Notes on Private, Public, and Common Property; Enclosures; and the Western State (Angus Reading & Related Historical Episodes)

Private, public, and common property: key distinctions

• Private property: access and use defined by private owners; owners decide who can enter, use, or set up on their land; can be rented or commodified; permission from owner required.
• Public property: access defined by regulated bodies (often the state); generally accessible to the public; owned by the state or a third-party representative; regulation includes maintenance and rules.
• Public access examples: parks, libraries, roads, libraries’ books; public housing and public means of production are often treated differently in practice.
• Common property (the commons): owned and governed collectively by a community (not by a single person or the state); access and use are defined by community membership; can be open access or regulated by the community; not necessarily tied to the state or private ownership.
• Distinctions summarized: ownership (private/public/common), access, use, and regulation all vary by ownership form.

The commons and the reading by Angus (the reading focuses on common property)

• Common property is usually defined by community membership, not by any one individual or subgroup.
• Commons refers to collectively owned material resources; it does not have to be limited to a village or small community; can be a broader concept (e.g., open-access intellectual resources).
• Intellectual property can be privatized (most music, most books, all copyrighted material) or can be common property (e.g., Wikipedia – open access, broadly defined community access).
• The community-based access to means of subsistence (land, forests, pastures) historically provided essential needs directly from common land; even though goods could be produced for the market, survival did not require purely market relations.

Historical prevalence of common property and the move to private property

• For most of human history, common property was the dominant form of land/resources governance.
• This persisted even after the rise of hierarchical structures around ten thousand years ago, and continued until the enclosures.
• The Magna Carta codified the concept of gleaning – the right to take what is needed from common land – as part of survival.
• By the 16th century (~1500s–1600s), the common land system began a rapid transition toward privatization (the enclosures), especially in England and Scotland (enclosures in Scotland called “clearances”).
• Enclosures: landlords forcibly evicted smaller tenants to rent to larger, wealthier farmers and commercial sheep farmers to increase rent; shift to farming for profit and market production.
• This process entailed mass commodification of land: even historically private land owned by lords could be used as common property; enclosures turned resources into commodities owned and traded on markets.
• The process was violent and resisted by commoners who depended on common lands for subsistence; resistance included uprisings and moral objections to the removal of common access.
• The concept of “improvement” was used to justify enclosures, reframing land as something to be improved for profit rather than for community sustenance or ecological health.

Illustrative example and rhetoric around enclosure

• The term “improvement” was used as a justification for enclosures to describe converting land into a more profitable asset for capital.
• Literal fencing and demarcation of property lines became common; this is likened to modern property delineation from aerial views (e.g., planes over Manitoba).
• The enclosure period created a new property regime: from feudal obligation to a market-driven private-property regime.
• The enclosures were not only about land ownership but about shifting social relations and the state’s role in property and law.

The social and political consequences of enclosures

• Enclosures displaced peasants and serfs who relied on common lands for subsistence; many workers could no longer live off the land and had to seek wage labor.
• Two related transitions: (1) workers lost subsistence access to land; (2) they lost the obligation of landlords to provide living space; they had to rent housing and purchase goods to survive.
• This catalyzed a shift to wage labor and the creation of a working class dependent on wages for subsistence.
• It contributed to the emergence of modern capitalism and class relations: a rising bourgeoisie and a dependent laboring class.
• The state played a key role in enforcing enclosures and protecting private property rights as a central element of the new order.

The Diggers, the Levellers, and Gerard Winstanley (historical actors mentioned)

• Gerard Winstanley led the Digges/Leveller movement in early modern England, opposing enclosures and advocating common ownership in some form.
• The lecture notes that Winstanley’s movement is cited as an early proto-socialist challenge to enclosure-era property relations.
• The discussion connects to broader themes of state power, property, and class struggle during the enclosure era.

The Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights (1688–1689)

• The Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England featured a conflict between monarchists and Parliamentarians, leading to a constitutional settlement.
• The Bill of Rights (completed in 1689) limited the monarch’s powers and established rights of Parliament (regular meetings, free elections, parliamentary privilege).
• The Bill of Rights also enumerated individual rights (e.g., protection from cruel and unusual punishment; the need for parliamentary approval of taxation).
• However, civil/political rights in practice were limited to landowning classes; voting was constrained to landowners, reflecting a class-based democracy.
• The revolution signaled a shift toward parliamentary sovereignty and the subordination of the crown to the representative body, setting a precedent for liberal constitutionalism.

