Property

Property is one of the central issues of Political Philosophy, and a distinction needs to be drawn between 'Property Relations', or 'Possession', and 'Property Rights', since a stolen item might be a Possession, but not a piece of Property. Evolvementalism distinguishes four main types of Property Relation--'Natural', i. e. one's own body; 'Essential', i. e. what the vital processes of the body need; 'Instrumental', i. e. anything that aids or promotes those vital processes; and 'Inessential', i. e. anything else. It also distinguishes four main types of Property Acquisition--'Creation', i. e. produced by one's own efforts; 'Transfer', i. e. a sanctioned, or a mutually voluntary relocation, often as part of an Exchange; 'Finding', i. e. an unexpected encounter; and 'Expropriation', i. e. a relocation involving at least one involuntary party. In most systems, the only Property Relations that are not Property Rights are those that are the product of Expropriation. But what qualifies as the latter differs from system to system, and within them, from case to case. For example, the turning of a profit by a business owner from the work of an employee is a Transfer in Capitalism and Expropriation in Socialism. And, whether or not one has a Right to a Finding depends on circumstances. In a Phronetocracy, Property Rights are protected, how a particular Relation or Acquisition will generally be determined on a case by case basis, and the classification of the Acquisition of Inessential Property will in part be determined by the classification of the resultant Relation. That is, the Acquisition of Inessential Property from an involuntary party, for Essential or Instrumental purposes, can modify its classification as Expropriation, e. g. taxation can be a legally-sanctioned Transfer, as might be the taking of a bottle of milk from a multi-billionaire by a poor woman to feed her starving child. Complicating any particular Relation or Acquisition is the history of the item concerned, e. g. the sale of stolen goods to an unwitting buyer. Hence, the entire status of all Property Rights in the United Status is questionable, given how the country's wealth has been based on the development of land perhaps Expropriated from Native Americans, via the involuntary efforts of African-American slaves.