Ownership
Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive possession or control of
property, which may be an
object,
land/real estate,
intellectual property or some other kind of property.
Ownership is the key building block in the development of the
capitalist socio-economic system. The concept of ownership has existed for thousands of
years and in all
cultures. Over the millennia, however, and across cultures what is considered eligible to be property and how that property is regarded culturally is very different. Ownership is the basis for many other concepts that form the foundations of ancient and modern
societies such as
money,
trade,
debt,
bankruptcy, the
criminality of theft and private vs. public property.
The process and mechanics of ownership are fairly complex since one can gain, transfer and lose ownership of property in a number of ways. To acquire property one can purchase it with
money, trade it for other property, receive it as a gift, steal it, find it, make it or homestead it. One can transfer or lose ownership of property by selling it for money, exchanging it for other property, giving it as a gift, being robbed of it, misplacing it, or having it stripped from one's ownership through legal means such as eviction, foreclosure and seizure. Ownership is self-propagating in that if an object is owned by someone, any additional goods produced by using that object will also be owned by the same person. If one finds an object, one can legitimately take ownership of that object as long as no one claims to have previously lost that object. Some jurisdictions place time restraints on finding lost property before that property becomes fair game for anyone to claim ownership of once found. Such is the case of the gold found in the sunken
SS Republic. The SS Republic steamship sank off the coast of Georgia in 1865 and lost thousands of gold coins and bars to the ocean. In 2003 Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. discovered the ship and was awarded possession of the gold after the insurance company that had paid off damages to the original owners claimed they were the rightful owners of the gold.
Personal Property (objects)
Personal property is a type of
property. In the
common law systems personal property may also be called
chattels. It is distinguished from
real property, or
real estate. In the
civil law systems personal property is often called
movable property or movables - any property that can be moved from one location or another. This term is in distinction with
immovable property or immovables, such as land and buildings.
Personal property may be classified in a variety of ways, such as
goods,
money,
negotiable instruments,
securities, and
intangible assets including
choses in action.
Land Ownership
Real estate or
immovable property is a term (in some jurisdictions) that encompasses land along with anything permanently affixed to the land, such as
buildings. Real estate (immovable property) is often considered synonymous with
real property (also sometimes called
realty), in contrast with
personal property (also sometimes called
chattel or
personalty). However, for technical purposes, some people prefer to distinguish real estate, referring to the land and fixtures themselves, from real property, referring to ownership rights over real estate. The terms
real estate and
real property are used primarily in
common law, while
civil law jurisdictions refer instead to
immovable property.
In spite of the name, real estate has no connection with the concept of
reality (in other words, the law does not consider real property more "real" than personal property). It derives instead from the
feudal principle that in a
monarchy, all land was considered the property of the king. Thus originally the term real estate was equivalent to "royal estate",
real originating from the French
royale, as it was the French-speaking Normans who introduced feudalism to England and thus to the English language; cognate to
Spanish real.
With the development of private
property ownership, real estate has become a major area of
business.
Corporations and Legal Entities
An individual or group of individuals can own corporations and other legal entities. A
legal entity is a
legal construct through which the law allows a group of
natural persons to act as if it were an
individual for certain purposes. Some companies and entities are owned privately by the individuals who registered them with the government while other companies are owned publicly.
A
public company is a
company owned by any member of the
public who wishes to purchase stock in that company rather than by a relatively few individuals. A company that is owned by
stockholders who are members of the general public and trade
shares publicly, often through a listing on a
stock exchange. Ownership is open to anyone who has the
money and inclination to buy shares in the company. It is differentiated from
privately held companies where the shares are held by a small group of individuals often members of one or a small group of families or otherwise related individuals (or other companies). For a discussion of the
British and
Irish variant of this type of company, see
public limited company.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual (IP) property (Please see:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml) refers to a legal entitlement which sometimes attaches to the
expressed form of an
idea, or to some other
intangible subject matter. This legal entitlement generally enables its holder to exercise
exclusive rights of use in relation to the subject matter of the IP. The term
intellectual property reflects the idea that this subject matter is the product of the
mind or the intellect, and that IP rights may be protected at law in the same way as any other form of
property.
Intellectual property laws confer a
bundle of
exclusive rights in relation to the particular form or manner in which ideas or information are expressed or manifested, and not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves (see
idea-expression divide). It is therefore important to note that the term "intellectual property" denotes the specific legal rights which authors, inventors and other IP holders may hold and exercise, and not the intellectual work itself.
Intellectual property laws are designed to protect different forms of intangible subject matter, although in some cases there is a degree of overlap.
*
copyright may subsist in creative and artistic works (eg. books, movies, music, paintings, photographs and software), giving a copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.
*A
patent may be granted in relation to an
invention that is new, useful and not simply an obvious advancement over what exisited when the application was filed. A patent gives the holder an exclusive right to commercially exploit the invention for a certain period of time (typically 20 years from the filing date of a patent application).
*A
trademark is a distinctive
sign which is used to distinguish the products or services of one
business from those of another business.
*An
industrial design right protects the form of appearance, style or design of an industrial object (eg. spare parts, furniture or textiles).
*A
trade secret (also known as "confidential information") is an item of
confidential information concerning the commercial practices or
proprietary knowledge of a business.
