Property

(from L. proprietas the right or faculty of enjoying and having something at one’s disposal to the exclusion of others’ will). Essential attribute or quality of a person or thing; the dominion, right, or faculty one holds over one’s possessions to use and dispose of them freely. The forms of p. vary in different cultures and in different historical epochs. Some theorists of anarchism (*) call for doing away with all forms of p. Marxism-Leninism (*) sees in private p. the root of all exploitation of one human being by another, and calls for replacing it with collective p. With the goal of humanizing p., N.H. takes into account historical experience in establishing various forms of social regulation of p. at different levels, working from the base up. But the principal focus of the humanist proposal lies in the questioning of p. in general (*Company-society) and establishing a system of worker ownership (*).