Personal Property - Personal Versus Private Property

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.). In capitalism there is no distinction between personal and private property.
  • 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.

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Famous quotes containing the words personal, private and/or property:

    We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.
    Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

    A moody child and wildly wise
    Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
    Which chose, like meteors, their way,
    And rived the dark with private ray.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.
    James Madison (1751–1836)