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From: lkk@mit-eddie.UUCP (Larry Kolodney)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: re: Re: Property
Message-ID: <1406@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Mar-84 18:19:03 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.1406
Posted: Wed Mar  7 18:19:03 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 8-Mar-84 19:37:41 EST
References: <407@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 23

Sam from Berkeley wonders about the recency of the notion of private property:

Take the situation in England. Until the rise of Capitalism
(about 200 years ago), the notion of property was indeed very different.
Except perhaps for things like food, there was no such thing as a free
market, property and most things were ot made to be bought and sold.  In
particular, land was not property.  Nobles controlled the land through
hereditery titles.  THEY WERE NOT FREE TO BUY AND SELL IT AT WILL.  In
addition, they had certain responsiblitites to the serfs who lived on
their land.  These were based on tradition, not law.  A serf couldn't
sell his house, because the concept didn't make any sense.  He would
never move anywhere.  People for the most part produced oly for
themselves, their famililes, and for their lord.
	It was not until the late 1700's, when the Enclosure laws
propted the nobles to kick the peasants off the land did the rise of
industrial cities occur.

-- 
Larry Kolodney
(The Devil's Advocate)

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