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Property Rights: An Overview

Below are selections of various titles and essays that pertain to the idea of property rights and the economic effect it has had on society.

• I. An Encyclopedic Overview

  Lalor’s Cyclopaedia lays out an historical overview on the rights of property, and its importance on political economy from the age of Cicero to Montesquieu and beyond.

  John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States by the best American and European Authors, ed. John J. Lalor (New York: Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 1899). Vol 3 Oath - Zollverein Chapter: PROPERTY

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/971/63517 on 2007-12-11

• II. A Politico-Economic View of Property

  Taken from Jean Baptiste Say’s A Treatise on Political Economy, Say was one of the most influential writers in the study of political economy in the 19th Century.

  Source: A Treatise on Political Economy; or the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth, ed. Clement C. Biddle, trans. C. R. Prinsep from the 4th ed. of the French, (Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855. 4th-5th ed. ).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=551&Itemid=335 on 2007/11/2

• III. Property and Natural Law

  This letter from Thomas Hodgskin to Lord Brougham best demonstrates the comparison between Lockean principles of natural law with the artificial right of property.

  Source: The Natural and Artificial Right of Property Contrasted. A Series of Letters, addressed without permission to H. Brougham, Esq. M.P. F.R.S. (London: B. Steil, 1832).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=605&Itemid=335 on 2007/11/2

• IV. Private Property and Its Effect

  Henry George was famously criticised for saying, “We must make land common property!”

  For him, he was referring to the idea that the rent of land should be paid to the community and satisfy the equal rights of all other members of the community without taking away the individual title to land and possession.

  Henry George, Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth, The Remedy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, & Co. 1912). Chapter: Chapter IV Property in Land Historically Considered

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/328/107336 on 2007-12-07

• V. Spencer and the Defense of Private Property

  Herbert Spencer accused Henry George of taking the side of the community over the individual.

  Spencer defended the right to private ownership. as well as our ethical right to property.

  Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Ethics, introduction by Tibor R. Machan (Indianapolis: LibertyClassics, 1978). Vol. 2. Chapter: CHAPTER 12.: The Right of Property

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/334/40730 on 2007-12-07

• V. Bastiat and the Non-Traditional Approach On Private Property

  Bastiat took a radical view compared to traditional property theory and he looked at property as a relationship between people with the respect to an object, and not an object itself.

  To him, property was value and in his Economic Harmonies he claims that as man progresses in society, there will be a need to invent new and more sophisticated needs and desires.

  Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Harmonies, trans by W. Hayden Boyers, ed. George B. de Huszar, introduction by Dean Russell (Irvington-on-Hudson: Foundation for Econoic Education, 1996). Chapter: 8: Private Property and Common Wealth

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/79/35530 on 2007-12-07

• VI. Property and Socialism

  A contrasting view of the rights of property from a socialistic viewpoint, Wallas examines both private and public land ownership within the foundations of non-social order.

  George Bernard Shaw, Fabian Essays in Socialism, ed. G. Bernard Shaw, American Edition Ed. by H.G. Wilshire, (New York: The Homboldt Publishing Co., 1891). Chapter: Property under Socialism by Graham Wallas, M.A., Oxford

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/298/6520 on 2007-12-07

• VII. An Anti-Socialistic View

  In this book, Guyot attacks socialism in the late 19th and 20th centuries and looks at the concept of public housing as an example to public and private trading.

  Yves Guyot, Where and Why Public Ownership has Failed, trans. H.F. Baker (London: Macmillan, 1914).

  Accessed from oll.libertyfund.org/title/326 on 2007-12-07