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Authors: David Harvey
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institutions which, under thelaw, are defined as legal persons (even though, as many like to point out, corporations cannot be jailed when they do wrong in the same way that living persons can). The existence of this social bond is recognised in almost all bourgeois constitutions and connects ideals of individual private property with notions of individual human rights, the ‘rights of man’ and doctrines and legal protections of those individual rights. The social bond between individual human rights and private property lies at the centre of almost all contractual theories of government.
Private property rights are in principle held in perpetuity. They do not expire or dissipate through lack of use. They can pass from one generation to another through inheritance. As a result, there is an inner connection between private property rights and non-oxidisable forms of money. Only the latter can last in perpetuity. But the evolution of forms of paper and fiat money whose relative value is subject to degradation (through, for example, inflation) undermines the initially secure connection between the perpetuity and stability of money forms and that of private property. Furthermore, under the doctrine of
res nullius
, most famously embraced by John Locke, only that private property in land which is productive of value (that is, which involves the application of productive social labour for commodity production) is deemed legitimate. Failure to produce value (and surplus value) not only justified the wholesale dispossession of the land rights of the Irish by the British, it also justified the wiping out and dispossession of ‘unproductive’ indigenous populations to make way for the ‘productive’ colonisers particularly throughout the Americas and now across much of Africa. The contemporary version of this doctrine in advanced capitalist societies is that of eminent domain, through which the appropriation of private property in land to bring it into a condition of higher and better usage is legally justified. Private property in both land and money is only, therefore, contingently perpetual.
The imposition of private property rights depends upon the existence of state powers and legal systems (usually coupled with monetary taxation arrangements) that codify, define and enforcethe contractual obligations that attach to both private property rights and the rights of juridical individuals. There is a good deal of evidence that the coercive power of the state played an important role in opening spaces within which capital could flourish well before private property regimes became dominant. This was as true in the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe as it later became when the Chinese set up special economic zones for capitalist activity in southern China after 1980. But in between usufructuary and private property rights lies a plethora of common property or customary rights, which are often confined to a given polity (like a village community or more broadly across a whole cultural regime). These rights are not necessarily open to all, but they do presuppose sharing and cooperative forms of governance between the members of the polity. The eradication of usufructuary rights and the infamous process of enclosure of the commons have led to the dominance of a system of individualised private property rights backed by state power as
the
basis for exchange relations and trade. This is the form consistent with capital circulation and accumulation.
To be private property, however, a thing or process has to be clearly bounded, nameable and identifiable (in the case of land, this rests on cadastral mapping and the construction of a land registry). Not everything is susceptible to that condition. It is almost impossible to imagine the air and the atmosphere being divisible into private property entities that can be bought and sold. What is remarkable, however, is the lengths to which capital has gone to extend the reach of
Private property rights are in principle held in perpetuity. They do not expire or dissipate through lack of use. They can pass from one generation to another through inheritance. As a result, there is an inner connection between private property rights and non-oxidisable forms of money. Only the latter can last in perpetuity. But the evolution of forms of paper and fiat money whose relative value is subject to degradation (through, for example, inflation) undermines the initially secure connection between the perpetuity and stability of money forms and that of private property. Furthermore, under the doctrine of
res nullius
, most famously embraced by John Locke, only that private property in land which is productive of value (that is, which involves the application of productive social labour for commodity production) is deemed legitimate. Failure to produce value (and surplus value) not only justified the wholesale dispossession of the land rights of the Irish by the British, it also justified the wiping out and dispossession of ‘unproductive’ indigenous populations to make way for the ‘productive’ colonisers particularly throughout the Americas and now across much of Africa. The contemporary version of this doctrine in advanced capitalist societies is that of eminent domain, through which the appropriation of private property in land to bring it into a condition of higher and better usage is legally justified. Private property in both land and money is only, therefore, contingently perpetual.
The imposition of private property rights depends upon the existence of state powers and legal systems (usually coupled with monetary taxation arrangements) that codify, define and enforcethe contractual obligations that attach to both private property rights and the rights of juridical individuals. There is a good deal of evidence that the coercive power of the state played an important role in opening spaces within which capital could flourish well before private property regimes became dominant. This was as true in the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Europe as it later became when the Chinese set up special economic zones for capitalist activity in southern China after 1980. But in between usufructuary and private property rights lies a plethora of common property or customary rights, which are often confined to a given polity (like a village community or more broadly across a whole cultural regime). These rights are not necessarily open to all, but they do presuppose sharing and cooperative forms of governance between the members of the polity. The eradication of usufructuary rights and the infamous process of enclosure of the commons have led to the dominance of a system of individualised private property rights backed by state power as
the
basis for exchange relations and trade. This is the form consistent with capital circulation and accumulation.
To be private property, however, a thing or process has to be clearly bounded, nameable and identifiable (in the case of land, this rests on cadastral mapping and the construction of a land registry). Not everything is susceptible to that condition. It is almost impossible to imagine the air and the atmosphere being divisible into private property entities that can be bought and sold. What is remarkable, however, is the lengths to which capital has gone to extend the reach of
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