about how to, organize those or develop those in ways that serve us better, that's the goal of it. So it's, by not just accepting the kinds of values of economic growth in a narrow sense, but saying there are other values out there that we need, that we might want to, that we might want to attend to. So this is our argument. It doesn't have to, hopefully it opens a debate, and opens people's minds to the fact that there are alternatives to economic growth.
[00:23:39] Matt Prewitt: Well, I like them. I think that these, I think that the desiderata you've chosen are quite, compelling. And one of the reasons I like them is that I think that they, they do a good job, covering what feels to me like a...
[00:23:56] Margaret Levi: Me too!
[00:23:56] Matt Prewitt: ... core set of concerns than, y'know let's say, [00:24:00] growth.
[00:24:00] Margaret Levi: But, Matt, we're not the only people, so anyway we share some values so I think it's really important that they, be debated. if we're successful, people will say one, they'll say, oh, yeah, there are alternatives.
To what should those alternatives be? Do we like these? Yes. No. Maybe? Let's tweak it this way that way. Let's have a real conversation.
[00:24:27] Matt Prewitt: Well, let me this is, let me just give you my gloss on them. Let me tell you why I like them. And you can tell me why this is a good reason to like them or not a good reason.
So, when I think of, so when I, Think about this idea of well being human well being 1st and then 2nd, the idea of sustainability within a broader context. And then 3rd, the idea of relational equality, they, it strikes me that those, those three categories of values [00:25:00] map on to this idea of, intra-human values.
So well-being is like, making sure that human beings are, have what they need as individual human beings. Then the sustainability has to do with almost extra-human values, like our relationship with nature or relationship with things that go beyond. Even human society, and then relational equality is interhuman values.
So the, it is connects to the, concepts that you've written about elsewhere in, in what political equality, but relational quality, if I understand it correctly, goes beyond political equality has to do with, not just equal enfranchisement of individuals vis-a-vis the government, but ensuring that individuals are able to relate to each other.
In a more or less equal way so that they can comprise the polity and I'm in a, [00:26:00] an undistorted way.
[00:26:01] Margaret Levi: Right.
[00:26:03] Matt Prewitt: And, so I'm just curious whether that resonates with you, whether that sort of intra-human, inter-human, extra-human, does that track for you? Because for me, that's why I find it so persuasive.
[00:26:15] Margaret Levi: That's interesting. yeah, that tracks for me. That may not be the way I'd have to think about whether I want to think about it that way, but that tracks for me.
[00:26:26] Matt Prewitt: Cool. And, and so, so maybe we, let's get into each of them a little bit more if you'd like to. So, what are the, Well, let's start with relational quality. can you say a bit about how you think, property ownership regimes that we find in the real world, don't vindicate that [00:27:00] value and how, , taking that on as a, desideratum would, would, might look.
[00:27:10] Margaret Levi: Well, relational equality, So there's a couple things to say here.
1, it is, as you stated, a precursor or a necessary condition, for political equality, which is something that, I think is I personally, and my co author sinker is an important value. But as we started to play with that, we realized that we needed something more than just, Equal votes, and ultimately came back to relational equality is the way to get that.
So, and it in turn relational quality in turn depends on having the rights to certain things. it means that juridical equality [00:28:00] politically. But it also means that there is access to, education and skills. access to the things that allow us to, it does mean access to well being, it's hard to think about having a voice of any kind or feeling dignified if you're sleeping on the street or you are emaciated and, desperate for food.
so it these things interconnect with each other to a certain extent. So how does that affect? How would we rethink property rights in that regard? I think 1, it broadens our notion of property rights. Or what we mean by property and ownership or access to the resources over which people have control, which is part of what we mean by property.
so it does mean that we [00:29:00] think as societies are often attempting to think about what it means to have equity and education. What does it mean to have, ensure that everybody. That all children have housing and some security and some safety, so that they have the capacity to develop as citizens and to both respect themselves and respect others.
that those are critical notions of what property has to mean in some sense.
[00:29:35] Matt Prewitt: And, a follow-up question would be, as you describe it, these things actually start to sound to me a little bit like the kinds of concerns that one might vindicate through other approaches, such as, basic rights or something.
So I'm curious how you think about the interplay [00:30:00] between, because property interests are usually things that can be. acquired or disposed of things that can be gained and lost. And so how do you think about, vindicating or how do you think about the sort of complimentary roles of trying to vindicate these sorts of interests through a property scheme versus trying to vindicate them through a rights scheme?
[00:30:27] Margaret Levi: Yeah, no, that's a very interesting question. I'm not sure I've, fully thought that one through. and I look forward to thinking through that question. I do think that basic rights. Are probably part of the story, but they're not enough because relational equality really has to do with interactions and basic rights really has to do with what you're owed [00:31:00] what you get.
