ABSTRACT
There are a number of good reasons for this being such a well-known quotation. It raises, in a very succinct form, quite a few of the issues which many discussions of property raise. For instance: are ‘we’ (meaning in this context the Western liberal ‘we’) really as obsessed with property as Blackstone claims? If so, why? In what sense is it a ‘sole and despotic dominion’? Can only ‘external things’ be property, or can we own ourselves? Is it really about such ‘total exclusion’ of everyone? Why are we so wilfully blind to the justifications for
property and so dogmatic about the rights associated with it? Do we really have a deep-seated fear that we do not in fact have a very good moral or other right to whatever it is we think we own? When distributions of property are so manifestly unequal, we do not need to go very far to find a source for such a fear: although politicians, philosophers, ideologues and others may find it equally easy to dream up justifications, a persistent doubt about entitlement remains.
