Property

Few political ideas are as divisive and controversial for some – and yet taken for granted by others – as the ownership of private property. For its defenders, private ownership is a fundamental right that protects individual freedom and ensures wider economic benefits for the community; for its critics, by contrast, property is institutionalised theft, responsible for lamentable levels of inequality and poverty. In this book, Robert Lamb explores philosophical arguments deployed to conceptualise, justify, and criticise private property ownership. He introduces the radical case against property advanced by anarchist and socialist writers, before analysing some of the most important and influential arguments in its favour. Lamb explains and assesses the various defences of property rights advanced by Locke, Hume, Hegel, J. S. Mill, and Nozick. He then shows how theorists such as John Rawls and his followers encourage us to rethink the very nature of ownership in a democratic society. This engaging synthesis of historical and contemporary theories of property will be essential reading for students and scholars of political philosophy.

Introduction: What is Property? Contesting concepts An historical approach to the concept of property Structure of the book Notes 1 The Case against Private Property Jean-Jacques Rousseau Proudhon and the anarchist case against property Socialism and the idea of life without private ownership Conclusion Notes 2 Libertarianism and the Natural Right to Property The inviolability of property rights Property and freedom The concept of self-ownership The legacy of Locke Notes 3 Natural Law and the Gnarled Roots of Self-Ownership The role of theology in natural law theories of property Back to Nozick Redistributive libertarianism Conclusion Notes 4 Property for the Greater Good: Utilitarian Theories of Ownership Utilitarianism as normative political theory Hume and the emergence of property The utilitarianisms of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill Evaluating the utilitarian theories of property Conclusion Notes 5 Ownership as Will in the World: Hegel’s Account of Property Property as freedom Moments of ownership Property and poverty: the problem of ‘the rabble’ Conclusion Notes 6 Property within Justice: Rawls and Beyond Rawls on the right to private property Property and distributive justice Property-owning democracy and the concept of predistribution Conclusion Notes Conclusion Bibliography Index