DOI: 10.62125/2303-6826.2025.28.103-104.159
UDK 316.356.2:316.26
Author
Bernard Harbaš
Summary
This article will attempt to present the post-structuralist critique of the classical (modern) approach to the phenomenon of private property. Throughout the history of economic sociology, property has been the point from which human freedom was defined. It was the phenomenon through which social relations, structures, and forms were determined. With the emergence of liberalism, individual freedom became connected with the possibility of economic activity and ownership. In that spirit, a free society emerges as a society of free workers and owners. For liberalism, each form of state control over the private property and economic activity signifies a non-free society. In contrast to liberalism, there is a theoretic current which puts the emphasis on the community and deems the excessive economic individualism leading to social inequalities and a non-free society. According to the advocates of such standpoint, in order to free the society from the rule of a small number of private property holders, it is necessary to abolish individual ownership and transform it into collective one. As opposed to both, there is a post-structuralist theory which argues that the concept of property itself, whether collective or individual, should be deconstructed, because both lead to social inequalities. For post-structuralists, human freedom is not defined by private property, but rather by the possibility for all the members of a community to participate equally in the sphere of politics.
Key words
community, private property, liberalism, unconditional exchange, the political, Communitas, economy of silence, economy of destruction, action, sharing