King Charles and What It Means to Own Anything

Charles III and his heirs
(official portrait)

Late last week, news broke that King Charles III seizes unclaimed property in common citizens’ estates and steers that property to his own portfolio. This doesn’t happen to every British citizen, only those resident in the historical Duchy of Lancaster, which remains part of the British monarch’s purview. Nor is the process inevitable, as one can avoid it by leaving a will or having a clear chain of inheritance.

Nevertheless, the story shocked people, who thought the idea of royal privilege over citizen property, died with the passing of medieval feudalism. For me, this raises questions about the very concept of ownership, and what states and governments are for. Modern capitalist economics requires citizens to own their property clearly, particularly “capital” property with floating value, like land. But without laws, and therefore without government, ownership is completely unenforceable.

It's easy to claim ownership of property we can carry. The currency in my wallet is clearly mine because it’s in my wallet. But we need laws enforcing when that ownership ends—when I trade that currency for goods—and when that ownership remains uninterrupted—when a mugger steals my wallet. Just because I don’t currently possess property on my person doesn’t mean I’ve relinquished ownership.

Therefore we feel safe leaving valuables, like jewelry, at home. We have portable ownership, legally termed “title,” over property we can’t carry. But that principle of title only makes sense when laws enforce it. Despite the libertarian myth that everyone would flourish if we simply rescinded most laws and regulations, we acutely depend on laws to own anything. Especially for noncorporeal property, like stock portfolios or NFTs, law makes ownership possible.

When governments rely upon a personal monarch, whose inheritance descends from Alfred the Great swinging his pig-iron sword in the middle 800s, these questions become more pointed. Yet these questions aren’t uniquely British. Even in America, where political authority doesn’t descend from any individual, we still pay property taxes and licensing fees to preserve our claim on private property. We still pay the state to own property we already bought.

The Duchy of Lancaster story reveals one dark implication of title ownership. If law makes ownership possible, then ultimately the law owns things, and simply licenses ownership to citizens. This reflects something I’ve mentioned before: you ultimately don’t own real estate. The “real” in real estate doesn’t mean literal or existing; it means royal. Real estate is the king’s permission to control or occupy property. Such permission can be rescinded.

The last photo of Elizabeth, taken
at Balmoral, days before her passing

This should go without saying, but this dual strand of ownership creates moral contradictions. Capitalist economics relies upon concepts of ownership as absolute. When somebody like Elon Musk owns corporations, stock portfolios, and land, that ownership must be inviolable. When Musk leverages his private investments as capital against, say, buying up massive social media networks, that capital must be his, in order to own the risk.

Yet clearly the property isn’t entirely his, if he and others rely upon state authority to enforce his property rights. Libertarian philosophers like Robert Nozick or P.J. O’Rourke note that state authority is always on some level coercive, and contains the implicit threat of billy clubs and riot police. All state power, including the power to enforce ownership claims on anything citizens can’t carry (like land), is tacitly violent.

King Charles III finds himself in an awkward position regarding property ownership. As monarch of the United Kingdom, all state power derives from his person, or anyway his rank. It bears emphasis that, in its origins, “king” isn’t a political rank, it’s a military rank. Early monarchs used violence, or threats of violence, to protect citizens against invaders and bandits; in return, they claimed sweeping rights within the kingdom.

But Charles is also a private citizen. If private property exists, then Charles Windsor-Mountbatten (legally distinct from Charles III) has as much right to utilize and profit from it as anybody. The inherent conflict of interest seems so obvious, it shouldn’t require comment. Yet evidently comment is required, since even in non-monarchical America, plutocrats like Donald Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy see no contradiction between private wealth and public authority.

We’re witnessing an unusually naked display of the failure of human authority. Property ownership requires law, but law frequently kneels to property and wealth. This incestuous cycle ensures that, no matter how superficially democratic our government is, power ultimately excludes ordinary people. The state may protect houses and jewelry for us pedestrians, but ultimately, state power and wealth conspire to protect themselves.