   #copyright

Property

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Politics and government

   Property designates those things that are commonly recognized as the
   entities that a person or group has exclusive rights in respect of.
   Important types of property include real property (land), personal
   property (other physical possessions), and intellectual property
   (rights over artistic creations, inventions, etc.). A right of
   ownership is associated with property that establishes the good as
   being "one's own thing" in relation to other individuals or groups,
   assuring the owner the right to dispense with the property in a manner
   he or she sees fit, whether to use or not use, exclude others from
   using, or to transfer ownership. Some philosophers assert that property
   rights arise from social convention. Others find origins for them in
   morality or natural law.

Use of the term

   Various scholarly communities (e.g., law, economics, anthropology,
   sociology) may treat the concept more systematically, but definitions
   vary within and between fields. Scholars in the social sciences
   frequently conceive of property as a bundle of rights. They stress that
   property is not a relationship between people and things, but a
   relationship between people with regard to things.

   Private property is sometimes used synonymously with individual
   ownership, but the term may also be used to include collectively-owned
   property in the form of corporate ownership. Both of these are distinct
   from public property, which is that which belongs to a whole community
   collectively or a state.

General characteristics

   Modern property rights conceive of ownership and possession as
   belonging to legal individuals, even if the legal individual is not a
   real person. Corporations, for example, have legal rights similar to
   American citizens, including many of their constitutional rights.
   Therefore, the corporation is a juristi person or artificial legal
   entity, which some refer to as "corporate personhood".

   Property rights are protected in the current laws of states usually
   found in the form of a Constitution or a Bill of Rights. The fifth and
   the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution, for
   example, provides explicitly for the protection of private property:

   The Fifth Amendment states:

          Nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due
          process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public
          use, without just compensation.

   The Fourteenth Amendment states:

          No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
          privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor
          shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
          property, without due process of law.

   Protection is also found in the United Nations Universal Declaration of
   Human Rights, Article 17, and in the The French Declaration of the
   Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Article XVII, and in the European
   Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Protocol 1.

   Property is usually thought of in terms of a bundle of rights as
   defined and protected by the local sovereignty. Ownership, however,
   does not necessarily equate with sovereignty. If ownership gave supreme
   authority it would be sovereignty, not ownership. These are two
   different concepts.

   Traditionally, that bundle of rights includes:
    1. control of the use of the property
    2. the right to any benefit from the property (examples: mining rights
       and rent)
    3. a right to transfer or sell the property
    4. a right to exclude others from the property.

   Legal systems have evolved to cover the transactions and disputes which
   arise over the possession, use, transfer and disposal of property, most
   particularly involving contracts. Positive law defines such rights, and
   a judiciary is used to adjudicate and to enforce.

   In his classic text, "The Common Law", Oliver Wendell Holmes describes
   property as having two fundamental aspects. The first is possession,
   which can be defined as control over a resource based on the practical
   inability of another to contradict the ends of the possessor. The
   second is title, which is the expectation that others will recognize
   rights to control resource, even when it is not in possession. He
   elaborates the differences between these two concepts, and proposes a
   history of how they came to be attached to individuals, as opposed to
   families or entities such as the church.

   According to Adam Smith, the expectation of profit from "improving
   one's stock of capital" rests on private property rights, and the
   belief that property rights encourage the property holders to develop
   the property, generate wealth, and efficiently allocate resources based
   on the operation of the market is central to capitalism. From this
   evolved the modern conception of property as a right which is enforced
   by positive law, in the expectation that this would produce more wealth
   and better standards of living.
     * Classical liberals, libertarians, and related traditions

                "Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights
                can exist without the right to translate one's rights into
                reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which
                means: the right of property." ( Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)

          Most thinkers from these traditions subscribe to the labor
          theory of property. They hold that you own your own life, and it
          follows that you must own the products of that life, and that
          those products can be traded in free exchange with others.

                "Every man has a property in his own person. This nobody
                has a right to, but himself." (John Locke, Second Treatise
                on Civil Government)

                "Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have
                made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life,
                liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men
                to make laws in the first place." ( Frédéric Bastiat, The
                Law)

                "The reason why men enter into society is the preservation
                of their property." (John Locke, Second Treatise on Civil
                Government)

     * Socialism's fundamental principles are centered on a critique of
       this concept, stating, among other things, that the cost of
       defending property is higher than the returns from private property
       ownership, and that even when property rights encourage the
       property-holder to develop his property, generate wealth, etc., he
       will only do so for his own benefit, which may not coincide with
       the benefit of other people or society at large (and which is
       argued to go against the interests of non-property-holders).

