In America, we are eager to claim ownership: our homes, our ideas, our organs, even our own celebrity. But beneath our nation’s proprietary longing looms a troublesome question: what does it mean to own something? More simply: what is property? The question is at the heart of many contemporary controversies, including disputes over who owns everything from genetic material to indigenous culture to music and film on the Internet. To decide if and when genes or culture or digits are a kind of property that can be possessed, we must grapple with the nature of property itself. How does it originate? What purposes does it serve? Is it a natural right or one created by law? Accessible and mercifully free of legal jargon, American Property reveals the perpetual challenge of answering these questions, as new forms of property have emerged in response to technological and cultural change, and as ideas about the appropriate scope of government regulation have shifted. This first comprehensive history of property in the United States is a masterly guided tour through a contested human institution that touches all aspects of our lives and desires. Stuart Banner shows that property exists to serve a broad set of purposes, constantly in flux, that render the idea of property itself inconstant. Despite our ideals of ownership, property has always been a means toward other ends. What property signifies and what property is, we come to see, has consistently changed to match the world we want to acquire.

An argument for retaining the notion of personal property in the products we “buy” in the digital marketplace. If you buy a book at the bookstore, you own it. You can take it home, scribble in the margins, put in on the shelf, lend it to a friend, sell it at a garage sale. But is the same thing true for the ebooks or other digital goods you buy? Retailers and copyright holders argue that you don't own those purchases, you merely license them. That means your ebook vendor can delete the book from your device without warning or explanation—as Amazon deleted Orwell's 1984 from the Kindles of surprised readers several years ago. These readers thought they owned their copies of 1984. Until, it turned out, they didn't. In The End of Ownership, Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz explore how notions of ownership have shifted in the digital marketplace, and make an argument for the benefits of personal property. Of course, ebooks, cloud storage, streaming, and other digital goods offer users convenience and flexibility. But, Perzanowski and Schultz warn, consumers should be aware of the tradeoffs involving user constraints, permanence, and privacy. The rights of private property are clear, but few people manage to read their end user agreements. Perzanowski and Schultz argue that introducing aspects of private property and ownership into the digital marketplace would offer both legal and economic benefits. But, most important, it would affirm our sense of self-direction and autonomy. If we own our purchases, we are free to make whatever lawful use of them we please. Technology need not constrain our freedom; it can also empower us.

The definitive English-language collection by the first man to call himself an anarchist.

The legitimate role of the state in relation to property and the justification of property institutions of various kinds are matters of increasing concern in the modern world. Political and social theorists, jurists, economists, and historians have taken positions for and against the property institutions upheld in their time by the state, and further dehate seems inevitable. This book brings together ten classic statements which set out the main arguments that are now appealed to and places them in historical and critical perspective. The extracts presented here - all substantial - are from Loeke, Rousseau, Bentham, Marx, Mill, Green, Veblen, Tawney, Morris Cohen, and Charles Reich. A note hy the editor at the head of each extract highlights the arguments in it and relates it to the time at which it was written. Professor Macpherson's introductory and concluding essays expose the roots of some common misconceptions of property, identify current changes in the concept of property, and predict future changes. Macpherson argues that a specific change in the concept (which now appears possible) is needed to rescue liberal democracy from its present impasse. Property is both a valuable text on a crucial topic in political and social theory and a significant contribution to the continuing debate

The book brings together a refreshing collection of new essays on property theory, from legal, philosophical and political perspectives.

“Property is robbery!” This slogan coined by the French political philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon is one of his answers to the titular question of his 1840 treatise, What Is Property? A fervent attack against the established order of capitalism and private property, the publication of What Is Property? almost immediately led to Proudhon’s official prosecution and the revocation of Proudhon’s scholarship by the Academy of Besançon. (Proudhon, an autodidact of humble origins who began his working life as a printer, relied on the scholarship for financial support.) Proudhon evaded the worst of the consequences thanks to the intervention of the economist Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui, to whom the second memoir contained in the book is addressed. In this treatise, Proudhon contrasts the legitimate right to possession, in which individuals own the products of their labor and the necessary means of production, and the illegitimate right to property, the absolute right granted to proprietors by civil laws to “use and abuse.” Proudhon examines the implications of the right to property and concludes that, among other things, property is “impossible,” “homicide,” and “the mother of tyranny.” As an alternative to both the proprietary and communist systems of economic organization, Proudhon advances his anarchist economic theory of “mutualism,” in which a socialist society would be organized based on free market exchanges wherein the value of a good or service is determined by the time and expense it has cost the laborer to produce. This edition of What Is Property? was translated in 1876 by Benjamin Tucker, who was a notable advocate of individualist anarchism in his own right in the United States.

In Colonial Lives of Property Brenna Bhandar examines how modern property law contributes to the formation of racial subjects in settler colonies and to the development of racial capitalism. Examining both historical cases and ongoing processes of settler colonialism in Canada, Australia, and Israel and Palestine, Bhandar shows how the colonial appropriation of indigenous lands depends upon ideologies of European racial superiority as well as upon legal narratives that equate civilized life with English concepts of property. In this way, property law legitimates and rationalizes settler colonial practices while it racializes those deemed unfit to own property. The solution to these enduring racial and economic inequities, Bhandar demonstrates, requires developing a new political imaginary of property in which freedom is connected to shared practices of use and community rather than individual possession.

No matter how great you are at finding good rental property deals, you could lose everything if you don't manage your properties correctly! But being a landlord doesn't have to mean middle-of-the-night phone calls, costly evictions, or daily frustrations with ungrateful tenants. Being a landlord can actually be fun IF you do it right. That's why Brandon and Heather Turner put together this comprehensive book that will change the way you think of being a landlord forever. Written with both new and experienced landlords in mind, The Book on Managing Rental Properties takes you on an insider tour of the Turners' management business, so you can discover exactly how they've been able to maximize their profit, minimize their stress, and have a blast doing it! Inside, you'll discover: - The subtle mindset shift that will increase your chance at success 100x! - Low-cost strategies for attracting the best tenants who won't rip you off. - 7 tenant types we'll NEVER rent to--and that you shouldn't either! - 19 provisions that your rental lease should have to protect YOU. - Practical tips on training your tenant to pay on time and stay long term. - How to take the pain and stress out of your bookkeeping and taxes. - And much more!

A new understanding of the causes and consequences of incomplete property rights in countries across the world.