The Theory Of Property Essay Research Paper

The Theory Of Property Essay, Research Paper

The Theory of Property

While Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines property as “something

regarded as being possessed by, or at the disposal of, a person or group of

persons species or class,” (p. 1078) this definition hardly holds the

connotations so emphatically discussed by the anthropologist Morgan. To Morgan,

“property has been so immense…so diversified its uses so expanding…that it

has become…an unmanageable power.” (p.561) Why has it become such an

unmanageable power. Morgan answers this question with the simple answer that it

is due to the linear evolution of the social institution of property from being

collectively owned to being individually owned which has planted the seed of its

own destruction in modern society. Morgan, in an attempt to study the role

property has played in shaping social structures throughout history, has

concluded that the influences property has had on reshaping societies and vice

versa can teach the historian many things about both the society being studied

and the environment in which it strove to survive. To Morgan, the “germ” of the

institution of property slowly infected many different societies in many

different parts of the world. His teleological approach states that due to the

“unity of mankind” various technological innovations, which gave rise to the

ever-growing availability of property, allowed social change to occur in many

areas of the globe independently. Every area, went through its own version of

evolution in which the importance of wealth grew at varying rates. This

discovery leads Morgan to believe that while the past was unified in its

variation, it is the future which must presently be addressed. For Morgan, in

studying the past one can learn much about the future. Not only does Morgan

analyze the social emergence of various types of property, but he is also

extremely interested in the human tendencies evident in various societies which

surfaced as a result of the ever-growing list of ownable objects. As time

progressed from the Status of Savagery through Barbarism and into Civilization

new wants and needs arose mostly due to new inventions. It is on this

relationship between property, technology, and the human desire for more of each

which Morgan centers his work, and it is from this study which he hopes future

generations will learn how to improve their institutions until they can be

improved no more.

Morgan structures his essay around three basic “ethnical periods of

human progress” (p. 535) and the basic assumption that the more modes of

production and subsistence there are the greater the proliferation of individual

objects of ownership. As technology advances and discoveries are made, the

amount of ownable objects grow as does the need to own. Every invention leads

to new processes for agriculture, pastoralism and industry as well as new

methods for invention. Thus, each new invention, whether it is a revolutionary

idea or an actual object, births many new inventions which lead to many new

modes of production causing many new objects previously not thought of as

property to grow in value. The higher in value and demand these objects are the

more people want to individually own them. How does one measure the growth of

technology and importance of property in past cultures. Morgan feels that by

studying the laws of ownership which govern these societies one can gain an

understanding of the importance, or unimportance, of individual property.

In the Status of Savagery, the first of the periods, property basically

took the form of rude weapons, fabrics utensils, apparel, implements of flint,

stone, bone, and other various personal ornaments. Due to the fact, though,

that these objects were relatively uncomplicated and crude, there was not much

“passion for possession.” In other words, people did not need to own. Land was

owned by the loosely organized tribes, and the tenant houses were owned by all

the occupants. As intensive agriculture and pastoralism had not yet been

invented the need to own land was not great either. As people died their most

valuable possessions were either buried with the corpse or given to the next of

kin. This process assured the first rule of inheritance which keeps all

property in the gen and does not allow anyone from remote gens to inherit.

The Lower Barbaric, the Middle Barbaric, and the Upper Barbaric sub-

periods comprise the second ethnical period. In the Lower Barbaric period belts,

picture writing, stockades for village defense, shields, war clubs, air guns for

shooting, the mortar and pestle and pipes were invented. These objects were

more intricate and specialized than those found in the Savage period and the

need for acquiring them also grew slightly. Ties to property began to form, but

for Morgan these objects h

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