Abstract
The dominant modern conception of private property has been and is liberal. Liberalism concerns itself with promoting and protecting freedom of choice for the individual—natural or legal—and groups of them. Private property is liberalism’s vehicle for achieving that objective—conferring choice—in the allocation and control of goods and resources—natural or manufactured, tangible or intangible—among individuals. Yet the last 35 years, and longer, depending on how one understands the scholarship, stand witness to an explosion of property theory literature, much of it focusing upon what has come to be known as property as social relations or the progressive property movement. This ‘social shift’ recognises the importance of community interests in understanding both the concept of property and its invocation in real world legal systems. To a great extent, then, and depending upon how one looks at it, the property as social relations or progressive property view seems either an entirely American phenomenon or, whatever the phenomenon might be, it has been appropriated by American theorists. Seldom in this modern theorising, however, do we see mentioned the name of Léon Duguit. Yet, in the sixth of a series of lectures given in 1911 in Buenos Aires, Duguit coined the now axiomatic French phrase ‘propriété function sociale’ or the social function of property, meaning that rather than a right, property is a social function. And while the social function of property has come to have an importance, not only in France, but also in the civil law tradition itself, and while this notion has had wide, if un-attributed and seldom regarded, influence in the common law tradition and theory of property, Duguit’s lecture has rarely been translated into English into English and even more infrequently adverted to by the property as social relations/progressive property movements.
Parts of this chapter are republished with the kind permission of the University of New South Wales Law Journal and of the Monash University Law Review (Paul Babie, Sovereignty as Governance: An Organising Theme for Australian Property Law, 36(3) University of New South Wales Law Journal 1075 (2013), and Paul Babie, Climate Change is Eco-Slavery: A Climate Future of Australian Property Law, 43 Monash University Law Review 35 (2017)). (http://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/36-3-1.pdf) (https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/1092670/02_Babie.pdf).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
There has yet to be any example in the history of human society where William Blackstone’s ‘sole and despotic dominion’ described the on-the-ground distribution of resources or social wealth; see Rose 1994, 603. Even the Romans—to whom the notion of absolute dominium in things is often attributed—did not in practice recognise such a possibility: Getzler 1998, 81–106.
- 3.
A notable exception to the standard use of Blackstone is found in Schorr 2009.
- 4.
Blackstone went on to explain the many ways in which fetters were placed upon private property in 18th century England: Blackstone (1979a, b, c, 212–215, 217–218). But Book II itself was an account of English real property law that ‘…took pains to point out both that this right of “property in its highest degree [the fee simple]” was always “held of some superior, on condition of rendering him service; in which superior or ultimate property of the land resides”, and that lesser interests were frequently vested in some other person or persons….Not only did “absolute” ownership not exist in England, it was hardly discussed even as a mythological ideal type.’: Schorr 2009, 3–4.
- 5.
Possession, use, manage, income, capital, security, transmissibility and absence of term, duty to prevent harm, liability to execution, and the incident of residuarity: Honoré (1961).
- 6.
Some would say disintegrated (Grey 1980).
- 7.
On the idea that rights are the background knowledge of modern property, see Ellickson (2006, 236–240).
- 8.
Hohfeld’s thinking was subsequently taken up by Hale (1923), Cohen (1927), Hale (1943), Cohen (1954).
Contemporary scholars, especially those of the Critical Legal Studies movement, who became known as the property as social relations school, have extensively developed and expanded the early realist work on property: see (Macpherson 1975, 104, 1978a, 1, b, 199; Nedelsky 1989, 1990, 1993; Kennedy 1991; Singer 1982, 1988, 1991, 1992, 2000a, b, 2005; Singer and Beermann 1993; Rose 1994; Baker 1986; Underkuffler 1990, 2003).
- 9.
Joseph William Singer, the modern exemplar of social relations, offers this succinct summary: ‘[p]roperty concerns legal relations among people regarding control and disposition of valued resources. Note well: Property concerns relations among people, not relations between people and things’ (Singer 2005, 2, footnote omitted, emphasis in original).
- 10.
For more recent acceptance of the relevance of social context, see George (2005).
- 11.
This can be traced to the seminal work of Grey (1980).
- 12.
- 13.
And see Honoré (1961), especially regarding the duty to prevent harm and the liability to execution. Singer (2000b, 78–79), makes this point in relation to the United States’ system of private property, although it can easily be extended to the legal system of any Western, capitalist, market economy.
- 14.
- 15.
One of the most innovative theories of property during those 35 years is perhaps that of Harris (1996). Yet today it is hardly known and rarely cited.
- 16.
‘Mais la propriété n’est pas un droit; elle est une fonction sociale’ as cited in Mirow (2010, 191) n 1.
- 17.
Like his mother, he would also engage in charitable activities (Laborde-Lacoste 1959, 108).
- 18.
This is apparent in the 6th Buenos Aires lecture.
- 19.
This was explicit from the dedication to Duguit in Gressaye and Laborde-Lacoste (1947), a book which aided the diffusion of Duguit’s ideas.
- 20.
He visited Romania, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the USA, and Egypt as well as Argentina (Laborde-Lacoste 1959, 100).
- 21.
‘La distribution d’électricité est une concession de service public de compétence communale’ (loi du 15 juin 1906), JORF du 17 juin 1906 p 4105.
- 22.
Discovered in the translation of the sixth lecture in this edited collection.
- 23.
Law of 9 March 1918, regarding the possibility and sometimes the duty to regulate tenancy contracts and its article 56 stating that ‘any tenant can, under some formalities, impose to the landlord the prorogation of the tenancy agreement, even after the war’; Law of 23 October 1919 and its article 6 that allowed for the punishment of anyone who manipulated the price of tenancies.
- 24.
- 25.
- 26.
See Code Civil [Civil Code] (France), Books II, III and IV.
- 27.
- 28.
Not part of the codified law of property as found in the Code Civil [Civil Code] (France), Books III and IV, ‘the doctrine of ‘abuse of right’ was developed in France by the judiciary in the late 19th century’: Steiner (2010, 391). Taggart (2002, 146–149 nn 13–17), identifies three principal cases: Badoit v. André, Lyons, 1856, D.P.1856.2.199; Forissier v Chaverot, Req., 10 June 1902, D.P.III.1902.1.454, S.1903.1.11; Clément Bayard v. Coquerel, 3 August 1915, S.1920.1.300, D.P.1917.1.79.
- 29.
For a discussion of the cases, see Taggart (2002, 145–149).
- 30.
The Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of the Borough of Bradford v Pickles (1895) AC 587 (HL) (‘Bradford v Pickles’).
- 31.
The summary of the case is drawn from Taggart (2002, 1–4).
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Babie, P., Viven-Wilksch, J. (2019). Léon Duguit and the Propriété Function Sociale. In: Babie, P., Viven-Wilksch, J. (eds) Léon Duguit and the Social Obligation Norm of Property. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7189-9_1
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