The emergence of the ‘State” and of ‘private property” in ancient times and in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The aim of this article is to differentiate between the kind of ‘private property” that existed in ancient times and in the Middle Ages from the present-day capitalist model of private property. To do so, it must be acknowledged that private property in Rome was a common good rather than a commodity, and that the rule over it was based on force. In the Middle Ages, ‘private property” was feudal, with land ruled by masters and servants according to moral and religious grounds. This explains why feudal property cannot be described as a commodity, possessed as it is in capitalist relations, due to its basis on the feudal concept of loyalty. It was only in the wake of the French Revolution that private property emerged in the capitalist sense, with the possibility for monopolizing areas of land and transforming them into goods. The article discusses legal ideas of property based on a descriptive analysis of authors and concepts.