ABSTRACT
In the English-speaking countries today, the conception of property held by the specialist (the lawyer or economist) is quite different from that held by the ordinary person. Most people, including most spe· cialists in their unprofessional moments, conceive of property as things that are owned by persons. To own property is to have exclu· sive control of something- to be able to use it as one wishes, to sell it, give it away, leave it idle, or destroy it. Legal restraints on the free use of one's property are conceived as departures from an ideal con· ception of full ownership. 1
By contrast, the theory of property rights held by the modern spe· cialist tends both to dissolve the notion of ownership and to eliminate any necessary connection between property rights and things. Con· sider ownership first. The specialist fragments the robust unitary conception of ownership into a more shadowy "bundle of rights." Thus, a thing can be owned by more than one person, in which case it becomes necessary to focus on the particular limited rights each of the co-owners has with respect to the thing. Further, the notion that full ownership includes rights to do as you wish with what you own suggests that you might sell off parti'cul4r aspects of your controlrights to certain uses, to profits from the thing, and so on. Finally, rights of use, profit, and the like can be parceled out along a tern· poral dimension as well-you might sell your control over your prop· erty for tomorrow to one person, for the next day to another, and so on.
