ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the institutional foundations for the individual and property to better understand the divisions within an overall unity. The “individual” emerged in the modern period in association with the concept of absolute individual private property. Rather than overlapping types of property in the early modern period, the clear demarcation facilitated trade and mobility. The relationship of ownership between individual and property becomes “invisible” in the liberal state, assigned to the object itself, with the market assuming the role of “the invisible hand.” The history of wage labor suggests the salience of class, or those who were unable to accumulate sufficient property across the generations of the family. The liberal state is formed on the principle of the protection of individual private property and the support of the market. Marx’s analysis can be used to explain the division of society into public and private spheres.
