The following works deal with the idea of private property from a number of perspectives: as a “right” which all individuals have (philosophical), as the basis for the rule of law in a free society (legal), as a key aspect of any properly functioning free market society (economic), and as an important part of the emergence of free societies in the West (historical). Some of the works are critical of the classical liberal idea of property (e.g. Rousseau, Bentham, George).
| authors and editors |
title |
pub. date ↑ |
| author: Gaius, translator: Edward Poste, introduction: Abel Hendy Jones Greenidge |
Institutes of Roman Law |
160 AD |
| author: Hugo Grotius, editor: Richard Tuck, editor: Jean Barbeyrac |
The Rights of War and Peace (2005 ed.) vol. 2 (Book II) |
1625 |
| author: Thomas Hobbes, introduction: William George Pogson Smith |
Leviathan (1909 ed) |
1651 |
| author: Samuel von Pufendorf, author: Jean Barbeyrac, translator: Andrew Tooke, editor: Ian Hunter, editor: David Saunders |
The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature |
1673 |
| author: John Locke, editor: Thomas Hollis |
The Two Treatises of Civil Government (Hollis ed.) |
1689 |
| author: Gershom Carmichael, editor: James Moore, translator: Michael Silverthorne |
Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment: The Writings of Gershom Carmichael |
1724 |
| author: David Hume, editor: Lewis Amherst Selby-Bigge |
A Treatise of Human Nature (1896 ed.) |
1739 |
| author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, editor: G.D.H. Cole |
The Social Contract and Discourses |
1761 |
| author: Adam Ferguson |
An Essay on the History of Civil Society |
1767 |
| author: Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, translator: Sir William James Ashley |
Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Riches (1898 ed.) |
1770 |
| author: William Paley, foreword: D.L. Le Mahieu |
The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy |
1785 |
| author: Thomas Paine, editor: Moncure Daniel Conway |
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. III (1791-1804) |
1791 |
| author: William Godwin |
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Vol. II. |
1793 |
| author: John Millar |
Letters of Sidney, on Inequality of Property. To which is added, a Treatise of the Effects of War on Commercial Prosperity |
1796 |
| author: Immanuel Kant, translator: William Hastie |
The Philosophy of Law: An Exposition of the Fundamental Principles of Jurisprudence as the Science of Right |
1796 |
| author: Jean Baptiste Say, translator: Charles Robert Prinsep, editor: Clement C. Biddle |
A Treatise on Political Economy |
1803 |
| author: Benjamin Constant, editor: Etienne Hofmann, translator: Dennis O’Keeffe, introduction: Nicholas Capaldi |
Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments |
1815 |
| author: Thomas Hodgskin |
The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted |
1832 |
| author: Jeremy Bentham, editor: John Bowring |
The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 (Judicial Procedure, Anarchical Fallacies, works on Taxation) |
1843 |
| author: John Stuart Mill, editor: John M. Robson, introduction: Vincent Wheeler Bladen |
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume II - The Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy (Books I-II) |
1848 |
| author: Gustave de Molinari |
Les Soirées de la Rue Saint-Lazare: Entretiens sur les lois économiques et défense de la propriété |
1849 |
| author: John Stuart Mill, editor: John M. Robson, introduction: Lionel Robbins |
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume V - Essays on Economics and Society Part II (Chapters of Socialism) |
1850 |
| author: Frédéric Bastiat, editor: George B. de Huszar, translator: W. Hayden Boyers, introduction: Dean Russell |
Economic Harmonies (Boyers trans.) |
1850 |
| author: Frédéric Bastiat, translator: Dean Russell, introduction: Walter E. Williams, foreword: Sheldon L. Richman |
The Law |
1850 |
| author: Herbert Spencer |
Social Statics |
1851 |
| author: Francis Lieber, editor: Theodore D. Woolsey |
On Civil Liberty and Self-Government |
1853 |
| author: Gustave de Molinari |
Cours d’Économie Politique vol. 1 |
1854 |
| author: Lysander Spooner |
The Law of Intellectual Property; or An Essay on the Right of Authors and Inventors to a Perpetual Property in their Ideas |
1855 |
| author: Sir Henry Sumner Maine, introduction: Sir Frederick Pollock |
Ancient Law, its connection with the early history of society and its relation to modern ideas |
1861 |
| author: Henry George |
Progress and Poverty |
1879 |
| editor: John Joseph Lalor |
Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States, vol. 3 Oath - Zollverein |
1881 |
| author: Wordsworth Donisthorpe |
Individualism: A System of Politics |
1889 |
| author: Gustave de Molinari |
Notions fondamentales d’Économie politique et programme économique |
1891 |
| author: Herbert Spencer, introduction: Tibor R. Machan |
The Principles of Ethics, vol. 2 |
1897 |
| author: Yves Guyot |
Socialistic Fallacies |
1910 |
| author: Yves Guyot, translator: Harriet Franc Baker |
Where and Why Public Ownership has Failed |
1912 |
| author: Ludwig von Mises, foreword: Friedrich August von Hayek, translator: J. Kahane |
Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis |
1922 |
| author: John Maxcy Zane, introduction: James M. Beck, foreword: Charles J. Reid, Jr. |
The Story of the Law |
1927 |
| author: Heinrich Rommen, translator: Thomas R. Hanley, introduction: Russell Hittinger |
The Natural Law: A Study in Legal and Social History and Philosophy |
1936 |
| author: Ludwig von Mises, editor: Bettina Bien Greaves |
Liberalism: The Classical Tradition (LF ed.) |
1962 |
| author: Geoffrey Brennan, author: James M. Buchanan, foreword: Robert D. Tollison |
The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Vol. 10 (The Reason of Rules: Constitutional Political Economy) |
1985 |
| author: Ludwig von Mises, editor: Bettina Bien Greaves |
Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, vol. 2 (LF ed.) |
1996 |
Titles (by Subject)