     * Libertarian socialism generally accepts property rights, but with a
       short abandonment time period. In other words, a person must make
       (more or less) continuous use of the item or else he loses
       ownership rights. This is usually referred to as "possession
       property" or " usufruct." Thus, in this usufruct system, absentee
       ownership is illegitimate, and workers own the machines they work
       with. This type of property system has the effect of preventing
       capitalism.

     * Communism argues that only collective ownership through a polity,
       though not necessarily a state, will assure the minimization of
       unequal or unjust outcomes and the maximization of benefits, and
       that therefore all, or almost all, private property should be
       abolished.
       Both communism and some kinds of socialism have also upheld the
       notion that private property is inherently illegitimate. This
       argument is centered mainly on the idea that the creation of
       private property will always benefit one class over another, giving
       way to domination through the use of this private property.
       However, some socialists believe in the use of personal property
       and communists are not opposed to that which is "Hard-won,
       self-acquired, self-earned" ( Communist Manifesto), by members of
       the proletariat.

   Not every person, or entity, with an interest in a given piece of
   property may be able to exercise all of the rights mentioned a few
   paragraphs above. For example, as a lessee of a particular piece of
   property, you may not sell the property, because the tenant is only in
   possession, and does not have title to transfer. Similarly, while you
   are a lessee the owner cannot use his or her right to exclude to keep
   you from the property. (Or, if he or she does you may perhaps be
   entitled to stop paying rent or perhaps sue to regain access.)

   Further, property may be held in a number of forms, e.g. joint
   ownership, community property, sole ownership, lease, etc. These
   different types of ownership may complicate an owner's ability to
   exercise his or her rights unilaterally. For example if two people own
   a single piece of land as joint tenants, then depending on the law in
   the jurisdiction, each may have limited recourse for the actions of the
   other. For example, one of the owners might sell his or her interest in
   the property to a stranger that the other owner does not particularly
   like.

Theories of property

   A natural rights definition of property rights was advanced by John
   Locke. Locke advanced the theory that when one mixes one’s labor with
   nature, one gains ownership of that part of nature with which the labor
   is mixed, subject to the limitation that there should be "enough, and
   as good, left in common for others" .

   Anthropology studies the diverse systems of ownership, rights of use
   and transfer, and possession under the term "theories of property".
   Western legal theory is based, as mentioned, on the owner of property
   being a legal individual. However, not all property systems are founded
   on this basis.

   In every culture studied ownership and possession are the subject of
   custom and regulation, and "law" where the term can meaningfully be
   applied. Many tribal cultures balance individual ownership with the
   laws of collective groups: tribes, families, associations and nations.
   For example the 1839 Cherokee Constitution frames the issue in these
   terms:

          Sec. 2. The lands of the Cherokee Nation shall remain common
          property; but the improvements made thereon, and in the
          possession of the citizens respectively who made, or may
          rightfully be in possession of them: Provided, that the citizens
          of the Nation possessing exclusive and indefeasible right to
          their improvements, as expressed in this article, shall possess
          no right or power to dispose of their improvements, in any
          manner whatever, to the United States, individual States, or to
          individual citizens thereof; and that, whenever any citizen
          shall remove with his effects out of the limits of this Nation,
          and become a citizen of any other government, all his rights and
          privileges as a citizen of this Nation shall cease: Provided,
          nevertheless, That the National Council shall have power to
          re-admit, by law, to all the rights of citizenship, any such
          person or persons who may, at any time, desire to return to the
          Nation, on memorializing the National Council for such
          readmission.

   Communal property systems describe ownership as belonging to the entire
   social and political unit, while corporate systems describe ownership
   as being attached to an identifiable group with an identifiable
   responsible individual. The Roman property law was based on such a
   corporate system.

   Different societies may have different theories of property for
   differing types of ownership. Pauline Peters argued that property
   systems are not isolable from the social fabric, and notions of
   property may not be stated as such, but instead may be framed in
   negative terms: for example the taboo system among Polynesian peoples.

Property in philosophy

   In medieval and Renaissance Europe the term "property" essentially
   referred to land. Much rethinking was necessary in order for land to
   come to be regarded as only a special case of the property genus. This
   rethinking was inspired by at least three broad features of early
   modern Europe: the surge of commerce, the breakdown of efforts to
   prohibit interest (so-called " usury"), and the development of
   centralized national monarchies.

