Personal Property - Personal Versus Private Property

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:

    Whatever an artist’s personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.
    Willem De Kooning (b. 1904)

    Public scandal is what makes the offense; sinning in private is not sinning at all.
    Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)

    You and I ... are convinced of the fact that if our Government in Washington and in a majority of the States should revert to the control of those who frankly put property ahead of human beings instead of working for human beings under a system of government which recognizes property, the nation as a whole would again be in a bad situation.
    Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)