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86-611: Safeco was founded in 1923 by Hawthorne Kingsbury Dent (1880-1958) as the General Insurance Company of America , a property and casualty insuring company, with a headquarters in Downtown Seattle at the corner of University Street and Fourth Avenue. In 1936, it moved to the eight-story Brooklyn Building at the corner of N.E. 45th Street and Brooklyn Avenue N.E. in the University District, Seattle . In 1953, it formed

172-844: A consortium of museums, the Washington Art Consortium. Safeco held the naming rights to the Seattle Mariners ' baseball stadium from its opening in July 1999 through the 2018 season. The company also sponsored the Safeco Classic , a women's professional golf tournament on the LPGA Tour from 1982 through 1999 ; it was held in September at the Meridian Valley Country Club in  Kent . Property Property

258-456: A drive, as there is no real repercussions for doing so. Property rights are also believed to lower transaction costs by providing an efficient resolution for conflicts over scarce resources. Empirically, using historical data of former European colonies, Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson find substantial evidence that good economic institutions – those that provide secure property rights and equality of opportunity – lead to economic prosperity. As

344-443: A given environment. For specificity in the case of economic property rights, this is a system or structure that has value and stability. Transaction costs are the costs of defining, monitoring, and enforcing property rights. Ronald Coase proposed that clearly defining and assigning property rights would resolve environmental problems by internalizing externalities and rely on incentives of private owners to conserve resources for

430-611: A modern economy. In 2013, researchers produced an annotated bibliography on the property rights literature concerned with two principal outcomes: (a) reduction in investors risk and increase in incentives to invest, and (b) improvements in household welfare; the researchers explored the channels through which property rights affect growth and household welfare in developing countries. They found that better protection of property rights can affect several development outcomes, including better management of natural resources. Incomplete property rights allow agents with valuation lower than that of

516-465: A nation grows the necessity for well-defined property rights grows as well. This is due to the underlying assumption that within property rights other people must be present in order to have the rights over somebody else. Additionally, property rights are foundational for a capitalist system, allowing for growth and wealth creation. North, Wallis and Weingast argue that property rights originate to facilitate elites' rent-seeking activities. Particularly,

602-471: A nuisance, or another tort has been held a taking of property where the conduct was sufficiently persistent and severe. There exist many theories of property. One is the relatively rare first possession theory of property , where ownership of something is seen as justified simply by someone seizing something before someone else does. Perhaps one of the most popular is the natural rights definition of property rights as advanced by John Locke . Locke advanced

688-413: A particular country, or because no effective controls are in place, or feasible, i.e., the cost of exclusivity outweighs the benefits. Property rights theory is an exploration of how providing stakeholders with ownership of any factors of production or goods, not just land , will increase the efficiency of an economy as the gains from providing the rights exceed the costs. A widely accepted explanation

774-472: A phone), as well as public goods (non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods, like air), respectively. Below is a list of the several property types defined and their relation to the economic concepts of excludability (the ability to limit the consumption of the good) and rivalry (a person's consumption of the good reduces the ability of another to consume it). Open-access property may exist because ownership has never been established, granted, by laws within

860-418: A possessory interest or legal title in that thing. This mediating relationship between individual, property, and State is called a property regime. In sociology and anthropology , property is often defined as a relationship between two or more individuals and an object, in which at least one of these individuals holds a bundle of rights over the object. The distinction between collective and private property

946-448: A recognition. Locke supposed that one's labour was their own property and, consequently, property was any land maintained and sustained through one's own labour as long as there was sufficient and similar quality land to meet the needs of everyone's labour. Using this ideology, property in a broader sense would be taken as any good a person produced or maintains with their own labour. This was later elaborated on by Smith, who believed that

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1032-449: A resource based on the practical inability to contradict the ends of the possessor. The second title is the expectation that others will recognize rights to control resources, even when not in possession. He elaborates on the differences between these two concepts and proposes a history of how they came to be attached to persons, as opposed to families or entities such as the church. Both communism and some forms of socialism have also upheld

1118-484: A resource or economic good is used and owned , which have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Resources can be owned by (and hence be the property of) individuals, associations, collectives , or governments. Property rights can be viewed as an attribute of an economic good. This attribute has three broad components, and

