The prehistory of private property : implications for modern political theory / Karl Widerquist, Grant McCall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Widerquist, Karl, author.

McCall, Grant S., author.

Series:

Edinburgh scholarship online.

Edinburgh scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Right of property--History.

Right of property.

Political science--Philosophy--History.

Political science.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

Summary:

This title debunks three false claims commonly accepted by contemporary political philosophers regarding property systems: that inequality is natural, inevitable, or incompatible with freedom; that capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system; and that the normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world in which we live support a capitalist system with strong, individualist and unequal private property rights. The authors review the history of the use and importance of these claims in philosophy, and use thorough anthropological and historical evidence to refute them.

Contents:

Intro

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

Part One: The inequality hypothesis

2. Hierarchy's Apologists, Part One: 5,000 Years of Clever and Contradictory Arguments that Inequality is Natural and Inevitable

3. Hierarchy's Apologists, Part Two: Natural Inequality in Contemporary Political Philosophy and Social Science

4. How Small-Scale Societies Maintain Political, Social, and Economic Equality

Part Two: The market freedom hypothesis

5. The Negative Freedom Argument for the Market Economy

6. The Negative Freedom Argument for the Hunter-Gatherer Band Economy

Part Three: The individual appropriation hypothesis

7. Contemporary Property Theory: A Story, a Myth, a Principle, and a Hypothesis

8. The History of an Hypothesis

9. The Impossibility of a Purely A Priori Justifi cation of Private Property

10. Evidence Provided by Propertarians to Support the Appropriation Hypothesis

11. Property Systems in Hunter-Gatherer Societies

12. Property Systems in Stateless Farming Communities

13. Property Systems in Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern States

14. The Privatization of the Earth, 1500-2000 ce

15. The Individual Appropriation Hypothesis Assessed

Conclusion

16. Conclusion

References

Index.

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (viewed on May 5, 2022).

ISBN:

9781474447454

1474447457

9781474496452

1474496458

9781474447447

1474447449

OCLC:

1243547729