property

property

1. Law the right to possess, use, and dispose of anything

2. a quality, attribute, or distinctive feature of anything, esp a characteristic attribute such as the density or strength of a material

3. any movable object used on the set of a stage play or film

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Property

A plot or parcel of land, including buildings or other improvements. Also called real property.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

property

the rights of possession or ownership recognized within a society. Such possessions may be individually or collectively owned (including corporate as well as communal or state ownership), and include rights to LAND and housing, MEANS OF PRODUCTION or CAPITAL, and sometimes other human beings (see SLAVERY). Wide variations exist in the rights recognized within different societies, and these differences are often regarded as fundamental in determining overall differences between societies (see MODES OF PRODUCTION). In their widest sense, rights of property include rights to alienate (to sell, will, etc.), but often may be limited to rights of control and rights to benefit from use. Historically – e.g. in many simple societies and preindustrial agrarian societies -‘absolute rights’ of private property have been comparatively rare. Conceptions of’absolute rights’ of private property existed for a time in ANCIENT SOCIETY, but achieve a decisive importance only in CAPITALIST SOCIETIES -even then restrictions have usually remained.

Justifications of forms of property are an important part of the ideological legitimation which occurs in most societies, not least justifications of private property notwithstanding that one of the justifications for private property has been the argument that it is a ‘natural’ form (see LOCKE, SMITH, CLASSICAL ECONOMISTS). Among important justifications for it have been the idea, especially influential in the period preceding modern capitalism, that individuals have a right to the fruits of their own labour (see also LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE). Arguments for unlimited rights to private property have been countered by an emphasis on the 'social’ character of all production, the concept of social ‘needs’, and conceptions of social JUSTICE and ideals of EQUALITY (see also SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM). On the other hand the recognition of individual property rights has been emphasized as a significant source of limitations on STATE power, the development of CIVIL SOCIETY, and the appearance of modern CITIZEN RIGHTS (see also NEW RIGHT).

Sociological assessment of differences in, and consequences of differences between, societies in property rights is usually considered by sociologists to require more than regard merely to legal categories of property. An assessment of effective ownership and control, and the inequalities in wealth and income, life-chances, etc. related to these, is also essential. See also CONCENTRATION OF OWNERSHIP, PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

property

1. Any asset, real or personal.

2. An ownership interest.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Property

 

in law a concept used to define (1) the aggregate of belongings and material values possessed by a person (this is the most common interpretation of the term “property” as found in Soviet legislation); (2) the aggregate of belongings and of property rights to receive property from other persons; and (3) the aggregate of belongings, property rights, and obligations that characterize the financial standing of their possessor. When property is considered in the first two senses, Soviet law, in establishing rules about the responsibility of socialist organizations in terms of their obligations, defines the extent of this responsibility within the limits of the property that belongs to them (allotted to them) and upon which execution can be levied.

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Property

 

a philosophical category expressing the aspect that differentiates an object from or associates it with other objects and that is revealed in the relationship of an object to other objects.

All properties are relative: that is, they do not exist aside from their relationships to other properties and things. Properties are inherent in things and have objective existence, independent of human consciousness. Objective idealism characteristically separates the property from the thing. In other words, a property is understood as something general, existing independently of individual objects and belonging to the sphere of consciousness. Subjective idealism identifies properties with sensations, thereby denying the objective character of properties. V. I. Lenin demonstrated that the identification of the properties of things with sensations contradicts the basic facts of the modern natural sciences and inevitably leads to solipsism (Materializm i empiriokrititsizm [Materialism and Empiriocriticism], Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 18).

To a large extent, the branches of learning are differentiated according to differences between the types of properties they study. Depending on how they change, properties may be divided into those that lack intensity and therefore cannot change in that respect (for example, economic or historical properties) and those that are of variable intensity (for example, weight, temperature, or velocity). The humanities are concerned chiefly with properties of the first type. Mathematics and the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, and astronomy, study primarily properties of the second type. In modern science, however, there is a growing tendency toward overcoming this distinction, as is evident in the development of affine geometry and topology and the penetration of statistical and mathematical methods into the humanities.

REFERENCE

Uemov, A. I. Veshchi, svoistva i otnosheniia. Moscow, 1963.

A. I. UEMOV

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.