Ancient philosophy

   Aristotle, in Politics, advocates "private property." In one of the
   first known expositions of tragedy of the commons he says, "that which
   is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.
   Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common
   interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual." In
   addition, he says when property is common there are natural problems
   that arise due to differences in labor: "If they do not share equally
   enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little will
   necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume
   much. But indeed there is always a difficulty in men living together
   and having all human relations in common, but especially in their
   having common property." ( Politics, 1261b34)

Pre-industrial English philosophy

   Thomas Hobbes 1600s

   The principal writings of Thomas Hobbes appeared between 1640 and
   1651—during and immediately following the war between forces loyal to
   King Charles I and those loyal to Parliament. In his own words, Hobbes'
   reflection began with the idea of "giving to every man his own," a
   phrase he drew from the writings of Cicero. But he wondered: How can
   anybody call anything his own? In that unsettled time and place it
   perhaps was natural that he would conclude: My own can only truly be
   mine if there is one unambiguously strongest power in the realm, and
   that power treats it as mine, protecting its status as such.

   James Harrington 1600s

   A contemporary of Hobbes, James Harrington, reacted differently to the
   same tumult; he considered property natural but not inevitable. The
   author of Oceana, he may have been the first political theorist to
   postulate that political power is a consequence, not the cause, of the
   distribution of property. He said that the worst possible situation is
   one in which the commoners have half a nation's property, with crown
   and nobility holding the other half—a circumstance fraught with
   instability and violence. A much better situation (a stable republic)
   will exist once the commoners own most property, he suggested.

   In later years, the ranks of Harrington's admirers would include
   American revolutionary and founder John Adams.

   Robert Filmer 1600s

   Another member of the Hobbes/Harrington generation, Sir Robert Filmer,
   reached conclusions much like Hobbes', but through Biblical exegesis.
   Filmer said that the institution of kingship is analogous to that of
   fatherhood, that subjects are but children, whether obedient or unruly,
   and that property rights are akin to the household goods that a father
   may dole out among his children—his to take back and dispose of
   according to his pleasure.

   John Locke 1600s

   In the following generation, John Locke sought to answer Filmer,
   creating a rationale for a balanced constitution in which the monarch
   would have a part to play, but not an overwhelming part. Since Filmer's
   views essentially require that the Stuart family be uniquely descended
   from the patriarchs of the Bible, and since even in the late
   seventeenth century that was a difficult view to uphold, Locke attacked
   Filmer's views in his First Treatise on Civil Government, freeing him
   to set out his own views in the Second Treatise on Civil Government.
   Therein, Locke imagined a pre-social world, the unhappy residents of
   which create a social contract. They would, he allowed, create a
   monarchy, but its task would be to execute the will of an elected
   legislature.

   "To this end" he wrote, meaning the end of their own long life and
   peace, "it is that men give up all their natural power to the society
   they enter into, and the community put the legislative power into such
   hands as they think fit, with this trust, that they shall be governed
   by declared laws, or else their peace, quiet, and property will still
   be at the same uncertainty as it was in the state of nature."

   Even when it keeps to proper legislative form, though, Locke held that
   there are limits to what a government established by such a contract
   might rightly do.

   "It cannot be supposed that [the hypothetical contractors] they should
   intend, had they a power so to do, to give any one or more an absolute
   arbitrary power over their persons and estates, and put a force into
   the magistrate's hand to execute his unlimited will arbitrarily upon
   them; this were to put themselves into a worse condition than the state
   of nature, wherein they had a liberty to defend their right against the
   injuries of others, and were upon equal terms of force to maintain it,
   whether invaded by a single man or many in combination. Whereas by
   supposing they have given up themselves to the absolute arbitrary power
   and will of a legislator, they have disarmed themselves, and armed him
   to make a prey of them when he pleases..."

   Note that both "persons and estates" are to be protected from the
   arbitrary power of any magistrate, inclusive of the "power and will of
   a legislator." In Lockean terms, depredations against an estate are
   just as plausible a justification for resistance and revolution as are
   those against persons. In neither case are subjects required to allow
   themselves to become prey.

   To explain the ownership of property Locke advanced a labor theory of
   property.

