ABSTRACT
The profound influence that Patrick McAuslan’s work has had on the development of planning and land law internationally arises from his particular orientation to the law as well as his personal sensibilities. In true McAuslan spirit, I seek the ideologies behind this orientation. What prin - ciples guide him? In what manner does he address the complex issues? The ideologies are not hard to find. He perceives legal rules in relation to property as concealing underlying, value-laden ideologies that are ever present and exist always in conflict with each other. He maintains two conflicting sets of ideologies: one for planning law and one for land law. For planning law, on the one side are values relating to private property as an essential, axiomatic aspect of society, and on the other the need for sublimation of these values by the public interest dimension carried out by government. In terms of land law, on the one side is land tenure as a basic human right and on the other the encroachment from the demands of a market economy.
