Editing Private property (section)

== Criticism ==
{{See also|Social ownership#Criticism of private ownership}}
[[File:PrivatePropertySign.jpg|thumb|Gate with a private property sign]]
Private property in the [[means of production]] is the central element of capitalism criticized by socialists. In Marxist literature, private property refers to a social relationship in which the property owner takes possession of anything that another person or group produces with that property and capitalism depends on private property.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm |title=Glossary of Terms |website=[[Marxists Internet Archive]] |access-date=2 March 2017 |archive-date=1 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601152118/http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The socialist critique of private ownership is heavily influenced by the [[Marxist]] analysis of capitalist property forms as part of its broader critique of [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]] and [[Exploitation of labor |exploitation]] in capitalism. Although there is considerable disagreement among socialists about the validity of certain aspects of Marxist analysis, the majority of socialists are sympathetic to Marx's views on exploitation and alienation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Arnold |first=Scott |title=The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1994 |isbn=978-0195088274 |pages=50 |quote=Though socialists have disagreed with Marx about how to conceptualize the notion of class, about the dynamics of class societies, and indeed about a whole host of other matters, most socialists seem to be broadly sympathetic to his views about what is wrong with the capitalist (free enterprise) economic system and, by implication, capitalist society&nbsp;... Marx's critique attributes two systemic evils to capitalism's economic system: alienation and exploitation.}}</ref>

Socialists critique the private appropriation of property income because such income does not correspond to a return on any productive activity and is generated by the [[working class]], it represents exploitation. The [[bourgeoisie]], the property-owning (capitalist) class, lives off passive property income produced by the [[proletariat]] (working population) by their claim to ownership in the form of stock or private equity. This exploitative arrangement is perpetuated due to the structure of capitalist society. Capitalism is regarded as a class system akin to historical class systems like [[slavery]] and [[feudalism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Hara |first=Phillip |title=Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2 |publisher=Routledge |date=2003 |isbn=0415241871 |page=1135 |quote=Property income is, by definition, received by owning property&nbsp;... Since such income is not an equivalent return for any productive activity, it amounts to an entitlement to a portion of the aggregate output of others' productive activity. The workforce produces output but surrenders part of it to people who have nothing directly to do with production. Arguably, this occurs by a social system to which those in the workforce have never given their full consent, i.e. that of private property. Alternatively, it occurs by a structure of power to which the workforce is subject: property income is the fruit of exploitation. The fact that it is essential to capitalism makes the latter a class system akin to such other historical cases as slavery and feudalism.}}</ref>

Private ownership has been criticized on non-Marxist ethical grounds by advocates of [[market socialism]]. According to the economist James Yunker, the ethical case for market socialism is that because passive property income requires no mental or physical exertion on the part of the recipient, and its appropriation by a small group of private owners is the source of the vast inequalities in contemporary capitalism, social ownership in a market economy would resolve the major cause of social inequality and its accompanying social ills.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Social Dividend Under Market Socialism |last=Yunker |first=James |date=1977 |journal=Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics |volume=48 |number=1 |pages=93–133 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8292.1977.tb01728.x |quote=From the human point of view, the return paid to non-human factors of production is unearned and equivalent to a gift of nature. It is the personal appropriation of this gift of nature by a small minority of society under contemporary capitalism that establishes the ethical unworthiness of capitalism and the desirability of a socialist transformation...The employment of capital instruments and natural resources in economic production requires no personal hardship or exertion from any human being. The economic services provided by these factors of production are not corporeally inherent in human beings. The opposite is true of labor services, which can only be provided through the physical and mental activity of human beings...the really grossly exaggerated personal incomes in society are dominated by property income, and this source of inequality would be abrogated by the equalization of property income distribution.}}</ref> Weyl and Posner argue that private property is another name for monopoly and can hamper allocative efficiency. Through the use of taxation and modified [[Vickrey auction]]s, they argue that partial common property ownership is a more efficient and just way to organize the economy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Posner |first1=A. |first2=E. |last2=Glen Weyl |chapter=Property is Monopoly: Creating a Competitive Market in Uses Through Partial Common Ownership |title=Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society |location=Princeton |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |date=2018 |isbn=}}</ref>

The justifications for private property rights have also been critiqued as tools of empire that enable land appropriation.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Bhandar |first=Brenna |chapter=Introduction: Property, Law, and Race in the Colony |title=Colonial Lives of Property |publisher=[[Duke University Press]] |date=2018 |isbn=}}</ref> According to academic commentator Brenna Bhandar, the language implemented in property legislation dictates colonized peoples as unable to effectively own and utilize their land.<ref name=":0" /> It is suggested that personal rights are interchangeable with property rights, therefore communities that utilize communal methods of land ownership are not equally validated by private property ideals.<ref>(Cosgel, Murray, and Miceli 1997; Kuhlmann 2000, 162–65; Metcalf 1995). From Cooper, Davina.  "Opening Up Ownership: Community Belonging, Belongings, and the Productive Life of Property." ''Law & Social Inquiry''. Volume 32, Issue 3, 625–644, Summer 2007. (6)</ref> It is also argued by critical race theorist [[Cheryl Harris]] that race and property rights have been conflated over time, with only those qualities unique to white settlement recognized legally.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Harris |first=Cheryl |title=Whiteness as Property |journal=[[Harvard Law Review]] |date=June 1993 |volume=106 |number=8 |pages=1707–1791|doi=10.2307/1341787 |jstor=1341787 }}</ref> Indigenous use of land, focusing on common ownership, is distinguished from private property ownership and Western understandings of [[land law]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Keenan |first=Sarah |title=Subversive Property: Reshaping Malleable Spaces of Belonging |journal=Social & Legal Studies |year=2010 |volume=19 |number=4 |pages=423–439 |doi=10.1177/0964663910372175 |s2cid=73565524 |url=https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/items/84cc9ea8-1644-1f62-1f4e-94aacefa8c9f/1 |access-date=2023-06-23 |archive-date=2023-09-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906050055/https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/items/84cc9ea8-1644-1f62-1f4e-94aacefa8c9f/1/ |url-status=live }}</ref>