The United States: independence and the Constitution (late 18th century)

• The American Revolution (Declaration of Independence, 1776) mobilized elites, merchants, planters, and professionals who had property interests and resented British mercantile restrictions.
• The new republic sought to legitimize governance via property-based political power, drawing on John Locke’s philosophy that liberty is linked to property.
• The U.S. Constitution prioritized property rights as central to the new political order; political participation was initially limited and tied to property ownership.
• Early voting rights varied by state; some states allowed certain groups (e.g., free Black men with property, white women in some cases) to vote, but by the 19th century, voting largely narrowed to white male property owners.
• The Three-Fifths Compromise: enslaved people were counted as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation purposes, illustrating how property relations and racial subordination were embedded in constitutional design. This is often expressed as rac{3}{5} in discussions of the constitutional count.
• The U.S. Bill of Rights followed the Constitution and reinforced private property as fundamental, as noted by contemporary observers and critics (e.g., Roger Pyle of the Cato Institute).
• The constitutional framework framed private property as foundational for prosperity and freedom, yet the rights it protected often prioritized property owners and excluded enslaved people and many others from full liberty.
• The Second Amendment has been interpreted in various ways; historically, it was framed as a collective right to resist tyranny, but modern interpretations often emphasize individual gun ownership in defense of person and property.
• The lecture emphasizes that the Constitution and early rights documents were deeply entangled with property rights and the interests of ownership-class elites.

The French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789)

• The French Revolution is presented as a liberal-democratic revolution led by the rising bourgeoisie against the aristocracy and feudal privileges.
• It drew inspiration from the American Revolution and the Enlightenment.
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) proclaimed natural and inalienable rights, including freedom, ownership (property), security, and resistance to oppression; equality before the law; and the separation of powers.
• Article 2 states natural and inalienable rights; Article 17 asserts that property is sacred; the declaration elevates property as a central and inviolable right.
• The revolution initially claimed political equality (Article 1) but effectively granted political participation to a minority (active citizens, typically male property owners) while many groups (women, non-property holders, enslaved people) were excluded or marginalized.
• The rights rhetoric masked structural inequalities; property rights remained entangled with oppression (e.g., enslaved people in colonial contexts and those excluded from political participation).
• The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) is noted as a consequential extension of these ideas beyond Europe, illustrating the global reach and limits of revolutionary property-based liberalism.

The concept of “the sacredness” of property and the emergence of liberal democracy

• The Declaration and the French Revolution framed property as sacred and central to political order, signaling a bourgeois character of liberal democracy.
• Property rights helped establish the superstructure that supports capitalist relations of production by defining norms for political and legal authority.
• The transformation from common property to private property contributed to the restructuring of relations of production and the emergence of wage labor, marks of modern capitalism.

The “doubly free” worker and the rise of wage labor

• Enclosures created a population of people who were free from subsistence subsidies (they could no longer live off the land) but forced to enter wage labor for subsistence and rent payments.
• This shift is described as a foundational moment for modern capitalism: workers become dependent on selling their labor and purchasing subsistence goods in a market economy.

The state and the evolution of modern property regimes (base and superstructure)

• The changes in base property relations (from common to private) required corresponding shifts in the superstructure (laws, government, ideology, morality).
• The state’s role in protecting private property and shaping markets was central to the development of liberal democracy and capitalism.
• The discussion connects historical property regimes to contemporary state forms and policy choices, highlighting ongoing tensions between private property and public/common interests.

Democracy and its categories (preparation for next class discussion)

• Questions posed to students: What is democracy, and what categories exist?
• Distinctions include political democracy (who has formal rights to participate), direct democracy (all eligible people vote on decisions), and representative democracy (people elect representatives to vote on issues).
• The twentieth century saw increased emphasis on social democracy (broad enfranchisement and social rights) in contrast to earlier political democracy focused on property-based participation.
• The lecture distinguishes three categories: political democracy, social democracy, and a broader concept of democracy (including economic and civil dimensions).
• Students are asked to reflect on the state today: who it represents, who it serves, and how policy tends to align with property interests.

Connections to foundational principles and real-world relevance

• The familiar phrase from John Locke: the great and chief end of men uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property, illustrating the historical linking of liberty and property.
• The idea that the state’s primary function is to protect property has permeated political philosophy and constitutional design, shaping debates about civil liberties, taxation, and rights.
• The enclosures, the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the subsequent revolutions illustrate how property forms drive political change and state formation.
• The reading and lecture connect historical property regimes to contemporary questions about democracy, state power, and the distribution of resources and rights.

Key terms and concepts to remember (with examples)

• Private property: e.g., a private car, a private laptop, an invention with IP protection; access controlled by the owner; can be rented or bartered.
• Public property: e.g., roads, parks, public libraries; access regulated by the state; maintenance funded by public resources.
• Common property (commons): e.g., community forests, village pastures, Wikimedia/Wikipedia as open-access intellectual property; governed by community rules; access defined by membership or consent of the community.
• Enclosures: historical process of privatizing common lands; mass displacement; creation of wage labor; justification via concept of “improvement.”
• Gleaning: historical right to collect leftovers from fields for subsistence; codified in law before enclosure; signaled survival rights for peasants.
• Diggers/Levellers (Gerard Winstanley): early resistance to enclosure and calls for common ownership and political reform.
• The Glorious Revolution (1688) and Bill of Rights (1689): shifts toward parliamentary sovereignty and limits on royal power; voting still restricted to landowners.
• Declaration of Independence (1776) and the U.S. Constitution: property rights central to political order; representation tied to property; slavery and the Three-Fifths Compromise; constitutional protections of property as a basis for liberty.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789): property is sacred; active versus passive citizens; gender and colonial exclusions highlighted; links to the French revolutionary bourgeoisie.
• “Status of property” in the state today: ongoing debates about democracy, property, and equality; transition from political democracy to social democracy to a broader democratic project.

