Thinking about Property: From Antiquity to the Age of Revolution

Ideas in Context

by Peter Garnsey

Explores ancient foundational texts relating to property and their reception by later thinkers in their various contexts up to the early nineteenth century. The texts include Plato's vision of an ideal polity in the Republic, Jesus' teachings on renunciation and poverty, and Golden Age narratives and other evolutionary accounts of the transition of mankind from primeval communality to regimes of ownership. The issue of the legitimacy of private ownership exercises the minds of the major political thinkers as well as theologians and jurists throughout the ages. The book gives full consideration to the historical development of Rights Theory, with special reference to the right to property. It ends with a comparative study of the Declarations of Rights in the American and French Revolutions and seeks to explain, with reference to contemporary documents, why the French recognised an inalienable, human right to property whereas the Americans did not.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Nonfiction

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 2007

About the author

Professor Peter Garnsey is Emeritus Professor of the History of Classical Antiquity and a Fellow of Jesus College. His research interests include: history of Political Theory and Intellectual history; social and economic history; food, famine and nutrition; and physical anthropology.

Reviews

[Wendelle]

I read this a bit too hastily and absent-mindedly for a book of considerable topical heft... it's a book that documents chronological viewpoints about the idea of owning property, and how views have run the entire spectrum, from 'property is bad' to 'property is great'. One noticeable thing is how every age's dominant philosophers propose a viewpoint on property that reflects the societal concerns of their times...
For Romans like Cicero, property ownership was a material signal of character ideals like social status and dignitas, so Cicero was quite adamant about property rights, his own in particular.

For theologians like Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscans of the medieval era, the issue of extent and rectitude of property ownership and poverty was examined through the teachings and life of Jesus. The Franciscans obviously drew the conclusion that poverty and abandonment of all possessions was necessary to follow Jesus, but Thomas Aquinas erected his own clever way of sanctifying wealth and ownership within the Christian tradition by concluding that the virtue of obedience trumped poverty, and wealthy people could keep their material goods if they practiced charity.

Meanwhile, a humorous panel that circulated in Germany in the late 1800s succinctly summed up the viewpoints on property of the three consecutive centuries:
16th century: Each gets what he rightly deserves, according to divine justice.
17th century: The king owns and disposes of all property as he will.
18th century: 'Property is theft'.

Similarly, philosophers like Locke, Hume, and Hegel thought of the question of property ownership within the great compelling issue of their time, which was the philosophical basis for civil government.

An entertaining read if one is interested in these issues.