Economic Claims and the Challenges of New Property

The “simplifying” version of property’s formalism is at bottom a standard version of an economic function, resting on the premise that property is most valuable when it can be freely used and traded. The “simplifying” version of property’s formalism is at bottom a standard version of an economic function, resting on the premise that property is most valuable when it can be freely used and traded. Many of the moral qualms about property – and about globalization as well – may spring from the seeming moral indifference of property’s central function of identifying owners. Generally tradable environmental allowances represent a vision of private property created by Leviathan to solve the tragedy of the commons. The news is full of strange and wondrous new forms of property. Ownership disputes erupt out over such novelties as internet domain names, frozen reproductive tissue, and tradeable pollution allowances.