Goods at the disposal of entrepreneurs are property. Economic enterprise is conditioned on the wants for and consumption of certain deficient goods as it cannot be realised if it does not exercise definite consumer sovereignty over those already existing goods. Additionally, property is a result of producer sovereignty – as long as a good is created only in the process of production – there for it belongs to its maker. Lastly, the very economic efficiency consists of property transfers between consumers and producers along the lines of productive consumption. Goods are fashioned and utilised according to the principle to be of efficient use, and so they persist in their economic being as rent or capital.
Historical Backdrop
• THOMAS HOBBES Leviathan: second law of nature.
• IMMANUEL KANT Metaphysics of Morals: mine and yours.
• JOHN LOCKE Second Treatise of Government: property.
• JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE The Closed Commercial State: property, action and free yearning.
• GEORG SIMMEL Philosophy of Money: property as action.
• THORSTEIN VEBLEN The Beginning of Ownership: consistency under the surveillance of usage.
• JEAN-PAUL SARTRE Being and Nothingness: ownership.
• RONALD COASE The Problem of Social Cost: factors of production as rights.
• ARMEN ALCHIAN and HAROLD DEMSETZ The Property Right Paradigm: rights to use.