Law as a Social Force: Capitalism's Destruction of Lockean Views on Property

The Early Era (pre-1850)

Early Anglo-American Cases

In pre-industrial Anglo-American law, judges employed a Lockean notion of labor to justify property rights. In Keeble v. Hickering (1707), defendant had fired a gun, scattering birds that had landed in plaintiff’s fowl trap. The court gave plaintiff title to these birds for he had caught the birds “in the use of that employment of his freehold, his art, and skill.” Plaintiff’s individual labor created the property right. In Pierson v. Post (1805), the court used a similar argument to determine hunters’ rights of original acquisition. Title to wild animals was given to those who, “by their industry and labour, have used such means of apprehending them.”

Persistence through early capitalism, and the rise of the competing views

Subsection A: Turn of the century cases (INS v. AP, Presto Lite Co v. Davis, Cablevision)

Subsection B: A total phasing out of the labor --> property argument (Midler case, p 231)

Paper Title: Law as a Social Force: Capitalism's Destruction of Lockean Views on Property

-- By AndrewHerink - 10 Feb 2008

Section I: The Early Era (pre-1850)

Subsection A: Keeble v. Hickering: "This is his trade" and "his profit" because he has expended the effort.

Subsub 1

Subsection B: Pierson v. Post: same kind of quote

Subsub 1

Subsub 2

Section II: A Change in Property Views

Subsection A: Turn of the century cases (INS v. AP, ???)

Subsection B: A total phasing out of the labor --> property argument??

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