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<br><br>In his classic text, "The Common Law", Oliver Wendell Holmes
describes property as having two fundamental aspects. The first is
possession, which can be defined as control over a resource based on
the practical inability of another to contradict the ends of the
possessor. The second is title, which is the expectation that others
will recognize rights to control resource, even when it is not in
possession. He elaborates the differences between these two concepts,
and proposes a history of how they came to be attached to individuals,
as opposed to families or entities such as the church.
<p>According to Adam Smith,
the expectation of profit from "improving one's stock of capital" rests
on private property rights, and the belief that property rights
encourage the property holders to develop the property, generate wealth, and efficiently allocate resources based on the operation of the market is central to capitalism.
>From this evolved the modern conception of property as a right which is
enforced by positive law, in the expectation that this would produce
more wealth and better standards of living.</p>
<ul><li>Classical liberals, libertarians, and related traditions</li></ul>
<dl><dd>
<dl><dd>"Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist
without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to
work and keep the results, which means: the right of property." (Ayn Rand, <i>Atlas Shrugged</i>)</dd></dl>
</dd></dl>
<dl><dd>Most thinkers from these traditions subscribe to the labor theory of property.
They hold that you own your own life, and it follows that you must own
the products of that life, and that those products can be traded in
free exchange with others.</dd></dl>
<dl><dd>
<dl><dd>"Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has a right to, but himself." (John Locke, <i>Second Treatise on Civil Government</i>)</dd></dl>
</dd></dl>
<dl><dd>
<dl><dd>"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made
laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property
existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." (Frédéric Bastiat, <i>The Law</i>)</dd></dl>
</dd></dl>
<dl><dd>
<dl><dd>"The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property." (John Locke, <i>Second Treatise on Civil Government</i>)</dd></dl>
</dd></dl><br>