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.
Read more about this topic: Private Property
Famous quotes containing the words personal, property, means and/or production:
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)
“Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)