This article is an early version of a paper that was published as: Karl Widerquist, “The people’s endowment.” In Axel Gosseries and Inigo Gonzalez (eds.) Institutions for Future Generations, Oxford University Press, pp. 312-330 The proposal Governments should start to build up a permanent endowment of publicly held assets, both financial and physical, lease at least some of them out

            I’m posting chapters of my latest book project (The Prehistory of Private Property coauthored by Grant. S. McCall)             This discussion paper is a draft of Chapter 2 of our forthcoming book, the Prehistory of Private Property. It traces the history of the appropriation story in property theory from John Locke to the present day. It shows that, although

My latest book project (coauthored by the anthropologist, Grant S. McCall) is called The Prehistory of Private Property. It book tells two parallel histories. It tells the story of how modern property theory became dependent on three misconceptions about the origin of the property rights system and the difference between societies with common and privatized resources, and how those misconceptions