Essay Archive - The Theory of Property
The Theory of Property
While Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines property as "something
regarded as being possessed by, or at the disposal of, a person or group of
persons species or class," (p. 1078) this definition hardly holds the
connotations so emphatically discussed by the anthropologist Morgan. To Morgan,
"property has been so immense...so diversified its uses so expanding...that it
has become...an unmanageable power." (p.561) Why has it become such an
unmanageable power? Morgan answers this question with the simple answer that it
is due to the linear evolution of the social institution of property....
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