ABSTRACT
Among the problems of the modern law of property, a certain group of issues must place high on almost any ranking: those that are collectively known as the "takings" issue. Takings problems swirl around the legitimacy of governmental regulation of individually held property, particularly when a regulation affects the interests claimed by one or a small number of property holders. Preference satisfaction can easily be taken as a goal of a property regime; indeed, most modern economic theorists focus on that goal. But it is worthwhile to look closely at the means by which a property regime is thought to maximize preference satisfaction. Stephen Munzer means by "justice" a distributional constraint on property ownership, which is evident in his calling the principle "justice and equality." But he does not mean equality across the board. Instead he takes his cues from the best-known exposition of "justice as fairness," that is, John Rawls' Theory of Justice.
