ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that property, in our modern, neoliberal world, is really choice. This chapter establishes a fundamental distinction within the theory of property itself: that between the substantive content of what property is, on the one hand, and, on the other, how and whether it is possible to justify that content. This distinction emerges from the reality that whatever else property might be in the modern neoliberal world, it is certainly the allocation of things, scarce resources amongst people in a context of greater demand than supply. Assuming, then, that everyone can agree that a system of allocation is necessary, and that it will result in these asymmetrical outcomes as concern demand and supply, any political theory must then justify, at least in the abstract, if not as concerns every person who may lose, that the system of allocation and so the ultimate distribution is justifiable. This is known as a justificatory theory, and there are many of these that have been used to prop up neoliberal property, and all of them have problems.
