Hanoch Dagan (Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law) has posted The Jurisprudence of Liberal Property (Jurisprudence (Forthcoming 2023)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Property enhances autonomy for most people, but not for all. Because it both empowers and disables, property requires constant vigilance. In “A Liberal Theory of Property” I’ve addressed key questions: how can property be justified? What core values should property law advance, and how do those values interrelate? How is a liberal state obligated to act when shaping property law? In a liberal polity, I’ve claimed, the primary commitment to individual autonomy dominates the justification of property, founding it on three pillars: carefully delineated private authority, structural (but not value) pluralism, and relational justice. A genuinely liberal property law meets the legitimacy challenge confronting property by expanding people’s opportunities for individual and collective self-determination while carefully restricting their options of interpersonal domination.
In this Article I respond to the generous and rigorous book reviews of Paul Babie, Andrew Halpin, Larissa Katz, Christopher Serkin, and Laura Underkuffler. Their intriguing comments and the penetrating insights they each develop push me to clarify and restate what I take to be the jurisprudence of liberal property. The Article is organized around five issues, which correspond to the main points they raise: the normative foundations of liberal property; property’s power and its necessary limitations; the times of property within and without property law; the nature of property’s authority and the role of private law; and the relationship between property theory and social reform.
