Alberto Mingardi

Il tema della proprietà nel pensiero di Herbert Spencer   

215

Maggio-Agosto 2007

Anno LXXII    n. 2

Summary - It is frequently maintained that Herbert Spencer changed hid mind, during his career, on various issues, including the nature of private property. This paper argues that the evolution of Spencer’s thinking, as far as private property rights are concerned, can be better understood as a consequence of his need to provide a better structured defense of the classical liberal values he promoted ever since his youth.

After a summary of the theory of private property, in the Lockean tradition of liberalism, this paper tries to explain why, given Spencer’s evolutionism, it was impossible for him to share the basic pillars of the Lockean justification for private property. This brings Spencer to argue for a particular regime for property rights in land, which is critically re-elaborated at a later stage of his career.

This fact is understood in the paper as a consequence of a basic need for symmetry and consistency, between Spencer’s arguments on land’s property, property rights for goods, and intellectual property rights.