Patents, trademarks and designs fall into a particular subset of intellectual property known as
industrial property.
Like other forms of property, intellectual property (or rather the exclusive rights which subsist in the IP) can be transferred (
with or
without consideration) or
licensed to third parties. In some jurisdictions it may also be possible to use intellectual property as
security for a loan.
The basic
public policy rationale for the protection of intellectual property is that IP laws facilitate and encourage disclosure of
innovation into the
public domain for the
common good, by granting authors and inventors exclusive rights to exploit their works and invention for a limited period.
However, various schools of thought are critical of the very concept of intellectual property, and some characterise IP as
intellectual protectionism. There is ongoing debate as to whether IP laws truly operate to confer the stated public benefits, and whether the protection they are said to provide is appropriate in the context of innovation derived from such things as
traditional knowledge and folklore, and patents for
software and
business methods. Manifestations of this
controversy can be seen in the way different
jurisdictions decide whether to grant intellectual property protection in relation to subject matter of this kind, and the
North-South divide on issues of the role and scope of intellectual property laws.
link titleChattel Slavery
The living
human body is, in most modern societies, considered something which cannot be the property of anyone but the
person whose
body it is. This is in contradistinction to
chattel slavery. Chattel slavery is a type of slavery defined as the absolute legal ownership of a person or persons, including the legal right to buy and sell them. The slaves do not have the freedom to live life as they choose, but as they are instructed by their owners. In most countries, chattel slaves are considered as movable property. Slavery almost always occurs for the purpose of securing the labour of the slave.
Slavery is currently illegal in every country around the world, however, up until the 19th century slavery and ownership of people had existed in one form or another in nearly every society on earth.
Personal Ownership
In Western societies both men and women can own property, however, in some societies only adult men may own property. In other societies (such as the
Haudenosaunee), property is
matrilinear and passed on from mother to daughter.
Ownership by Corporations and Legal Entities
Legal entities, such as corporations, trusts, partnerships, religions, and nations (or governments) can own property in various societies past and present. Although corporations and other legal entities are owned or controled by individuals or groups of individuals they are allowed to own their own property just as natural people are able to. The advantage in placing the ownership of an
asset in the name of an entity is that the asset is protected from law suits against the owner of the entity. If the owner of the entity is personally sued the asset cannot be taken in the law suit.
When there is risk involved in the ownership of an asset as in the case of investment real estate the ownership of that asset is often made in the name of a corporate entity. Real estate property investors often form a corporation or other entity for the sole purpose of purchasing a single building. Rather than buying the building in the investor's personal name the investor will place the corporations' name on the deed. Since the corporation is a separate entity in the eyes of the law if a tenant is hurt on the premises and sues the owner of the building they are suing the corporation and not the investor. This protects the investor from losing many properties from one law suit.
Communal Ownership
Communal ownership of property occurs when a group of people share the ownership of property amongst each other. Any and every member of the group is free to use the property when they want but also those individuals agree to allow all others in the group to use the property when that person wants. Although communal ownership of property is not as widespread as individual ownership of property both forms of ownership exist in most societies. In America, for example,
national parks and publicly owned buildings such as libraries are communally owned by all Americans. In New York City a common form of real estate ownership is a
cooperative (also co-operative or co-op). A co-op is a group of persons who join together, or co-operate, to own a building for mutual benefit. In an ideal
communist nation the means of production of goods would be owned communally by all people of that nation.
One criticism of the concept of communal ownership is the
Tragedy of the Commons where unrestricted access to a resource such as a pasture ultimately dooms the resource because of over-exploitation. This occurs because the benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals, while the costs of exploitation are distributed between all those exploiting the resource.
In modern Western popular culture some people (principally among the
political left) believe that exclusive ownership of property underlies much
social injustice, and facilitates tyranny and
oppression on an individual and societal scale. Others consider the striving to achieve greater ownership of wealth as the driving factor behind human technological advancement and increasing standards of living.
Ownership society is a slogan for a model of society promoted by United States President George W. Bush. It takes as lead values personal responsibility, economic liberty, and the owning of property. The ownership society discussed by Bush also extends to certain proposals of specific models of health care and social security.Critics have claimed that Bush's agenda for an ownership society also includes extending tax cuts, allowing wealthy Americans to shelter income from tax, and using the tax code to curtail the government's role in health care and retirement saving. Some say that the ultimate purpose of these proposals is the abolition of the graduated income tax, a progressive tax, and its replacement with a structurally simpler flat tax.
A modern myth is that some societies, notably
Native American ones, appeared to exist without the concept of personal ownership. Members of a society would feel free to take any objects they had need of, and expect them to be taken by others. Recently, however, researchers have started to question just how collectivist Native American societies really were. Citing earlier studies done by anthropologists and historians "who were able to interview tribal members who had lived in pre-reservation Indian society", they argue that in fact, "most if not all North American indigenous peoples had a strong belief in individual property rights and ownership." [
1] These researchers further assert that Native American collectivism is a myth originating from the first encounters with tribes who, because of their hunting-orientation "did not view land as an important asset", and indeed, did not have a private property system with regards to land. The collectivist myth was initally propagated by reporters and politicians who never actually had contact with Native Americans and then made into a reality by the collectivist property rights system forced on Indians by the 1934
Indian Reorganization Act.
*
Ownership society*
Public ownership
