Commodity & Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal Thought, 1776-1970Most people understand property as something that is owned, a means of creating individual wealth. But in Commodity and Propriety, the first full-length history of the meaning of property, Gregory Alexander uncovers in American legal writing a competing vision of property that has existed alongside the traditional conception. Property, Alexander argues, has also been understood as proprietary, a mechanism for creating and maintaining a properly ordered society. This view of property has even operated in periods—such as the second half of the nineteenth century—when market forces seemed to dominate social and legal relationships. In demonstrating how the understanding of property as a private basis for the public good has competed with the better-known market-oriented conception, Alexander radically rewrites the history of property, with significant implications for current political debates and recent Supreme Court decisions. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 19 | |
Part Two The Commercial Republican Culture 18001860 | 89 |
Part Three The Industrial Culture 18701917 | 241 |
Part Four The Late Modern Culture 19171970 | 303 |
Epilogue | 379 |
Notes | 387 |
Index | 471 |
Other editions - View all
Commodity & Propriety: Competing Visions of Property in American Legal ... Gregory S. Alexander No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
Adams alienability allodial American Law American legal antebellum argued autonomy Blackstone Cambridge capital Charles River Bridge civic republican Cobb Commentaries commercial commodified common law conception of property constitutional corporate created critique culture democracy dialectic doctrine dominant dynamic economic eighteenth-century elite English entrepreneurial erty Federalist fee simple feudal forms of property freedom History Ibid ideology individual institution J. G. A. Pocock Jacksonian James Kent Jefferson John Joseph Story Kent Kent's labor land Law Review legal discourse Legal Realism legal thought legal writing legislative legislature liberal liberty married women married women's property meaning ment modern nineteenth century ownership political premodern primogeniture private property pro-slavery prop property law property rights protection reform regulation republic restraints restraints on alienation revision role rule Scottish Enlightenment slave slavery social order society Southern spendthrift trust stability statute theorists theory tion tradition virtue vision wealth welfare York