Introduction: Raising Questions about Property

Abstract

Questioning property is especially warranted at the turn of the millennium, with the upending of socialist property regimes in so many countries and the appearance across the world of objects newly designated as property, from software to body parts. Information poses special and interesting problems for thinking about property, for the technologies of the “information age” make it abundant rather than scarce. The proliferation of intellectual property claims beginning in the late twentieth century is sometimes seen as part of a wider process of “enclosing the commons” or a “massive intellectual land grab”. The increased legitimacy of “private property” is widely associated with the advance of capitalism in its various guises and with the spread of neoliberal discourse into new settings. “Property conceived as the control of a piece of the material world by a single individual meant freedom and equality of status”. The also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.

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