The Theory Of Property :: essays research papers

The Theory of Property     While Websters New Collegiate Dictionary defines property as "somethingregarded as being possessed by, or at the disposal of, a person or group ofpersons species or class," (p. 1078) this definition hardly holds theconnotations so emphatically discussed by the anthropologist Morgan. To Morgan,"property has been so immense...so diversify its uses so expanding...that ithas become...an unmanageable power." (p.561) Why has it become such anunmanageable power? Morgan answers this question with the simple answer that itis due to the linear evolution of the social inception of property from beingcollectively owned to being individually owned which has planted the seed of itsown destruction in modern society. Morgan, in an search to study the roleproperty has played in shaping social structures throughout history, hasconcluded that the influences property has had on reshaping societies and viceversa can teach the historiograp her many things about both the society being studiedand the environment in which it strove to survive. To Morgan, the "germ" of theinstitution of property slowly infected many dissimilar societies in manydifferent parts of the world. His teleological approach states that due to the"unity of mankind" various technological innovations, which gave rise to theever-growing availability of property, allowed social tilt to occur in manyareas of the globe independently. Every area, went through its own version ofevolution in which the importance of wealth grew at varying rates. Thisdiscovery leads Morgan to believe that while the past was unified in itsvariation, it is the future which must presently be addressed. For Morgan, instudying the past one can condition much about the future. Not only does Morgananalyze the social emergence of various types of property, but he is alsoextremely interested in the merciful tendencies evident in various societies whichsurfaced as a result of the ever-growing list of ownable objects. As timeprogressed from the Status of Savagery through Barbarism and into Civilization refreshed wants and needs arose mostly due to new inventions. It is on thisrelationship between property, technology, and the human desire for more of eachwhich Morgan centers his work, and it is from this study which he hopes futuregenerations exit learn how to improve their institutions until they can beimproved no more.     Morgan structures his essay around three basic "ethnical periods ofhuman progress" (p. 535) and the basic presumption that the more modes ofproduction and subsistence there are the greater the proliferation of individualobjects of ownership. As technology advances and discoveries are made, theamount of ownable objects grow as does the need to own.