property

In social life, to have something as property is to have the right to use it. Use may here include exclusion of other people, consumption, transfer, loan, alteration, destruction, etc., so it can come in various degrees. There is no reason for all such uses to be protected by law as one indivisible whole (for instance, a property right in land need not include the right to exclude the public or destroy the land; ownership of a building may not even include the right to alter it at will; my right to use my arm may not go with a right to sell it to someone else). The foundation of individual property rights is a principal topic of political theory. Suggestions include that of Locke, that we have a natural right in that with which we have ‘mixed our labour’; the consequentialist argument that without such rights things would be worse all round; and the Hegelian view that only in a framework of property rights is individual freedom possible. Again, there are differences depending upon what kind of property is in question: private possession of the means of production of goods may be treated quite differently from private rights to consumption of goods (see Proudhon ). The abolition of private property is one of the aims of the Communist Manifesto (see Marx ).