- What is private property?
- Origin of private property
- Characteristics of private property
- Other forms of ownership
- Public property
We explain what private property is and when this legal concept arises. Also, examples and other forms of ownership.
What is private property?
Private property is assets of any kind (homes, capitals, vehicles, objects, tools, including factories, entire buildings, land or corporations) that can be owned, bought, sold, leased or left as inheritance by natural persons and legal other than Condition, that is, by elements of the private sector of the society.
Private property assets are not alienable under any circumstances without the express will of their owner (except in cases of nationalization or nationalization, carried out by the State in favor of the common benefit), and doing so in any way constitutes an offense punishable by law. The protection of private property is considered by many as one of the tasks of the forces of public order and the State.
Simple examples of private property would be: real estate, money in bank accounts, urban land, and private vehicles.
Origin of private property
Although there have been owners of things since the beginning of time, to the point that in ancient times even slaves were part of the private property of a powerful person, the appearance of this legal concept was built from the Roman law, which distinguished between the public res (the public thing) and individual interests (private).
But it would be during the Industrial Revolution and the advent of capitalism that this concept would have enormous importance, especially in the speech as a politician of the revolutionary left, who understands it as a form of unequal distribution of available wealth. Private property is contrary to the fundamentals of the communism and the socialism, according to which the assets would have to be mostly of a public or community nature.
The doctrine of Marxist thought (Communist) in fact distinguishes personal property (necessarily personal use, such as housing or personal belongings) and private property (understood as the control by an economic elite of the means of production).
Characteristics of private property
Private property is always subject to the legal specifications of the legal code of each nation, but broadly it has the following characteristics:
- It submits to free trade. Anyone can buy or sell private property, as long as said transaction is carried out according to what is regulated in the codes and civil ordinances that regulate the matter.
- It is individual. Private property can have only one owner at a time (unless it is a business, which belongs to several shareholders, but each owns a limited number of different shares).
- It's free. Each owner of private property can do with it what he wants, within the framework of the laws.
- It is heavily supervised. The capitalist system in general protects private property through laws, agencies and actions that prevent anyone from appropriating the property of others and that provide reparations for those whose private property is violated by third parties.
- It is perpetual. Lordship over private property does not expire with the weather, and can be transferred in case of death from the owner to his close relatives or whoever he decides in life.
Other forms of ownership
While the existence of private property raises the possibility that an individual or a group of them take over (dispose of) the movable or immovable property available in society, other different forms of possession arise as an alternative, especially by the owners. leftist sectors of society, committed to the socialization and democratization of assets considered scarce.
These other forms of ownership are:
- Public or social property. That which belongs to the State and to the institutions they do not have an owner.
- Community property. The one that belongs to a community or an organized social cooperative, that is, many individuals committed not to personal enrichment but to community benefit.
Public property
Public property is characterized by not belonging to a specific individual, but to the totality of the interests of the citizens of a nation, represented in this case by the State. This is not to say that what is public does not belong to anyone, but that it really belongs to everyone.
In this sense, public goods cannot be alienated, that is, they cannot become someone else's and be taken from the rest of society as a whole (except in cases where the State so decides, that is, the privatization).
Examples of public property are public parks, public roads, state assets and public companies (often basic services such as electricity, Water, etc.).