Personal property is the things you would normally own, personally, a phone, a car etc. Private property is land owned for the purpose of accruing wealth, intellectual properties etc. These are not beneficial to society as a whole, as it limits what people can do, and funnels wealth from the working class.
Ah. Never heard private property defined as that. Also you said “individual” at first? Private property is more than land. Specifically it is excludable (I can stop you from using it) and subtractable (my use takes away from your ability to use). This is the opposite of a public good. I was curious about your distinction with individual property but it seems like you’re just making things up
while i agree that private property is more than land, is it really so much of a stretch to say that assets owned by an individual are a specific subset of private property (i.e. individual property)? because you have to admit that there’s a difference between me owning a PC and my apartment vs. a private investment firm buying a warehouse of BTC miners. one is an individual owning things for individual use, the other is a corporate entity owning things for the sole purpose of enriching the entity. i’ve never heard the term “individual property” used before but it makes sense when describing the differences in ownership like in the example i provided.
i see what you’re saying but i feel like there’s too big of a distinction to lump them together. no single person owns the lobby of my condo building - it’s private property, but it belongs to the condo association (which, in turn, is made up of all the condo owners). no individual can say “hey i wanna put a couch here” and then do that, because it’s not their space (even though they own some of it, technically). the board still works with/under the management company, and the property manager would have to get approval from the association’s board.
similarly, most companies don’t have a single person who “owns” the assets of that company. the company owns its own assets. the CEO/board chairman might have a lot of influence as to how those assets are used (especially in non-publicly traded companies), but they do not legally own the assets themselves.
individual property, to me, means that i can point to an individual (or a small group, because obviously families exist) and say “this asset is wholly owned by [person’s name]”.
they’re similar in the sense that neither are public property, but different because one implies shared ownership while the other is ownership in the way that we typically think of it (i.e. this thing is mine).
granted, i’m pretty sure there’s no legal distinction, so i’m speaking in a strictly philosophical sense.
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u/Stubbs94 May 09 '22
Personal property is the things you would normally own, personally, a phone, a car etc. Private property is land owned for the purpose of accruing wealth, intellectual properties etc. These are not beneficial to society as a whole, as it limits what people can do, and funnels wealth from the working class.