1204-433: A scarcity justification, since the things don't have the exclusivity property (however, those who support a scarcity justification may still support other "intellectual property" laws such as Copyright , as long as these are a subject of contract instead of government arbitration). Thus even ardent propertarians may disagree about IP. By either standard, one's body is one's property. From some anarchist points of view,

1290-422: A single party at a time, or a single party in a divisible context, if owned or used. Thus far or usually, those are not considered property, or at least not private property, even though the party bearing right of exclusive use may transfer that right to another. In many societies the human body is considered property of some kind or other. The question of the ownership and rights to one's body arise in general in

1376-540: A subsidiary, the "Selective Auto and Fire Insurance Company of America," or SAFECO. General Insurance began to sell life insurance in 1957. In 1968, it changed its name from the General Insurance Company of America to Safeco Corporation. Around the same time the company began to offer mutual funds and commercial credit, though precursors to the Safeco Funds had been around since the 1930s. Safeco replaced

1462-416: A sudden rise in land price in the 12th century. In contrast, the modern "open access order", which consists of a democratic political system and a free- market economy, usually features widespread, secure and impersonal property rights. Universal property rights, along with impersonal economic and political competition, downplay the role of rent-seeking and instead favor innovations and productive activities in

1548-430: A vast legal scholarship, originated from the seminal contribution by Guido Calabresi and Douglas Melamed . Calabresi and Melamed argue that in the face of transaction costs sufficiently sizeable to prevent consensual trade, legalized private expropriation in the form of, for instance, liability rules can be welfare-increasing. To elaborate, when property is fully protected, some agents with valuation higher than that of

1634-435: Is a great property, there is great inequality … Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. In his 1881 text "The Common Law", Oliver Wendell Holmes describes property as having two fundamental aspects. The first, possession, can be defined as control over

1720-409: Is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, rent, sell, exchange, transfer, give away, or destroy it, or to exclude others from doing these things, as well as to perhaps abandon it; whereas regardless of the nature of

1806-460: Is an expectation that each party's will with regard to the property be clearly defined and unconditional. . The parties may expect their wills to be unanimous, or alternatively each may expect their own will to be sufficient when no opportunity for dispute exists. The first Restatement defines property as anything, tangible or intangible, whereby a legal relationship between persons and the State enforces

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1892-510: Is based on The Public Trust Doctrine. ), 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. However, children in most modern communities theoretically own their bodies but are not regarded as competent to exercise their rights. Their parents or guardians are given most of

1978-454: Is consistent with a novel dataset on the rules on the acquisition of ownership through adverse possession and on the use of government takings to transfer real property from a private party to another private party prevailing in 126 jurisdictions. These data measure "horizontal property rights" and thus the extent of protection of property from "direct and indirect private takings", which are ubiquitous forms of expropriation that occur daily within

2064-403: Is harder to exploit a good protected by enforced property rights. For example, a song can be easily pirated from purchased copies and, with no punishment, this form of the free-rider problem likely occurs. This causes the price mechanism to be less effective at finding the true market equilibrium and hurts the owners of the good who did not get it through opportunism. Another benefit is that

2150-487: Is his safest refuge]." It is the origin of the famous dictum, "an Englishman's home is his castle". The ruling enshrined into law what several English writers had espoused in the 16th century. Unlike the rest of Europe the British had a proclivity towards owning their own homes. British Prime Minister William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham defined the meaning of castle in 1763, "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all

2236-462: Is no private property under natural law but only under human law . Seneca viewed property as only becoming necessary when men become avaricious. St. Ambrose later adopted this view and St. Augustine even derided heretics for complaining the Emperor could not confiscate property they had labored for. The canon law Decretum Gratiani maintained that mere human law creates property, repeating

2322-640: Is often defined by the code of the local sovereignty and protected wholly or - more usually, partially - by such entity, the owner being responsible for any remainder of protection. The standards of the proof concerning proofs of ownerships are also addressed by the code of the local sovereignty, and such entity plays a role accordingly, typically somewhat managerial . Some philosophers assert that property rights arise from social convention , while others find justifications for them in morality or in natural law . Various scholarly disciplines (such as law , economics , anthropology or sociology ) may treat

