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To one aware of the persistence and severity of ancient and modern attacks on private property, the allegiance to private property characteristic of contemporary proponents of human rights may appear remarkable, indeed, mind‐boggling. However, I believe that philosophers committed to human rights identify private property with the human right to property because of their unwarranted confidence in the moral justifiability, and hence the moral acceptability, of private property. In company with John Locke, today's supporters of the view that persons have the human right to property believe that moral reasoning based upon the foundational beliefs of a doctrine of human rights ultimately establishes property to be a human right. Subsequently, they diligently seek morality's sanction for the appropriation, accumulation, and the use and disposal of things in the manner associated with private property. Private property is, therefore, virtually unopposed in its bid for the property chair in the exclusive human rights club. Though decried by opponents as robbery and massively unjust, in theory this form of ownership is remarkably unscathed behind a fortress of arguments. In practice, many societies currently purporting to have instantiated private property in their institutional arrangements have so mitigated property rights that the concept of private property is inapplicable. However, in combination with widespread and strong commitment to private property, the fortress of moral justification for a human right to private property is a serious obstacle to changing a society's property arrangements.

The purpose of this paper is to weigh the benefits and costs of public property, as opposed to private, from the transaction cost perspective. In the absence of transaction costs, private property has clear advantages over public. However, when the true costs of running an economic system are taken into account, the advantages of private property are not so evident and public property may turn out to be the preferred form of ownership. The paper shows that in high-transaction cost sectors and economies such as the newly emerging markets in Eastern Europe, public property is a cheaper way of organizing economic activities, as it can save on transaction costs. The paper demonstrates these virtues of public ownership in relation to market failure, the provision of public goods, natural monopolies and competitive industries with a high degree of market uncertainty, opportunism and asset specificity.

A qualitative paper discussing the advantages of public over private property in the presence of high-transaction costs.

Studying different types of market failure the paper finds that public property is advantageous to private in high-transaction cost systems.

Since most of the standard literature emphasizes the advantages of private property, the paper gives an economic explanation to those of public property taking on a new institutional approach and conducting a transaction cost analysis.

X = multiple interpretations

The notion of sustainable development, which appears to have become a permanent fixture in political and economic discussions at the national and international level, carries with it approvals of various sorts. At a time when the sheer number of human beings on the planet is ecologically problematic, sustainable development has replaced motherhood as that which everyone unreservedly commends. The different foundations upon which approval rests successfully blanket sustainable development with an all encompassing positive assessment. Positively assessed economically, politically, ecologically and purportedly topped off with moral support from human rights and justice considerations, sustainable development has attained the status of an unquestioned good. Frequently it is touted as the highest good. The means to achieving sustainable development globally and how to contribute to it nationally are seriously debated worldwide. While courses of action plotted to secure the end may rest in pages of committee reports or be poorly implemented, the few voices raised against the recommendation to pursue it are scarcely discernable as a murmur in the cacophony of those who sing its praises. Consequently, when the support from economic, political, ecological and moral theories combines with “the people's” commitment to sustainable development, this notion functions to identify today's most powerful justification for the actions or omissions of governments, individually or jointly.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

Questions the meanings of the economic concepts which are usually taken for granted by many economics textbooks. Discusses notions of “property” (including actual, legal, private and public property), “possession”, “market”, “capitalism”, “socialism”, “communism” and “planning”, all of which are customarily used in these textbooks as the given institutional framework within which each modern industrial economies operate.

The purpose of this second part of this special issue is to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of Soviet society. It is not possible to analyse such a society in all its complexities within the space of one study. There are, however, some economic relations which determine society's major features. We believe that commodity‐production relations in the Soviet Union are of this type.

This chapter reconsiders commonly held views on the ownership and management of private property, contrasting capitalist and simple property, particularly in relation to how a firm shareholder governance model has shaped society. This consideration is motivated by the scale and scope of the modern global crisis, which has combined financial, economic, social and cultural dimensions to produce world disenchantment.

By contrasting an exchange value standpoint with a use value perspective, this chapter explicates current conditions in which neither the state nor the market prevail in organising economic activity (i.e. cooperative forms of governance and community-created brand value).

This chapter offers recommendations related to formalised conditions for collective action and definitions of common guiding principles that can facilitate new expressions of the principles of coordination. Such behaviours can support the development of common resources, which then should lead to a re-appropriation of the world.

It is necessary to think of enterprises outside a company or firm context when reflecting on the end purpose and means of collective, citizen action. From a methodological standpoint, current approaches or studies that view an enterprise as an organisation, without differentiating it from a company, create a deadlock in relation to entrepreneurial collective action. The absence of a legal definition of enterprise reduces understanding and evaluations of its performance to simply the performance by a company. The implicit shift thus facilitates the assimilation of one with the other, in a funnel effect that reduces collective projects to the sole projects of capital providers.

Because forsaking society as it stands is a radical response, this historical moment makes it necessary to revisit the ideals on which modern societies build, including the philosophy of freedom for all. This utopian concept has produced an ideology that is limited by capitalist notions of private property.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

Index by subjects, compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.