The social production of property

Abstract

This paper investigates two forms of property as a social phenomenon and finds the Property Right Paradigm of economics to be wrongly conceived. Introducing new formulations for property reveals that private and communal property are frequently found together. When they are, as the scope of one increases the scope of the other shrinks. We examine how property rights are embedded in social exchange experiments. Calling on game theory, we find that communal property relations and private property relations contain exactly the same social dilemma. Furthermore, absent enforced rights, no property exists. Property comes to exist through socially producing its rights and we show that production must be coercive. We link our new theory of property to Robѐ’s analysis of property and power in contemporary society.