Property - Property in Philosophy - Contemporary Views

Contemporary Views

Among contemporary political thinkers who believe that natural persons enjoy rights to own property and to enter into contracts, there are two views about John Locke. On the one hand there are ardent Locke admirers, such as W.H. Hutt (1956), who praised Locke for laying down the "quintessence of individualism." On the other hand, there are those such as Richard Pipes who think that Locke's arguments are weak, and that undue reliance thereon has weakened the cause of individualism in recent times. Pipes has written that Locke's work "marked a regression because it rested on the concept of Natural Law" rather than upon Harrington's sociological framework.

Hernando de Soto has argued that an important characteristic of capitalist market economy is the functioning state protection of property rights in a formal property system where ownership and transactions are clearly recorded. These property rights and the whole formal system of property make possible:

• Greater independence for individuals from local community arrangements to protect their assets;
• Clear, provable, and protectable ownership;
• The standardization and integration of property rules and property information in the country as a whole;
• Increased trust arising from a greater certainty of punishment for cheating in economic transactions;
• More formal and complex written statements of ownership that permit the easier assumption of shared risk and ownership in companies, and insurance against risk;
• Greater availability of loans for new projects, since more things could be used as collateral for the loans;
• Easier access to and more reliable information regarding such things as credit history and the worth of assets;
• Increased fungibility, standardization and transferability of statements documenting the ownership of property, which paves the way for structures such as national markets for companies and the easy transportation of property through complex networks of individuals and other entities;
• Greater protection of biodiversity due to minimizing of shifting agriculture practices.

All of the above enhance economic growth.