Abstract:
This paper adds depth to the question of property theory in the face of recent
challenges, including the demise of socialism as a global ideological political force
and the rise of recognition of customary property rights. It examines the dynamics
of human action using a sociological/anthropological approach to review the
appropriate treatment of property within society.
The modern Western tendency to reduce all politico/economic systems onto a single
continuum between the ideologically Left and Right is reviewed and found to rest
on a single anthropological assumption of dubious merit. There is ample evidence
of other anthropologies that result in successful cultural institutions well beyond
the modern left/right dichotomy. Cultural choice of anthropology is linked to beliefs
regarding family, tradition and spirituality. Of these, spirituality is selected as the
fundamental driver.
Three dimensions of human action proceed from this analysis, the
political/economic institutional dimension, the anthropological dimension and the
spiritual, or metaphysical, dimension. Some implications for the institution of
property are examined to conclude that combined, they provide a more robust
framework for understanding property than the one-dimensional approach implicit
in modernity.
