The Nature of Property in Modern Capitalism. Review article of Property in Contemporary Capitalism, (2024) by Paddy Ireland

Abstract

In a thought-provoking and important new book, Property in Contemporary Capitalism, Paddy Ireland explores the nature of property in contemporary capitalism. Most analyses of property, he argues, including those offered by property theorists, fail to grasp the empirical realities of modern property, tending instead to offer ideologically loaded accounts which fail, amongst other things, to uncover property’s social relational and class dimensions. Moreover, he suggests, recent developments in property theory—the rejection of so-called ‘bundle-of-rights’ conceptions of property and the emergence of neo-Blackstonian ‘new essentialist’ conceptions that see property in terms of simple person–thing relations (thing-ownership)—are regressive, impeding rather than furthering understanding. Certain forms of property—in particular, property which is used as capital (property-as-capital), much of which is intangible in nature—can only be fully understood when viewed as a social (and class) relation. Although the book is, as the author admits, far from comprehensive in its analysis of property and property theory (there is, for example, only limited engagement with ‘progressive’ property theory), in making these arguments, Ireland outlines an alternative approach to the study and understanding of property that draws on many disciplines, including law, history, anthropology, political economy, and critical finance. In doing this, he reveals important connections between disparate phenomena. Arguing that different sets of property relations and rights structures generate different, historically specific, economic, and social dynamics, he suggests that today’s ‘polycrisis’ is, in significant part, a product of the logic of process generated by our property system and the extension and intensification of that logic brought about by the legal and policy changes to property rights structures over the last half-century—in particular, the financial liberalisation and privatisations associated with neoliberalism.