2408-650: Is often referred to as a bundle of rights in the United States: Economists such as Adam Smith stress that the expectation of profit from "improving one's stock of capital" rests on the concept of private property rights. The fields of economics and law do not have a general consensus on conceptions of property rights. Various property types are used in law but the terminology can be seen in economic reports. Sometimes in economics, property types are simply described as private or public/common in reference to private goods (excludable and rivalrous goods like

2494-436: Is possible to internalize all environmental benefits, that owners will have perfect information, that scale economies are manageable, transaction costs are bearable, and that legal frameworks operate efficiently. John Locke , Adam Smith , and Karl Marx are classical economists that generally recognize the importance of property rights in the process of economic development, and modern mainstream economics agree with such

2580-562: Is regarded as confusion, since different individuals often hold differing rights over a single object. Types of property include real property (the combination of land and any improvements to or on the ground), personal property (physical possessions belonging to a person), private property (property owned by legal persons, business entities or individual natural persons), public property (State-owned or publicly owned and available possessions) and intellectual property —including exclusive rights over artistic creations and inventions. However,

2666-594: Is such that an article of property is, by law or otherwise by traditional conceptualization, subject to expiration even when inheritable , which is a key distinction from tangible property. Upon expiration, the property, if of the intellectual category, becomes a part of public domain , to be used by but not owned by anybody, and possibly used by more than one party simultaneously due to the inapplicability of scarcity to intellectual property. Whereas things such as communications channels and pairs of electromagnetic spectrum bands and signal transmission power can only be used by

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2752-526: Is surely undeniable that, when a man engages in remunerative labor, the impelling reason and motive of his work is to obtain property, and after that to hold it as his very own." Anthropology studies the diverse ownership systems, rights of use and transfer, and possession under the term "theories of property". As mentioned, western legal theory is based on the owner of property being a legal person. However, not all property systems are founded on this basis. In every culture studied, ownership and possession are

2838-651: Is that well-enforced property rights provide incentives for individuals to participate in economic activities, such as investment, innovation and trade, which lead to a more efficient market. Implicit or explicit property rights can be created through government regulation in the market, either through prescriptive command and control approaches (e.g. limits on input/output/discharge quantities, specified processes/equipment, audits) or by market-based instruments (e.g. taxes, transferable permits or quotas), and more recently through cooperative, self-regulatory, post-regulatory and reflexive law approaches. In economics, depending on

2924-441: Is the combination of interests in land and improvements thereto, and personal property is interest in movable property. Real property rights are rights relating to the land. These rights include ownership and usage. Owners can grant rights to persons and entities in the form of leases , licenses , and easements . Throughout the last centuries of the second millennium , with the development of more complex theories of property,

3010-569: The University of Washington for $ 130 million. Safeco moved back downtown in 2007; its new headquarters at 1001 Fourth Avenue became the new Safeco Plaza , and the former Safeco Plaza was renamed UW Tower . In May 2007, BlackRock assumed management of the company's $ 10.5 billion investment portfolio. In September 2008, the company was acquired by Liberty Mutual Insurance for $ 6.2 billion in cash. In February 2010, Safeco donated more than 800 pieces of its art collection, valued at $ 3.5 million, to

3096-495: The commons . The term "commons," however, is also often used to mean something entirely 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 ( public property ). Law in all societies has tended to reduce the number of things not having clear owners. Supporters of property rights argue that this enables better protection of scarce resources due to

3182-447: The moral hazard is less likely to influence the actions of consumers, meaning they will be less likely to exploit resources unsustainably or inefficiently as property is protected. This will lead to a lower group cost overall as people will not be able to exploit these resources as easily, causing less inefficiency issues. For example, if a person's car doesn't have property rights, people will be more likely to mistreat it or steal it for

3268-734: The seafloor (see the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for restrictions), gases in Earth's atmosphere , animals in the wild (although in most nations, animals are tied to the land. In the United States and Canada , wildlife is generally defined in statute as property of the State. This public ownership of wildlife is referred to as the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and

3354-513: The spiritual body that runs them. Intellectual property and air ( airspace , no-fly zone , pollution laws, which can include tradable emissions rights ) can be property in some senses of the word. Ownership of land can be held separately from the ownership of rights over that land, including sporting rights, mineral rights , development rights, air rights , and such other rights as may be worth segregating from simple land ownership. Ownership laws may vary widely among countries depending on

