Personal Property Versus The Means of Production
In general, personal property is almost an extension of one's person and does include property from which one has the right to exclude others. Personal property is different to private property, however, in that it refers to things that are personal: objects with which one has a personal connection, making them important to one person while potentially worthless to the next. These objects can range from CDs to houses, depending on one's perspective, but definitions tend to include personal items such as clothing, books, food, or records.
From the socialist perspective, private property refers to capital or means of production that is owned by a business or few individuals and operated for their profit. Personal property refers to tangible items and possessions individuals own, as mentioned above. Socialism does not advocate the abolition of personal property, believing that it is an acceptable form of ownership of an item, unlike private property.
From the Marxist perspective, which is very similar to the socialist perspective, private property is a social relationship, not (as with personal property) a relationship between person and thing. It also describes personal property, as above, as those objects which are personal, or an extension of one's self. The Marxist perspective also does not advocate the abolition of personal property: it believes that it is only private property that should be done away with.
In capitalism there is little distinction between personal and private property.
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Famous quotes containing the words personal, property, means and/or production:
“The lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“I sing, not arms and the hero, but the philosophic man: he who seeks in contemplation to discover the inner will of the world, in invention to discover the means of fulfilling that will, and in action to do that will by the so-discovered means.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)