Chronology recap (high-level timeline)

• Pre-enclosures: common property dominant; subsistence-based access through communal rights.
• 16th–17th centuries: enclosures in England/Scotland; rise of private property; creation of a wage-labor force; resistance by commoners (Diggers, Levellers).
• 1688–1689: Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights; parliamentary supremacy begins to stabilize.
• 1776: American Declaration of Independence; property rights underpin governance.
• 1787–1788: U.S. Constitution; Bill of Rights follows; debates over who counts as a citizen and who has voting rights; Three-Fifths Compromise.
• 1789: French Revolution and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; property declared sacred; active vs passive citizens; gender and colonial exclusions noted; Haitian Revolution jumps to prominence later.
• Ongoing: tensions between private/property interests and broader democratic/egalitarian goals; debates continue about the meaning and scope of democracy today.

Takeaways for exam preparation

• Understand the three property regimes (private, public, common) and how access/use is determined under each regime.
• Know the historical process of enclosure, its drivers (landlords, rising bourgeoisie, capital accumulation), and its social consequences (subsumption of subsistence, rise of wage labor).
• Recognize how revolutions (Glorious, American, French) framed property rights as foundational to political order, while often excluding large portions of the population from genuine liberty.
• Distinguish between political democracy and social democracy; understand how property relations shape political rights and inclusion.
• Be able to discuss the moral/ideological narratives used to justify property regimes (e.g., “improvement,” “sacredness of property”) and critique them in terms of power, inequality, and the coercive apparatus of the state.
• Reflect on today’s state: who it represents, how property interests influence policy, and the ongoing relevance of commons and Open Access as alternatives to exclusive ownership.

Notable numerical references (for quick recall)

• Enclosures and subsistence changes: in the 16th–17th centuries, a major transition period;
• Early English farming: in the 16th century, about 80 ext{ extpercent} of English farmers grew only enough food for their household needs.
• Bourgeoisie economics in France (late 18th century): the bourgeoisie accounted for roughly 40 ext{ extpercent} of national income while representing under 8 ext{ extpercent} of the population.
• Haitian Revolution: 1791–1804.
• U.S. Three-Fifths Compromise: rac{3}{5} of enslaved persons counted for representation/taxes.
• Key years to remember: 1688 (Glorious Revolution), 1689 (Bill of Rights), 1776 (Declaration of Independence), 1787/1788 (Constitution), 1789/1791 (French Revolution and Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen).

Connections to broader concepts

• Property as a constitutive element of political order and liberty; property norms shape who holds power and who is excluded.
• The transition from common property to private property as a catalyst for the development of capitalism and wage labor.
• The role of the state in legitimizing and enforcing property regimes through law and ideology (base/superstructure relationship).
• The tension between democracy and property: who gets to participate, and whose rights are prioritized in constitutional orders.
• The relevance of the commons as a potential counter-model to exclusive private property, with modern-day examples in open access and digital commons.

Epistemic and ethical implications discussed

• The moral framing of property as a natural right can obscure its historical contingency and power asymmetries.
• Enclosures combined force and policy to reshape livelihoods, with lasting effects on class structure and political representation.
• The inclusion and exclusion in revolutionary property regimes reveal gendered and racial hierarchies that persisted despite liberal ideals.
• The ongoing debate about how to balance private incentives with common welfare, sustainable resource use, and equitable access to essential goods.

Questions for reflection and upcoming topics

• What is democracy in different contexts (political, direct, representative, social)?
• How do current policies balance private property rights with public and common interests?
• What is the state’s role today in representing varied stakeholder interests, and how does that compare with historical episodes (enclosures, revolutions)?
• How do concepts of private property, public property, and commons apply to contemporary issues like digital platforms, housing, and natural resources?

Quick reference glossary

• Common property: resources governed by a community; access determined by community norms.
• Enclosures: historical process of privatizing common land; often violent; justification centered on “improvement.”
• Gleaning: lawful subsistence rights to gather food from common lands when crops fail or are left behind.
• Bourgeoisie: the rising capitalist class that gains political power and drives economic transformation.
• Active vs. passive citizens: concept in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen; active usually male property owners; passive includes most others.
• Liberty and property: a longstanding link in liberal theory; property often argued to be foundational to freedom, but this linkage has been contested for its exclusionary effects.