Title: Commodity & propriety : competing visions of property in American legal thought, 1776-1970 /
Authors: Alexander, Gregory S., 1948-
Publisher: University of Chicago Press,
Year: 1997
Subjects: Property Social aspects United States History.; Property United States History.; Civil society United States History.
Abstract: Most people understand property as something that is owned, a means of creating individual wealth. But in Commodity & Propriety, Gregory S. Alexander uncovers in American legal writing a competing vision of property that has existed alongside the traditional conception. Property, Alexander argues, has also been understood as proprietary, a mechanism for creating and maintaining a properly ordered society. The real tradition in American legal thought about property can be discovered in the ongoing debate over the priority of the market versus the social good.