What Can be Property ?

The two main reasons for the original estate, or homesteading, is the effort and scarcity. John Locke emphasized the effort, mixing your work "with a sharp object, or clearing and cultivating wilderness. Benjamin Tucker preferred to look at the telos of the property, ie What is the purpose of the property? His answer: to solve the problem of scarcity. It is only when the items are relatively rare in respect of persons desires they become the property. [6] For example, hunter-gatherers did not consider the land to property, because there was no shortage of land. Companies agrarian later made the ownership of arable land, as it was rare. For something unusual to be economically, it must have the exclusive property - which are used by a person exclude others from using it. These two reasons lead to different conclusions about what can be good. Intellectual property - non-tangible things like ideas, plans, rankings and arrangements (musical compositions, novels and computer programs) - are generally considered valid property to those who support an effort justification, not valid, but to those who support the lack of justification (since May not the exclusive property.) Thus, even ardent propertarians can disagree about intellectual property [7]. By default, his body is his property.

From some points of view anarchist, the validity of the property depends on whether the "property right" requires the application by the State. Various forms of "property" require different amounts of enforcement: IP requires a great deal of state intervention to enforce, ownership of property is very distant, ownership of objects carried requires very little , while the property of her own body requires absolutely no government intervention.

Many things have occurred which have no owner, sometimes called the commons. The term "pooling", however, is also often used to mean something quite different: "General collective ownership" - ie the common property. Therefore, the same term is sometimes used by to signify the government statists property that the general public is permitted to access. law in all societies has tended to develop in order to reduce the number of things that the owners did not clear. Supporters of property rights supporters this allows better protection of scarce resources, because of the tragedy of the commons, while critics argue that it leads to the exploitation of natural resources for personal gain, and it prevents taking advantage of potential effects network. these arguments have validity different for the different types of "property" - which is not rare, for example, are not subject to the tragedy of the commons. some critics are actually apparent general advocating collective ownership rather than ownerlessness .

Today, things which have no owners are ideas (with the exception of intellectual property), sea water (which is, however, protected by anti-pollution laws), the parties from the ocean floor (see the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea for the restrictions), gas in the Earth's atmosphere, animals in nature (but there may be restrictions on hunting… - and in some legal systems, such as New York, they are indeed seen as the property of the State), celestial bodies and space, and the land in Antarctica.

The nature of children under the age of majority is another issue here. In ancient societies, children are generally regarded as the property of their parents. Children in most modern societies, in theory, own their own bodies - but are considered unable to exercise their rights and their parents or guardians are given most of the real rights of control over them.

Questions concerning the nature of ownership of the body also arise in the issue of abortion and drugs.

In many ancient legal systems (for example, the early Roman law), religious sites (temples) were regarded as the property of God, or gods, they were devoted to. However, religious pluralism, it is more convenient to places of religious worship belonging to the agency that manages them.

Intellectual property and the air (airspace, the no-fly zone, pollution laws, which may include emissions trading) may well be, in some sense of the word.