ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the neoliberal structure of politics, economics and law has entered our psyche through a neoliberal rationality internalised at the level of the individual as the virtue of competition. This has turned each of us into individual entrepreneurs, competing in the marketplace established by neoliberalism. And this operates, insidiously, without our even knowing it is happening. For all people, wherever they are, this neoliberal rationality manifests itself through liberal law, which structures the way we lead our day-to-day lives. This sets the scene for the discussion of private property, the neoliberal vehicle for exercising choice in relation to the world around us. And just as do neoliberal political-economic organisation and liberal law, liberal property offers no guidance on how to exercise that choice within a web of social relationships. Others are seldom, if ever considered during the exercise of choice. And so, no matter how the choices look at the time they are made, they can have bad outcomes for others, for the community. This is the mirror image of the relational aspect of neoliberalism, or what we might call the relational aspect of private property.
