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The Prehistory of Private Property

Implications for Modern Political Theory

Karl Widerquist author Grant McCall author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Edinburgh University Press

Published:28th Feb '21

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The Prehistory of Private Property cover

This book debunks three false claims commonly accepted by contemporary political philosophers regarding property systems: that inequality is natural, inevitable, or incompatible with freedom; that capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system; and that the normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world in which we live support a capitalist system with strong, individualist and unequal private property rights. The authors review the history of the use and importance of these claims in philosophy, and use thorough anthropological and historical evidence to refute them. They show that societies with common-property systems maintaining strong equality and extensive freedom were initially nearly ubiquitous around the world, and that the private property rights system was established through a long series of violent state-sponsored aggressions.

ISBN: 9781474447423

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

272 pages