What Is Property?
Among the most important of inalienable or God-given rights is the right to own property. The term “property” arose from the French word “propre,” meaning “[one’s] own, self.” In its most general sense, property is anything that is characteristic of or an extension of the self.
The right to the ownership and control of what we call “private property,” however, is one of the more recently recognized rights. For thousands of years of human history, the notion of property and property rights either did not exist at all, or was the exclusive franchise of nobility. The right to private ownership of property developed over many centuries of mostly English legal experimentation. The concept of private property, meanwhile, was put on a sound philosophical footing by political theorists such as John Locke and Frédéric Bastiat.
Yet the right to property remains unacknowledged or under-acknowledged in much of the world, especially outside of countries whose legal and political traditions arose in northwestern Europe. And even in those countries — including the United States, where the right to private ownership of property was once more perfectly enshrined than anywhere else — private property is routinely disparaged by the media and attacked by legislators.
JBS Member or ShopJBS.org Customer?
Sign in with your ShopJBS.org account username and password or use that login to subscribe.
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Print edition delivery (USA)
*Available Outside USA - Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically