PROPERTY RIGHTS
We learn about ownership and personal ownership from our discussions about toys in our early childhood. This concept is often taken lightly, but there is nothing inevitable about the idea.
Private property is fundamental to capitalism. Karl Marx stated that the wealth produced by capitalism offers societies an "enormous collection of commodities" that are privately owned and can be bought and sold for profit.
Businesses are also privately owned and operated for profit in a free market. Without the proprietary intellectual, there is no potential for personal gain - no reason even to enter the market. There is no market in reality.
Property Types
“Property” covers a wide range from tangible property to intellectual property (such as patents or written texts).
Like slavery, it entered areas where people were seen as commodities - which even free market economists would not advocate.
Historically, material property was organized in three different ways. First, on the basis of mutual trust and tradition, everything can be shared and used by everyone as they wish.
This was the case in tribal economies and is still practiced by the Huaorani people in the Amazon.
Second, property can be collectively held and used; This is the essence of the communist system.
Third, property can be kept privately and everyone is free to do as they choose. This is the concept at the heart of capitalism.
Modern economists tend to justify private property on pragmatic grounds and argue that the market cannot function without some division of resources.
Earlier thinkers made more of a moral case for private property. The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that "property must be private."
He pointed out that when property is shared, no one takes the responsibility to maintain and improve it. Moreover, people can only be generous if they have something to give.
How Special?
In every modern society some things like streets and parks are shared as collective property.
Others, such as cars, are private property. Property rights or legal ownership normally give the owner exclusive rights over a particular resource, but this is not always the case.
For example, the owner of a house in a historic area may not be allowed to demolish it and replace it with a skyscraper or factory, or even change the use of the existing building.
Governments of every country in the world reserve the right to override private property when deemed necessary, for reasons ranging from infrastructure needs to national security issues.
Even in the United States, a loyal capitalist nation, the government can force a property owner to renounce their rights.
However, the 14th Constitutional amendment softens this blow by stating that the owner should be compensated at market price.
Freehold
In the 17th century, all land and dwellings in Europe effectively belonged to the rulers. However, the English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) spoke for individual rights and said that while God gives us sovereignty over our own bodies, we also have command over what we do.
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) later argued that private property is a legitimate expression of the self.
However, another German philosopher completely rejected the concept of private property.
Karl Marx insisted that the concept of private property was nothing more than a means by which the capitalist expropriated the labor of the proletarian, kept it in slavery and excluded it.
The proletariat is effectively removed from the elite group that controls all wealth and power.
“It is clearly better if property is private, but the use of property is common; and the legislator's special job is to create this benevolent disposition in men. ” Aristotle
Chronological Development of the Idea of Ownership
BEFORE
423-347 BC Plato argues that rulers in the Republic should collectively own property for the common good.
M. AFTER
1–250 In classical Roman law the sum of rights and powers a person has over something is called a dominium.
1265-74 Thomas Aquinas argues that property ownership is natural and good, but private property is less important than the public good.
1689 John Locke states that what you have created by your own labor rightly belongs to you.
1848 Karl Marx writes the Communist Manifesto, which advocates the complete abolition of private property.
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