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.). Marxism holds that a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle will result in victory for the proletariat and the establishment of a communist society in which private property and ownership is abolished over time and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. (Private property and ownership, in this context, means ownerships of the means of production, not private possessions).
- 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.
Read more about this topic: Personal Possession
Famous quotes containing the words private property, personal, private and/or property:
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“There cannot be a personal God without a pessimistic religion. As soon as there is a personal God he is a disappointing God.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“The awareness of the all-surpassing importance of social groups is now general property in America.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)