The Socio-Economics of Property

It is suggested that in future work it will be useful to recognize that property exists on two levels: symbolic and real. The concept of scarcity is one important area for examination. Art-like property that can be enjoyed by many people at one time could have the potential to reduce conflict over property. Other questions for future research are noted. There are those who see property as an attribute of the mind. These scholars argue that the notion that one has control over a particular object is not inherent to the object but is derived from one's attitudes, validated by other people, and supported by one's culture. By looking at a piece of land, a truck or an oil well per se, we typically cannot discern whether the owner is a person, a community, a state; whether it is a poor or a rich person; a legal or illegitimate owner. Instead, a study of symbolic products such as bills of sale or notes in public registries, determine ownership. Those in turn reflect the social philosophy of the particular society. Some societies officially recognize little or no private property (early kibbutzim). Some assume all property to be that of the state which then allows citizens (and often only citizens, not foreigners) to lease the objects, but not to own them outright. Still other societies treat any limitation of private property as an intrusion on individual rights. Property is, thus, said to be very much a matter of orientation rather than of material objects, and must be studied as such. Many papers in this volume are dedicated to advancing this important view of property. Some, by implication, assume that this is all there is. I suggest that it is productive for intellectual, policy, and scholarly purposes to recognize that property exists on two levels. There is indeed the symbolic, contextual, or orientation-based level just discussed. There is also, however, another level-property that exists outside minds, values, and symbols. It is the "real" object in which various rights areinvested, the subject of the orientation, the item that is being contextuated.