ABSTRACT
Defending or critiquing property has long been the stuff of politics. The libertarian assertion that taxation is theft duplicates neatly the Marxist claim that property is theft. Thus, no political theorist would be surprised that constitutional disputes often involve assertions about property rights. More interesting is the extraordinary lesson taught by the Supreme Court’s treatment of property claims. To put this lesson most boldly, property is not a single concept; it is not a single package to which a Justice offers a level of protection based on her particular ideology. Rather, property involves a diverse set of claimed rights that further different functions which have different normative valances. In contrast, the popular view of property as a single concept gives the political right undue ideological leverage by allowing it to rely on those rights of property that should be immune from political control to prop up public support for other property rights. And a unified conception inclines the left toward misguided Utopian projects.
