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.

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Famous quotes containing the words personal, private and/or property:

    The whole effort of a sincere man is to erect his personal impressions into laws.
    Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)

    I am engaged to Concord and my own private pursuits by 10,000 ties, and it would be suicide to rend them.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.
    Edmund Burke (1729–1797)