   William Blackstone 1700s

   In the 1760s, William Blackstone sought to codify the English common
   law. In his famous Commentaries on the Laws of England he wrote that
   "every wanton and causeless restraint of the will of the subject,
   whether produced by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular assembly is a
   degree of tyranny."

   How should such tyranny be prevented or resisted? Through property
   rights, Blackstone thought, which is why he emphasized that
   indemnification must be awarded a non-consenting owner whose property
   is taken by eminent domain, and that a property owner is protected
   against physical invasion of his property by the laws of trespass and
   nuisance. Indeed, he wrote that a landowner is free to kill any
   stranger on his property between dusk and dawn, even an agent of the
   King, since it isn't reasonable to expect him to recognize the King's
   agents in the dark.

   David Hume 1700s

   In contrast to the figures discussed in this section thus far, David
   Hume lived a relatively quiet life that had settled down to a
   relatively stable social and political structure. He lived the life of
   a solitary writer until 1763 when, at 52 years of age, he went off to
   Paris to work at the British embassy.

   In contrast, one might think, to his outrage-generating works on
   religion and his skeptical views in epistemology, Hume's views on law
   and property were quite conservative.

   He did not believe in hypothetical contracts, or in the love of mankind
   in general, and sought to ground politics upon actual human beings as
   one knows them. "In general," he wrote, "it may be affirmed that there
   is no such passion in human mind, as the love of mankind, merely as
   such, independent of personal qualities, or services, or of relation to
   ourselves." Existing customs should not lightly be disregarded, because
   they have come to be what they are as a result of human nature. With
   this endorsement of custom comes an endorsement of existing
   governments, because he conceived of the two as complementary: "A
   regard for liberty, though a laudable passion, ought commonly to be
   subordinate to a reverence for established government."

   These views led to a view on property rights that might today be
   described as legal positivism. There are property rights because of and
   to the extent that the existing law, supported by social customs,
   secure them. He offered some practical home-spun advice on the general
   subject, though, as when he referred to avarice as "the spur of
   industry," and expressed concern about excessive levels of taxation,
   which "destroy industry, by engendering despair."

Critique and response

   By the mid 19th century, the industrial revolution had transformed
   England and had begun in France. The established conception of what
   constitutes property expanded beyond land to encompass scarce goods in
   general. In France, the revolution of the 1790s had led to large-scale
   confiscation of land formerly owned by church and king. The restoration
   of the monarchy led to claims by those dispossessed to have their
   former lands returned. Furthermore, the labor theory of value
   popularized by classical economists such as Adam Smith and David
   Ricardo were utilized by a new ideology called socialism to critique
   the relations of property to other economic issues, such as profit,
   rent, interest, and wage-labor. Thus, property was no longer an
   esoteric philosophical question, but a political issue of substantial
   concern.

   Charles Comte - legitimate origin of property

   Charles Comte, in Traité de la propriété (1834), attempted to justify
   the legitimacy of private property in response to the Bourbon
   Restoration. According to David Hart, Comte had three main points:
   "firstly, that interference by the state over the centuries in property
   ownership has had dire consequences for justice as well as for economic
   productivity; secondly, that property is legitimate when it emerges in
   such a way as not to harm anyone; and thirdly, that historically some,
   but by no means all, property which has evolved has done so
   legitimately, with the implication that the present distribution of
   property is a complex mixture of legitimately and illegitimately held
   titles." ( The Radical Liberalism of Charles Comte and Charles Dunoyer

   Comte, as Proudhon would later do, rejected Roman legal tradition with
   its toleration of slavery. He posited a communal "national" property
   consisting of non-scarce goods, such as land in ancient hunter-gatherer
   societies. Since agriculture was so much more efficient than hunting
   and gathering, private property appropriated by someone for farming
   left remaining hunter-gatherers with more land per person, and hence
   did not harm them. Thus this type of land appropriation did not violate
   the Lockean proviso - there was "still enough, and as good left."
   Comte's analysis would be used by later theorists in response to the
   socialist critique on property.

   Pierre Proudhon - property is theft

   In his treatise What is Property?(1849), Proudhon answers with "
   Property is theft!" In natural resources, he sees two conceivable types
   of property, de jure property and de facto property, and argues that
   the former is illegitimate. Proudhon's fundamental premise is that
   equality of condition is the essence of justice. "By this method of
   investigation, we soon see that every argument which has been invented
   in behalf of property, whatever it may be, always and of necessity
   leads to equality; that is, to the negation of property." But unlike
   the statist socialists of his time, Proudhon's solution is not to give
   each person an equal amount of property, but to deny the validity of
   legal property in natural resources altogether.