So you, and I do think rights have a kind of property quality to them because you can lose them and you can gain them. yeah, no, I think it's a deep question, Matt. I think it needs to be thought through more. there's a serious interaction there between basic rights and relational equality, but they aren't the same.
And, I guess the question really then becomes how much is relational equality, something that is. Enhanced by using the concept of property around it or not. and I guess I'm not sure about that either, except that if you look at the work, for example, that Elizabeth Anderson did on private governance, clearly our capacity to own our labor or to control it, [00:32:00] at least, has a huge effect on relational equality. So there's clearly in her mind, a big interaction and we're still teasing that out for how to think about that in our kind of terms.
[00:32:17] Matt Prewitt: Yeah, one possibility might be that, that, for one reason or another, there are certain aspects of these values that, they can only be taken so far through a rights scheme.
And that perhaps, a property scheme might. Enable 'em to be vindicated further. Yeah. that there's some sort of a baseline and then an, and then and some, a more optimal situation that, property helps us get to. but yeah, there's clearly an interesting, question there.
I'm looking forward to, thinking about it further.
Would you like [00:33:00] to dive a little bit deeper into the question of sustainability? So, how do you, how would you see, a better scheme of property or ownership? giving us what we want in the sense of, living in harmony with the environment and not depleting resources and things like that.
[00:33:24] Margaret Levi: Well,
I think that our notion of property has rested too much on ownership per se, and individual ownership and getting a stream of individual benefits from that ownership. It could be a family who owns, but, basically it's a set of benefits that go to the owner. And that just undermines a whole set of ways in which land, water, resources can be managed so that they want to protected for [00:34:00] perpetuity can't be just used up, which an individual or a family could do, and two, that they're there for the common use. Not just for the individual use and how to protect that common nature of the property. And we have other ways of doing that.
There's common property ownership. Common ownership of the kind that Lin Ostrom talks about and the various ways in which that can be governed. They're the kinds of Indigenous models of stewardship, which we're becoming much more alert to these days in which there isn't even that kind of ownership and usage in the same sense.
It's really, a way of ensuring that everybody gets use of that. and that in the appropriate way, and that certain things are protected. And we know that there are other kinds of models that are beginning to [00:35:00] arise, like rights of nature, for example, that need to be explored. But we have some historical examples in common property and in, in stewardship.
Which should be brought back into the equation in a much bigger way and take the emphasis off of private ownership. The whole way we got into the Colorado River situation is a combination of, who owned that original piece of land that the water was on or who bought it up. And then it became a lot of individual property rights and then government came in with all kinds of regulations that were protecting the United States, but not Mexico and we're protecting still allowing certain kinds of property, private property rights to flourish that meant that the water gets totally depleted over time and the common and collective good and nature's protection [00:36:00] are forgotten. So, I do think there are other models. And by thinking about it that way, we can begin to move towards something very different if we put sustainability up there and not just individual rights of ownership.
[00:36:17] Matt Prewitt: And what do you think about, what do you think about proposals that would, for example, give give ownership-style rights to, ecosystems or, nonhuman entities like that. So these, this is sometimes put forward as a way of using a property like scheme to vindicate these kinds of interests.
I'm just curious what your thoughts are about that, that approach.
[00:36:53] Margaret Levi: I have, I think it's interesting and potentially promising. but I think it's [00:37:00] far from worked out as a way to do things. So, for the moment, I think it's worth exploring as a possibility if we can figure out a way to do it.
but certainly there are ways, even under, some common property rights regimes and certainly some stewardship regimes think hard about, as it were, the ecosystem or the whole ecology, I mean, that's part of what they're doing. I mentioned the Australian Aborigines and when they're protecting, water resources, which is something they do a lot.
They're thinking about the whole ecology. It's not just about whether they'll have water when they come back. It's whether the land will have water, whether the, if we're talking, that's in the desert, if we're thinking about, where they're protecting water rights and the water ecology in the northern part of Australia [00:38:00] in the more tropical part, they're also thinking about the fish and, the algae, so as well as the humans who benefit from that water and what's in that water.
So it's a complex ecology already in that way of thinking. so I, I think there's still a lot to be learned from some of the historical systems that have evolved as well as thinking through some of these new approaches to, rights of nature and such.
[00:38:36] Matt Prewitt: Yeah, I think, it seems to me sometimes that what the, these approaches that create non-human agents.
Within a property scheme, it's almost like a different starting point for the creation of a polity. Polity is also a non-human agent, right? That may or may not, deeply consider the, [00:39:00] the, environmental issue
[00:39:05] Margaret Levi: But that's where formalization could come in right because you could formalize a protection through rules and through laws that make it part of what has to be done.
And we've done that to some extent when we create national parks and reserves for biodiversity. We're taking into account those features.