3440-442: 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 concerning 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

3526-407: The theory of the firm based on the paradigm of incomplete contracts . These authors argue that in the real world, contracts are incomplete and hence it is impossible to contractually specify what decisions will have to be taken in any conceivable state of the world. There will be renegotiations in the future, so parties have insufficient investment incentives (since they will only get a fraction of

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3612-616: The tragedy of the commons . At the same time, critics say 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 that are not scarce are, for instance, not subject to the tragedy of the commons . Some apparent critics advocate general collective ownership rather than ownerlessness. Things that do not have owners include: ideas (except for intellectual property ), seawater (which is, however, protected by anti-pollution laws), parts of

3698-409: The value of legal tender if not the legal tender itself , as the manufacturer rather than the possessor might be the owner. They often distinguish tangible and intangible property . 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 )

3784-418: 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 —incorporeal 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

3870-492: The Brooklyn Building with the 22-story Safeco Plaza (now UW Tower ) building in 1973. It remains the tallest building in the city outside Downtown. In January 1987, it sold its title insurance business to Chicago Title for $ 30.7 million cash and $ 46 million in a 7-year promissory note . In 1997, Safeco acquired American States Financial Corporation from Lincoln National Corporation for $ 2.8 billion, expanding beyond

3956-600: 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 still, 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. Property rights (economics) Property rights are constructs in economics for determining how

4042-626: The Inca empire, the dead emperors, considered gods, still controlled property after death. In 17th-century England , the legal directive that nobody may enter a home (which in the 17th century would typically have been male-owned) unless by the owner's invitation or consent, was established as common law in Sir Edward Coke 's " Institutes of the Lawes of England ". "For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man's home

4128-813: The West Coast. Washington Mutual 's WM Life Insurance Company was purchased the same year. In 1999, Safeco bought R.F. Bailey (Underwriting Agencies) Limited of London . In 2001, new management was brought in to restructure the company. Commercial credit operations were sold to GE Capital in August 2001. In August 2004, the company sold its life insurance and investments business to a group of private investors led by Safeco board members, Warren Buffett 's Berkshire Hathaway , and White Mountains Insurance Group , incorporating as Symetra . Hub International acquired Safeco's insurance brokerage operations. Mellon Financial acquired Safeco Trust Company, its private bank. Also in 2004,

4214-421: The amount of labour it takes to produce a good does not provide its value but instead the labour the good commands or the value of goods people will be willing to trade for the good. He felt the division of labour to produce products for others was better for the whole of society. This was later critiqued by Marx. Sanford Grossman, Oliver Hart , and John Hardman Moore developed the property rights approach to

4300-481: The cause, of the distribution of property. He said that the worst possible situation is when the commoners have half a nation's property, with the crown and nobility holding the other half—a circumstance fraught with instability and violence. He suggested a much better situation (a stable republic) would exist once the commoners own most property. In later years, the ranks of Harrington's admirers included American revolutionary and founder John Adams . Another member of

4386-543: The citizens respectively who made, or may rightfully own them: Provided, that the citizens of the Nation possessing the 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 individual citizens thereof; and that, whenever any citizen shall remove with his effects out of

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4472-573: The common interest, and only when he is himself concerned as an individual." In addition, he says that 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 ) Cicero held that there

4558-458: The company sold its land title insurance business to First American Corporation . In July 2005, CEO Mike McGavick stepped down as CEO to run in the 2006 United States Senate election in Washington . In May 2006, Assurant acquired Safeco Financial Institution Solutions. In 2006, Microsoft acquired the company's Redmond campus for $ 209.5 million. The University District complex was sold to

4644-439: The concept more systematically, but definitions vary, most particularly when involving contracts . Positive law defines such rights, and the judiciary can adjudicate and enforce property rights. According to Adam Smith (1723-1790), the expectation of profit from "improving one's stock of capital" rests on private-property rights. Capitalism has as a central assumption that property rights encourage their holders to develop

4730-515: The concept of personal property had become divided into tangible property (such as cars and clothing ) and intangible property (such as financial assets and related rights, including stocks and bonds ; intellectual property , including patents , copyrights and trademarks ; digital files ; communication channels ; and certain forms of identifier , including Internet domain names , some forms of network address , some forms of handle and again trademarks). Treatment of intangible property

