The labor theory of property or labor theory of appropriation or labor theory of ownership is a natural law theory that holds that property originally comes about by the exertion of labor upon natural resources. It is also called the principle of first appropriation or the homestead principle.
In his Second Treatise on Government, the philosopher John Locke asked by what right an individual can claim to own one part of the world, when, according to the Bible, God gave the world to all humanity in common. He answered that persons own themselves and therefore their own labor. When a person works, that labor enters into the object. Thus, the object becomes the property of that person.
Read more about Labor Theory Of Property: Exclusive Ownership and Creation, Enclosure Vs Mixing Labor, Acquisition Vs Mixing Labor
Famous quotes containing the words labor, theory and/or property:
“Nothing is hard for lovers, no labor is difficult for those who wish it.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)
“We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall—which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)
“In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any person should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all who could behold it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)