[00:39:37] Matt Prewitt: And then I guess moving on to the, to the 3rd, of well being. we'd love to hear a little bit more about how you think about this. So, are you thinking about.
how do questions of distributive justice, for example, coming here when you think about a property, [00:40:00] a system of property or ownership, advancing this interest, are you, do you have in the back of your mind, a conception of what well, being entails so that, for example. the neediest in the society reaching a certain level of well being is of greater value than the wealthiest, achieving, some sort of extreme, well being or something like, how do you, is your I guess what I'm asking is your conception of well being here orthogonal to those different sorts of conceptions of distributive justice?
Or does it roll in? Some thinking about that.
[00:40:50] Margaret Levi: Well, I think there are two answers to that question. One is that our schema doesn't. Yes, it doesn't necessarily rest [00:41:00] on distributed– distributional justice in the sense in which you were talking about it. So, it means that no one would be homeless, perhaps, but it doesn't mean everybody would have an equally similar home.
That nobody would lack food security, but it doesn't mean everybody gets to eat if we're still eating steak for other reasons, having to do with sustainability that everybody gets steak every night or whatever it is, or cherries or whatever, is considered a high valued food good, but everybody would be nourished.
So that's not distributional justice so much as, in terms of equality, at least it's making sure that the base is met for everyone, and [00:42:00] then there could be lots of variation. So that's one level. Our schema does is non-normative in that particular sense. Now, what do I care about? I care about distributive justice, but that's not in our schema necessarily.
So if you ask me where I would take this politically, I might take it a different place than say, Chris or Emily might. Or you might, or Jack might, or Indy might, or Jane might.
[00:42:28] Matt Prewitt: Gotcha. so I, I suppose my final, the final area that I'd love to explore is, is how you think that these, that the, that this way of thinking about property rights could concretely apply to, to the reform of institutions.
Do you have any thoughts about, how do you, how would you like. People to, take up this set of ideas. Are you, interested [00:43:00] in, in seeing this guide the, construction of new property arrangements? or yeah, I'll, I guess I'll say....
[00:43:15] Margaret Levi: Absolutely. That's what we're looking to do is to set up a schema that enables people to start thinking differently about what the property arrangement should look like.
And the 1st step in that is debunking the idea that what we have is the only way to achieve. Whatever goals we have, and then it's natural that we have to keep reminding people that this is socially and politically constructed system that it serves some things and some interests very well. Some goals and some individual interests very well and not so well on others.
And if we think about other desiderata than the ones that have been written into it, we can begin to think about what alternative arrangements like might look like and then we can have the [00:44:00] right kinds of political arguments about which goals we want to achieve and what the proper means for achieving them are.
And that's the kind of, that's what I think of as political change is. The first step in political change is getting people into that space where they can actually think that there are alternatives and that it's worth debating what those alternatives are. And then you begin to build social movements and actions around those alternatives in order to achieve them.
[00:44:32] Matt Prewitt: Amazing. I think that's a great place to, to wrap up. I guess before we end, I'll, give you a chance if you'd like to, suggest any other readings or places people might dig deeper to, to learn more about, about where your ideas are, coming from or, promising directions that you've been thinking about.
[00:44:56] Margaret Levi: Well, I will start with something of my [00:45:00] own with Federica Carugati, which is a little book on A Moral Political Economy, or the Daedalus issue that, Henry Farrell and I recently edited. Both of them talk about what it means to think about having, creating a new moral political economy and a new political economic framework and making... change possible, and to think about political change and social change.
Obviously, I think Elizabeth Anderson's work on relational equality is very important and her little book on private governance is a great, great way to start. There's a lot of other stuff of hers to delve into. I'm a big fan of Danielle Allen's, "Justice by Means of Democracy," which I think touches on a lot of this, the same and similar issues.
So those are some things that I would think of, as a sort of [00:46:00] beginning. I mean, I have a million– when we finish this piece that we're writing, which is for the annual review of political science, it's going to have a million things to, to read. There's just great work that's been done on virtually all of those desiderata, on the history of all of those forms of historic property rights that exist.
From the great classical thinkers of the Western Canon to the great classical thinkers of the Asian Canon, to lots of people, historians, political economists, economists, sociologists, philosophers, really tilling, as it were, the land and the landscape of this subject. Legal scholars, Katerina Pistor, who I know you're a big fan of as well, is someone else I would read.
I just noticed I had a disproportionate number of women in this. And I think that's interesting in and of itself. That's just who came to mind for me because some of [00:47:00] them are doing– they are doing some of the most cutting-edge thinking on some of these issues.
[00:47:06] Matt Prewitt: Amazing. Thank you so much. Appreciate you taking the time.
[00:47:11] Margaret Levi: Wonderful. Talk to you soon.
[00:47:13] Matt Prewitt: All right. Bye.
[00:47:14] Margaret Levi: Bye, Matt.