   His analysis of the product of labor upon natural resources as property
   (usufruct) is more nuanced. He asserts that land itself cannot be
   property, yet it should be held by individual possessors as stewards of
   mankind with the product of labor being the property of the producer.
   Like most theorists of his time, both capitalist and socialist, he
   assumed the labor theory of value to be correct. Thus, Proudhon
   reasoned, any wealth gained without labor was stolen from those who
   labored to create that wealth. Even a voluntary contract to surrender
   the product of labor to an employer was theft, according to Proudhon,
   since the controller of natural resources had no moral right to charge
   others for the use of that which he did not labor to create and
   therefore did not own.

   Proudhon's theory of property greatly influenced the budding socialist
   movement, inspiring anarchist theorists such as Bakunin who modified
   Proudhon's ideas, as well as antagonizing theorists like Marx.

   Frédéric Bastiat - property is value

   Bastiat's main treatise on property can be found in chapter 8 of his
   book Economic Harmonies (1850). In a radical departure from traditional
   property theory, he defines property not as a physical object, but
   rather as a relationship between people with respect to an object.
   Thus, saying one owns a glass of water is merely verbal shorthand for I
   may justly gift or trade this water to another person. In essence, what
   one owns is not the object but the value of the object. By "value,"
   Bastiat apparently means market value; he emphasizes that this is quite
   different from utility. "In our relations with one another, we are not
   owners of the utility of things, but of their value, and value is the
   appraisal made of reciprocal services."

   Strongly disputing Proudhon's equality-based argument, Bastiat
   theorizes that, as a result of technological progress and the division
   of labor, the stock of communal wealth increases over time; that the
   hours of work an unskilled laborer expends to buy e.g. 100 liters of
   wheat decreases over time, thus amounting to "gratis" satisfaction.
   Thus, private property continually destroys itself, becoming
   transformed into communal wealth. The increasing proportion of communal
   wealth to private property results in a tendency toward equality of
   mankind. "Since the human race started from the point of greatest
   poverty, that is, from the point where there were the most obstacles to
   be overcome, it is clear that all that has been gained from one era to
   the next has been due to the spirit of property."

   This transformation of private property into the communal domain,
   Bastiat points out, does not imply that private property will ever
   totally disappear. This is because man, as he progresses, continually
   invents new and more sophisticated needs and desires.

Contemporary views

   Among contemporary political thinkers who believe that human
   individuals enjoy rights to own property and to enter into contracts,
   there are two views about John Locke. On the one hand there are ardent
   Locke admirers, such as W.H. Hutt (1956), who praised Locke for laying
   down the "quintessence of individualism." On the other hand, there are
   those such as Richard Pipes who think that Locke's arguments are weak,
   and that undue reliance thereon has weakened the cause of individualism
   in recent times. Pipes has written that Locke's work "marked a
   regression because it rested on the concept of Natural Law" rather than
   upon Harrington's sociological framework.

   Hernando de Soto has argued that an important characteristic of
   capitalist market economy is the functioning state protection of
   property rights in a formal property system where ownership and
   transactions are clearly recorded. These property rights and the whole
   formal system of property make possible:
     * Greater independence for individuals from local community
       arrangements to protect their assets;
     * Clear, provable, and protectable ownership;
     * The standardization and integration of property rules and property
       information in the country as a whole;
     * Increased trust arising from a greater certainty of punishment for
       cheating in economic transactions;
     * More formal and complex written statements of ownership that permit
       the easier assumption of shared risk and ownership in companies,
       and insurance against risk;
     * Greater availability of loans for new projects, since more things
       could be used as collateral for the loans;
     * Easier access to and more reliable information regarding such
       things as credit history and the worth of assets;
     * Increased fungibility, standardization and transferability of
       statements documenting the ownership of property, which paves the
       way for structures such as national markets for companies and the
       easy transportation of property through complex networks of
       individuals and other entities;
     * Greater protection of biodiversity due to minimizing of shifting
       agriculture practices.

   All of the above enhance economic growth.

Types of property

   This sign declaring a parking lot to be "private property" illustrates
   one method of identifying and protecting property. Note the citations
   to legal statutes.
   This sign declaring a parking lot to be "private property" illustrates
   one method of identifying and protecting property. Note the citations
   to legal statutes.

