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6 - Property’s Conceptual Structure

from Part II - The Natural Right to Property

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2025

Eric R. Claeys
Eric R. Claeys
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

This chapter studies the property’s analytical structure. The most basic concept for property is the concept of a usufruct. The conceptual model for usufructs describes informal property right and simple legal rights like easements and common law water rights. That model also describes the features of the natural rights that conventional property institutions should secure. Usufructs consist of in rem and immunized claim-rights in relation to separable resources, they possess institutional status, and they are structured to perform the function of facilitating productive use as studied in Chapters 4 and 5. The foregoing definition of a usufruct is a definition in relation to a focal or core case. This chapter contrasts its conceptual claims with exclusion theories and bundle of rights theories.

Keywords

institutional artifactconceptual analysispropertyin remexclusionbundle of rightsusufructriparianprior appropriation
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Chapter
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Natural Property Rights , pp. 105 - 127
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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