A fundamental critique of the current property regime, calling for
radical social and political change.
In The Abuse of Property, Daniel Loick offers a multifaceted
philosophical critique of the concept of property, broadly understood.
He argues that property should not be the dominant framework in which
human beings regulate the use of things, that property is not the same
as use. Property rights, in his view, are not conditions of freedom or
justice, but deficient, dysfunctional, and harmful ways of interacting
with other people and the natural environment. He dissects not only the
classic justifications of property (from John Locke's justification of
property as a natural right based on individual freedom to Hegel's
justification of property as a form of mutual recognition) but also the
classic critiques of property, from Proudhon and Marx up to Adorno and
Agamben.
Through an innovative critical approach to legal studies, Loick
demonstrates how the concept of property, historically applied to things
and people and still a linchpin of our distorted relation with the
world, forms a direct line from the Occupy movement to Black Lives
Matter and beyond.
