Property: Mainstream and Critical Positions

by Crawford Brough Macpherson (Editor)

The legitimate role of the state in relation to property and the justification of property institutions of various kinds are matters of increasing concern in the modern world. Political and social theorists, jurists, economists, and historians have taken positions for and against the property institutions upheld in their time by the state, and further dehate seems inevitable. This book brings together ten classic statements which set out the main arguments that are now appealed to and places them in historical and critical perspective. The extracts presented here - all substantial - are from Loeke, Rousseau, Bentham, Marx, Mill, Green, Veblen, Tawney, Morris Cohen, and Charles Reich. A note hy the editor at the head of each extract highlights the arguments in it and relates it to the time at which it was written. Professor Macpherson's introductory and concluding essays expose the roots of some common misconceptions of property, identify current changes in the concept of property, and predict future changes. Macpherson argues that a specific change in the concept (which now appears possible) is needed to rescue liberal democracy from its present impasse. Property is both a valuable text on a crucial topic in political and social theory and a significant contribution to the continuing debate

Genres: Philosophy

210 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1978

About the author

Macpherson was an influential Canadian political scientist who taught political theory at the University of Toronto.

Macpherson was born on 18 November 1911 in Toronto, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1933. After earning an MSc in economics at the London School of Economics where he studied under the supervision of Harold Laski, he joined the faculty of the University of Toronto in 1935. At that time a PhD in the social sciences was uncommon, but some twenty years later he submitted a collection of sixteen published papers to the London School of Economics and was awarded the DSc in economics. These papers were then published in 1953 edition as the book, Democracy in Alberta; the theory and practice of a quasi-party system. In 1956 he became a Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto.

Macpherson's best-known contribution to political philosophy is the theory of "possessive individualism", in which an individual is conceived as the sole proprietor of his or her skills and owes nothing to society for them.