Personal Versus Private Property
In political/economic theory, notably socialist (including anarchist) philosophies, the distinction between private and personal property is extremely important. Which items of property constitute which is open to debate.
- Personal property is part of your person and includes property from which you have the right to exclude others (e.g., televisions, cars, clothes, etc.)
- Private property is a social relationship, not a relationship between person and thing according to Marx (e.g., factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, etc.). In capitalism there is no distinction between personal and private property.
- To many socialists, the term private property refers to capital or the means of production, while personal property refers to consumer and non-capital goods and services.
Read more about this topic: Personal Property
Famous quotes containing the words personal, private and/or property:
“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with course black hair, and grey eyes—no other marks or brands recollected.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Strange and predatory and truly dangerous, car thieves and muggers—they seem to jeopardize all our cherished concepts, even our self-esteem, our property rights, our powers of love, our laws and pleasures. The only relationship we seem to have with them is scorn or bewilderment, but they belong somewhere on the dark prairies of a country that is in the throes of self-discovery.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)