4816-622: The discussion of human rights , including the specific issues of slavery , conscription , rights of children under the age of majority , marriage , abortion , prostitution , drugs , euthanasia and organ donation . Of the following, only sale and at-will sharing involve no encumbrance . The two major justifications are given for the original property, or the homestead principle , 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

4902-416: The doctrine of sovereign immunity precludes relief. Moreover, if the interference does not almost completely make the property valueless, the interference will not be deemed a taking but instead a mere regulation of use. On the other hand, some governmental regulations of property use have been deemed so severe that they have been considered " regulatory takings ." Moreover, conduct is sometimes deemed only

4988-540: The entire social and political unit. Common ownership in a hypothetical communist society is distinguished from primitive forms of common property that have existed throughout history, such as Communalism and primitive communism , in that communist common ownership is the outcome of social and technological developments leading to the elimination of material scarcity in society. Corporate systems describe ownership as being attached to an identifiable group with an identifiable responsible individual. The Roman property law

5074-421: The fact that they help a man form those expectations which he can reasonably hold in his dealings with others. These expectations find expression in society's laws, customs, and more. An owner of property rights possesses the consent of fellowmen to allow him to act in particular ways. An owner expects the community to prevent others from interfering with his actions, provided that these actions are not prohibited in

5160-516: The forces of the crown. It may be frail – its roof may shake – the wind may blow through it – the storm may enter – the rain may enter – but the King of England cannot enter." That principle was carried to the United States. Under U.S. law, the principal limitations on whether and the extent to which the State may interfere with property rights are set by the Constitution. The Takings clause requires that

5246-461: The fundamental rights of control over them. Questions regarding the nature of ownership of the body also come up in the issue of abortion , drugs , and euthanasia . 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 sacred sites owned by

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5332-418: The future. He asserts transaction costs are ideally zero because they cause inefficiencies; due to those who would be allocatively efficient with the ownership being unable to afford or receiving less private benefit than they gain from it, as the transaction costs on top of the cost of purchasing and maintaining the property. This is known as Coase theorem . Critics of this view argue that this assumes that it

5418-405: The government (whether State or federal—for the 14th Amendment's due process clause imposes the 5th Amendment's takings clause on state governments) may take private property only for a public purpose after exercising due process of law, and upon making "just compensation." If an interest is not deemed a "property" right or the conduct is merely an intentional tort, these limitations do not apply, and

5504-413: 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? A contemporary of Hobbes, James Harrington , reacted to the same tumult differently: 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

5590-406: The investment's return in future negotiations); i.e., there is a hold-up problem . Hence, they argue property rights matter because they determine who has control over future decisions if no agreement will be reached. In other words, property rights determine the parties' future bargaining positions (while their bargaining powers, i.e. their fractions of the renegotiation surplus, are independent of

5676-679: The king of the Sumerian city-state Lagash , established the first laws that forbade compelling the sale of property. The Bible in Leviticus 19:11 and ibid. 19:13 states that the Israelites are not to steal. Aristotle , in Politics, advocates "private property." He argues that self-interest leads to neglect of the commons. "[T]hat which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of

5762-399: The latter is not always widely recognized or enforced. An article of property may have physical and incorporeal parts. A title , or a right of ownership , establishes the relation between the property and other persons, assuring the owner the right to dispose of the property as the owner sees fit. The unqualified term "property" is often used to refer specifically to real property. Property

5848-450: The legal and political systems that protect elites' claims on rent revenues form the basis of the so-called "limited access order", in which non-elites are denied access to political power and economic privileges. In a historical study of medieval England, for instance, North and Thomas find that the dramatic development of English land laws in the 13th century resulted from elites' interests in exploiting rent revenues from land ownership after

5934-459: The level of transaction costs , various forms of property rights institutions will develop. In economics, an institution is defined thusly: a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organising relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within

6020-527: 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

6106-427: The nature of the property of interest (e.g., firearms, real property, personal property, animals). Persons can own property directly. In most societies legal entities , such as corporations , trusts and nations (or governments) own property. In many countries women have limited access to property following restrictive inheritance and family laws, under which only men have actual or formal rights to own property. In