   Most legal systems distinguish different types ( immovable property,
   estate in land, real estate, real property) of property, especially
   between land and all other forms of property - goods and chattels,
   movable property or personal property. They often distinguish tangible
   and intangible property (see below).

   One categorization scheme specifies three species of property: land,
   improvements (immovable man made things) and personal property (movable
   man made things)

   In common law, real property ( immovable property) is the combination
   of interests in land and improvements thereto and personal property is
   interest in movable property.

   Later, with the development of more complex forms of non-tangible
   property, personal property was divided into tangible property (such as
   cars, clothing, animals) and intangible or abstract property (e.g.
   financial instruments such as stocks and bonds, etc.), which includes
   intellectual property ( patents, copyrights, and trademarks).

What can be property?

   The two major justifications given for original property, or
   homesteading, are effort and scarcity. John Locke emphasized effort,
   "mixing your labor" with an object, or clearing and cultivating virgin
   land. Benjamin Tucker preferred to look at the telos of property, i.e.
   What is the purpose of property? His answer: to solve the scarcity
   problem. Only when items are relatively scarce with respect to people's
   desires do they become property. For example, hunter-gatherers did not
   consider land to be property, since there was no shortage of land.
   Agrarian societies later made arable land property, as it was scarce.
   For something to be economically scarce, it must necessarily have the
   exclusivity property - that use by one person excludes others from
   using it. These two justifications lead to different conclusions on
   what can be property. Intellectual property - non-corporeal things like
   ideas, plans, orderings and arrangements (musical compositions, novels,
   computer programs) - are generally considered valid property to those
   who support an effort justification, but invalid to those who support a
   scarcity justification (since they don't have the exclusivity
   property.) Thus even ardent propertarians may disagree about IP. By
   either standard, one's body is one's property.

   From some anarchist points of view, the validity of property depends on
   whether the "property right" requires enforcement by the state.
   Different forms of "property" require different amounts of enforcement:
   intellectual property requires a great deal of state intervention to
   enforce, ownership of distant physical property requires quite a lot,
   ownership of carried objects requires very little, while ownership of
   one's own body requires absolutely no state intervention.

   Many things have existed that did not have an owner, sometimes called
   the commons. The term "commons," however, is also often used to mean
   something quite different: "general collective ownership" - i.e. common
   ownership. Also, the same term is sometimes used by statists to mean
   government-owned property that the general public is allowed to access.
   Law in all societies has tended to develop towards reducing the number
   of things not having clear owners. Supporters of property rights argue
   that this enables better protection of scarce resources, due to the
   tragedy of the commons, while critics argue that it leads to the
   exploitation of those resources for personal gain and that it hinders
   taking advantage of potential network effects. These arguments have
   differing validity for different types of "property" -- things which
   are not scarce are, for instance, not subject to the tragedy of the
   commons. Some apparent critics actually are advocating general
   collective ownership rather than ownerlessness.

   Things today which do not have owners include: ideas (except for
   intellectual property), seawater (which is, however, protected by
   anti-pollution laws), parts of the seafloor (see the United Nations
   Convention on the Law of the Sea for restrictions), gasses in Earth's
   atmosphere, animals in the wild (though there may be restrictions on
   hunting etc. -- and in some legal systems, such as that of New York,
   they are actually treated as government property), celestial bodies and
   outer space, and land in Antarctica.

   The nature of children under the age of majority is another contested
   issue here. In ancient societies children were generally considered the
   property of their parents. Children in most modern societies
   theoretically own their own bodies -- but they are considered
   incompetent to exercise their rights, and their parents or "guardians"
   are given most of the actual rights of control over them.

   Questions regarding the nature of ownership of the body also come up in
   the issue of abortion.

   In many ancient legal systems (e.g. early Roman law), religious sites
   (e.g. temples) were considered property of the God or gods they were
   devoted to. However, religious pluralism makes it more convenient to
   have religious sites owned by the religious body that runs them.

   Intellectual property and air ( airspace, no-fly zone, pollution laws,
   which can include tradeable emissions rights) can be property in some
   senses of the word.

Who can be an owner?

   Ownership laws may vary widely among countries depending on the nature
   of the property of interest (e.g. firearms, real property, personal
   property, animals). In some societies only adult men may own property.
   In some societies legal entities, such as corporations, trusts, and
   nations (or governments) own property.

   In the Inca empire, the dead emperors, who were considered gods, still
   controlled property after death. kjh
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
