Property

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5095-1919-4
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 176 Seiten, Format (B × H): 142 mm x 218 mm, Gewicht: 340 g

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lamb, Robert

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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

Über Autor(innen)

Robert Lamb is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Exeter.