Books etc on the evolution of private property

[DJP]

I wonder if anyone can recommend any books are articles on the evolution of private property, preferably newer titles.

Obviously Engles "Origin of the family.." and parts of "Capital".

I also have Lafargue's book on the topic plus there's some stuff on Locke in Meiskins-Woods "Liberty and Property"

[Young Master Smeet]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2013/no-1311-november-2013/how-did-social-inequality-ariseThe creation of inequality : how our prehistoric ancestors set the stage for monarchy, slavery, and empire / Kent Flannery, Joyce Marcus. Cambridge, Mass. ; London : Harvard University Press  2012

[DJP]

Thanks that looks good.I'm also looking for thing which chart the development of forms of private party and the arguments used to justify them, particularly the development of capital as a form of private property.

[Young Master Smeet]

There's a copy of: Pre-capitalist economic formations / Translated by Jack Cohen. Edited and with an introd. by E. J. Hobsbawm. Edition [1st U.S. ed.] Published • New York : International Publishers [1965, c1964](Or another edition of the same) in the party library.

[DJP]

Ah yes, I have that one, It's selections from the Grundrisse, had forgotten about it, thanks.

[Dave B]

Evolution of Books on the Evolution of Private Property??????? (blue highlights came with text)Lactantius circa (300AD) Divine Institutes, Book V (Of Justice) Chapter 6. ………….For not only did they who had a superfluity fail to bestow a share upon others, but they even seized the property of others, drawing everything to their private gain; and the things which formerly even individuals laboured to obtain for the common use of men, were now conveyed to the houses of a few. For, that they might subdue others by slavery, they began especially to withdraw and collect together the necessaries of life, and to keep them firmly shut up, that they might make the bounties of heaven their own; not on account of kindness, a feeling which had no existencein them, but that they might sweep together all the instruments of lustand avarice. They also, under the name of justice, passed most unequal and unjustlaws, by which they might defend their plunder and avariceagainst the force of the multitude. They prevailed, therefore, as much by authority as by strength, or resources, or malice. And since there was in them no trace of justice, the offices of which are humanity, equity, pity, they now began to rejoicein a proudand swollen inequality, and made themselves higher than other men, by a retinue of attendants, and by the sword, and by the brilliancy of their garments. For this reason they invented for themselves honours, and purple robes, and fasces, that, being supported by the terror produced by axes and swords, they might, as it were by the right of masters, rule them, stricken with fear, and alarmed. Such was the condition in which the life of man was placed by that king who, having defeated and put to flight a parent, did not seize his kingdom, but set up an impious tyranny by violenceand armed men, and took away that golden age of justice, and compelled men to become wickedand impious, even from this very circumstance, that he turned them away from God to the worship of himself; and the terror of his excessive power had extorted this. For who would not fearhim who was girded about with arms, whom the unwonted gleam of steel and swords surrounded? 

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 Chapter 5. as Cicerorelates in his poem; and this is peculiar to our religion. It was not even allowed to mark out or to divide the plain with a boundary: men sought all things in common; since God had given the earth in common to all, that they might pass their life in common, not that mad and raging avaricemight claim all things for itself, and that that which was produced for all might not be wanting to any. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07015.htm

[Dave B]

This material by Saint Chrysostom was cited in an extremely respectable 20thcentury Academic Law Journal on the history of ideas on ‘private property’. Although in that paper the translation was curiously different in a nuanced way. the first ‘contention’ has class conflict second contention# = strife. for the next we have ‘contention’=battle and the next ‘contention’=struggle that version makes it sound like class war in  fact! So you can’t help wondering if the online modern Christian material is being sanitised as much as possible or some Marxist law professors were translating Saint Chrysostom for themselves in 1950's USA? But I will nevertheless copy and paste the rightwing version. Homilies on  1 Timothy iv. 3 — St. Chrysostom Tell me, then, whence art thou rich? From whom didst thou receive it, and from whom he who transmitted it to thee? From his father and his grandfather. But canst thou, ascending through many generations, show the acquisition just? It cannot be. The root and origin of it must have been injustice. Why? Because God in the beginning made not one man rich, and another poor. Nor did He afterwards take and show to one treasures of gold, and deny to the other the right of searching for it: but He left the earth free to all alike. Why then, if it is common, have you so many acres of land, while your neighbor has not a portion of it? It was transmitted to me by my father. And by whom to him? By his forefathers. But you must go back and find the original owner. Jacob had wealth, but it was earned as the hire of his labors. But I will not urge this argument too closely. Let your riches be justly gained, and without rapine. For you are not responsible for the covetous acts of your father. Your wealth may be derived from rapine; but you were not the plunderer. Or granting that he did not obtain it by robbery, that his gold was cast up somewhere out of the earth. What then? Is wealth therefore good? By no means. At the same time it is not bad, he says, if its possessor be not covetous; it is not bad, if it be distributed to the poor, otherwise it is bad, it is ensnaring. "But if he does not evil, though he does no good, it is not bad," he argues. True. But is not this an evil, that you alone should have the Lord's property, that you alone should enjoy what is common? Is not "the earth God's, and the fullness thereof"? If then our possessions belong to one common Lord, they belong also to our fellow-servants. The possessions of one Lord are all common. Do we not see this the settled rule in great houses? To all is given an equal portion of provisions, for it proceeds from the treasures of their Lord. And the house of the master is opened to all. The king's possessions are all common, as cities, market-places, and public walks. We all share them equally. Mark the wise dispensation of God. That He might put mankind to shame, He hath made certain things common, as the sun, air, earth, and water, the heaven, the sea, the light, the stars; whose benefits are dispensed equally to all as brethren. We are all formed with the same eyes, the same body, the same soul, the same structure in all respects, all things from the earth, all men from one man, and all in the same habitation. But these are not enough to shame us. Other things then (as we have said) He hath made common, as baths, cities, market-places, walks. And observe, that concerning things that are common there is no contention*, but all is peaceable. But when one attempts to possess himself of anything, to make it his own, then contention#is introduced, as if nature herself were indignant, that when God brings us together in every way, we are eager to divide and separate ourselves by appropriating things, and by using those cold words "mine and thine." Then there is contention## and uneasiness. But where this is not, no strife or contention###is bred. This state therefore is rather our inheritance, and more agreeable to nature. Why is it, that there is never a dispute about a market-place? Is it not because it is common to all? But about a house, and about property, men are always disputing. Things necessary are set before us in common; but even in the least things we do not observe a community. Yet those greater things He hath opened freely to all, that we might thence be instructed to have these inferior things in common. Yet for all this, we are not instructed. But as I said, how can he, who is rich, be a good man? When he distributes his riches, he is good, so that he is good when he has ceased to have it, when he gives it to others; but whilst he keeps it himself, he is not good. How then is that a good which being retained renders men evil, being parted with makes them good? Not therefore to have wealth, but to have it not, makes one appear to be good. Wealth therefore is not a good. But if, when you can receive it, you receive it not, again you are good. http://biblehub.com/library/chrysostom/homilies_on_gal_eph_phi_col_thess_tim_titus_and_philemon/homily_xii_1_timothy_iv.htm  As was this incidentally St.Jerome’s  said in his “Epistle to Hebidia," That the accumulation of (great) wealth was the result of ‘iniquity and unrighteousnes’….and that individuals could not acquire wealth without others loosing it. Which is a reasonable 4th century take on merchant capitalism, primitive accumulation and even surplus value.

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