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Comment by Tomte | Hacker News Reader

Yes, indeed. The German constitution clearly states

"Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the public good."

(https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...)

I love this, because it obliterates the "but why should I have to do anything for other people?!" argument of my conservatives friends here in the USA.

They always dance this weird line between "the deep state run by the rich are destroying this country for their profit" and "people should be allowed to make money however they want, and do whatever they want with that money."

This is very interesting. What are the limits on this?

The prior sentence refers to inheritance, so it's clearly about personal property also (if not exclusively). But if someone inherits a Porsche, in what way is it supposed to serve the public good?

Also, the following sentence discusses expropriation (which appears to be what is known in the US as eminent domain). And the title of the section is "Property — Inheritance — Expropriation".

I wonder if this means this section (including the intriguing sentence you quoted) is just talking about rules for inheriting and expropriating property. That is, perhaps it's not a general rule for property to serve the public good (just that it may be called to do so in cases of expropriation).

I would be very interested to know how other people interpret this sentence and the section in which it's found.

I'm not German, and obviously not familiar with German law, but it sounds to me like this sentence is not itself enumerating any particular limits, but rather serving as a reminder of the kind of philosophy they want the law to obey: that property is not a fundamental and absolute right like the right to life (as it is in the Lockean conception which influenced British and American law), but rather a conditional one, whose precise definition should be tuned to whatever is best for society as a whole.

What I mean is, I think history has shown that the "best" definition of property (as in, which one has the best outcomes for society) is one that's "mostly private". Full Communism clearly doesn't work very well, but an absolutely inviolate right to private property carries all kinds of problems too, so instead most countries have settled on a flexible definition where there is private property with an enumerated set of restrictions and limitations (which a hardcore Lockean can't do, because to them property is absolute). The sentence in the constitution seems like a reminder of this when it comes time for a constitutional judge to evaluate a particular law, which I think is right - a constitution can't cover every possible situation, it should be a set of guidelines for entering unfamiliar territory.

Right, on that level many things are basically abstract formulations of intent over which people can debate a long time. :-)

There is also Article 20, saying in part: "The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social federal state.

So the social obligation of property isn't a fluke, but more a consequence of this provision.

The "social" is really important here and it is being interpreted as a real duty of the state to achieve social welfare. And it is so central to our constitution that it is protected by the "eternity clause" in Article 79:

"Amendments to this Basic Law affecting the division of the Federation into Länder, their participation on principle in the legislative process, or the principles laid down in Articles 1 and 20 shall be inadmissible."

It's probably been thought of and accounted for already, but I have to ask: could the government first amend the constitution to remove Article 79, and then start messing with the parts it protected? :).

Article 79 does not overtly protect itself in the literal text, but constitutional scholars are pretty much unanimous in their assessment that Article 79 is indeed included, because any other interpretation would render Article 79 pretty much useless.

(Teleological interpretation)

From what I know, the current legal consensus is that this is not possible (despite not being explicitly mentioned, which really seems like a strange oversight, but it's seen as being obviously the intent of article 79) – the only way to get rid of it would be to replace the Grundgesetz with a new constitution. (Some argue that since the institutions that could replace it are bound by the Grundgesetz, them enacting a constitution that doesn't provide the protections of article 1-20 would not be legal, but that's further in the realm of untested theories)

And of course, changes like this would be likely to happen in political environments that don't care about these things.

The article is number 14, so it's a basic right – articles 1 through 19 – we open our constitution with our rights, we don't add them as an afterthought in some amendments. ;-)

So paragraph 1 guarantees property and inheritance. And makes both subject to limitations, set out by law (freedom of art, for example, is not limited by laws, at least not literally in the text of the constitution).

Paragraph 2 lays out one such limitation: social benefit.

Paragraph 3 lays out a means to achieve that: expropriation (exceedingly rare, I think it is sometimes used for huge infrastructure projects like Autobahnen or railroad tracks, but only after years of negotiations).

So it is indeed a general rule, not a detail to expropriation.

To your question about the limits on paragraph 2 let me just throw in a bit from the German Wikipedia, without having checked it:

* Not all property is subject to this limit to the basic right to property, but only such property that has "social relevance"

I would interpret it so that apartments and housing are clearly having social relevance, but your Porsche probably hasn't.

Furthermore:

* Those limitations to the basic right to property must be rooted in fomal law, not just regulations or jurisprudence.

Super helpful, especially the "social relevance" limitation. Thanks!

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