Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property

Author: Joseph William Singer
Published: December 2000
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300080190
Hardcover Book
Number of Pages: 288

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In this important work of legal, political, and moral theory, Joseph William Singer offers a controversial new view of property and the entitlements and obligations of its owners. Singer argues against the conventional understanding that owners have the right to control their property as they see fit, with few limitations by government. Instead, property should be understood as a mode of organizing social relations, he says, and he explains the potent consequences of this idea. Singer focuses on the ways in which property law reflects and shapes social relationships. He contends that property is a matter not of right but of entitlement—and entitlement, in Singer's work, is a complex accommodation of mutual claims. Property requires regulation—property is a system and not just an individual entitlement, and the system must support a form of social life that spreads wealth, promotes liberty, avoids undue concentration of power, and furthers justice. The author argues that owners have not only rights but obligations as well—to other owners, to nonowners, and to the community as a whole. Those obligations ensure that property rights function to shape social relationships in ways that are both just and defensible.
About the Author:
Joseph William Singer is professor of law at Harvard Law School. In this important work of legal, political, and moral theory, Joseph William Singer offers a controversial new view of property and the entitlements and obligations of its owners. Opposing the conventional view that owners have the right to control their property as they see fit with few limitations by government, Singer argues instead that property should be understood as a mode of organizing social relations. He explains the potent consequences of this idea. Singer (law, Harvard Law Sch.; Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices) here discusses new social relations principles to help understand private property rights. In the traditional ownership model, "property is about rights over things," and Singer asks to what extent this model should be the organizing element in society. He finds many propositions impossible to reconcile within the commodity or ownership model of property rights. The author's own model of property rights contains a series of obligations that must include the needs of others. The discussion focuses on the competing principles and competing normative approaches underlying concepts of property. Individuals interested in the foundations of property rights and legal rights will find new insights in Singer's book, which is strongly recommended for academic libraries.--Steven Puro, St. Louis Univ. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. The appearance of a book on property law from Singer—one of the most interesting and provocative legal theorists now writing on the subject—is an event of some importance, and this book lives up to expectations.
— (James Boyle, Duke Law School) This is a genuinely important book for our times. While political and legal discussions of property are dominated by the simplistic neo-classical liberal conception of property rights, Joseph Singer provides us with a way of understanding property that emphasizes how property rights obligate as well as entitle individual owners. His book is not an attempt to resuscitate discredited socialist ideas about property, but rather an extended explanation of the consequences of taking seriously the idea that property rights are ineluctably social. The result is a penetrating, perceptive, and deeply sensitive analysis of how property rights structure social life. That is a message that needs to be heard not just by academics but by political leaders, policy-makers, and perhaps most importantly, thinking citizens.
— (Gregory S. Alexander, A. Robert Noll Professor of Law, Cornell Law School ) Click to compare book prices for Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property Entitlement: The Paradoxes of Property

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