6192-873: The notion that private ownership of capital is inherently illegitimate. This argument centers on the idea that private ownership of capital always benefits one class over another, giving rise to domination through this privately owned capital. Communists do not oppose personal property that is "hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned" (as " The Communist Manifesto " puts it) by members of the proletariat . Both socialism and communism distinguish carefully between private ownership of capital (land, factories, resources, etc.) and private property (homes, material objects, and so forth). Most legal systems distinguish between different types of property, especially between land ( immovable property , estate in land , real estate , real property ) and all other forms of property— goods and chattels , movable property or personal property , including

6278-417: The original owners of economic value to inefficiently expropriate them distorting in this way their investment and effort exertion decisions. When instead, the state is entrusted the power to protect property, it might directly expropriate private parties if not sufficiently constrained by an efficient political process. The necessity of strong protection of property for efficiency has been however criticized by

6364-594: The original owners will be unable to legally acquire value because of sizable transaction costs. When the protection of property is weak instead, low-valuation potential buyers inefficiently expropriate original owners. Hence, a rise in the heterogeneity of the potential buyers' valuations makes inefficient expropriation by low-valuation potential buyers be more important from a social welfare point of view than inefficient exclusion from trade and so induces stronger property rights. Crucially, this prediction survives even after considering production and investment activities and it

6450-519: The phrases used by St. Augustine. St. Thomas Aquinas agreed with regard to the private consumption of property but modified patristic theory in finding that the private possession of property is necessary. Thomas Aquinas concludes that, given certain detailed provisions, 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

6536-450: The property rights allocation). The property rights approach to the theory of the firm can thus explain pros and cons of integration in the context of private firms. Yet, it has also been applied in various other frameworks such as public good provision and privatization. The property rights approach has been extended in many directions. For instance, some authors have studied different bargaining solutions, while other authors have studied

6622-400: The property, generate wealth , and efficiently allocate resources based on the operation of markets. From this has evolved the modern conception of property as a right enforced by positive law, in the expectation that this will produce more wealth and better standards of living. However, Smith also expressed a very critical view of the effects of property laws on inequality: Wherever there

6708-455: The property, the owner thereof has the right to properly use it under the granted property rights . In economics and political economy , there are three broad forms of property: private property , public property , and collective property (or cooperative propert y). Property may be jointly owned by more than one party equally or unequally, or according to simple or complex agreements; to distinguish ownership and easement from rent, there

6794-400: The role of asymmetric information. Three important criteria for efficiency of property rights are (1) universality—all scarce resources are owned by someone; (2) exclusivity—property rights are exclusive rights; (3) transferability—to ensure that resources can be allocated from low to high yield uses One benefit of implementing property rights is that opportunism is discouraged, as it

6880-478: The rule of law and are thus different from predation by the state and the elites, which is much less common but has been the focus of the economics literature. To capture preference diversity, the author uses the contemporary genetic diversity, which is a primitive metric of the genealogical distance between populations with a common ancestor and so of the differences in characteristics transmitted across generations, such as preferences. Regression analysis reveals that

6966-417: The specifications of his rights. Different societies may have other theories of property for differing types of ownership. For example, 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. In medieval and Renaissance Europe

7052-490: The subjects of custom and regulation, and "law" is where the term can meaningfully be applied. Many tribal cultures balance individual rights 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. Still, the improvements made thereon, and in possession of

7138-402: The term "property" essentially referred to land. After much rethinking, land has 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 (then called " usury "), and the development of centralized national monarchies . Urukagina ,

7224-446: The theory that God granted dominion over nature to man through Adam in the book of Genesis. Therefore, he theorized that when one mixes one's labor with nature, one gains a relationship with 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." (see Lockean proviso ) In his encyclical letter Rerum novarum (1891), Pope Leo XIII wrote, "It

7310-572: 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. In contrast, requesting one's own body requires absolutely no state intervention. So some anarchists don't believe in property at all. Many things have existed that did not have an owner , sometimes called

7396-462: Was based on such a corporate system. In a well-known paper that contributed to the creation of the field of law and economics in the late 1960s, the American scholar Harold Demsetz described how the concept of property rights makes social interactions easier: In the world of Robinson Crusoe , property rights play no role. Property rights are an instrument of society and derive their significance from

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