The question I want to ask in this thread is whether we should conceive of property in principle as a temporary right to resources which are ultimately communal or a permanent individual right.

For the purposes of this thread, I understand property as it is understood in common language: The attachement of a "thing", which can be incorporeal, to a legal person. Property can be understood as a relation between persons concerning a thing, in which one person holds a bundle of rights over the thing. The central rights usually associated with property are the right to exclude others from use of the property and the right to all fruits gained by the "proper" use of the property (what uses are considered proper is generally subject to further regulation).

I don't want to prejudice the question by ascribing to one specific theory of how property comes about and what it's justification is, though this will no doubt become relevant in the discussion. What I will say is that it seems likely that the current notion is historically contingent and that the evolution of the notion of property is strongly linked to the distribution of arable land in a society. It therefore seems reasonable to approach the question of property from the perspective of distribution of limited (though not in the malthusian sense) resources in a society

Some property is essentially temporary by it's nature. This is most obvious with perishable goods like food, which you can theoretically own in perpetuity, but which will in practice degrade to be significantly less valuable more or less quickly, with no effective means to halt this process. On the other hand, some property, like financial assets, not only does not automaticall degrade, but ususally can be used as capital - that is used to generate further property. Both these cases could be understood as examples of a general rule where property used for your personal consumption (which includes not just food, but also clothes, housing etc.) is in practice temporary by virtue of being consumed, whereas capital can be and often is eternal unless some kind of intervention redistributes it.

This causes the phenomenon, which is obseravble easily enough around the world, that large concentrations of property perpetuate and increase, while small concentrations need to be continually replaced through work. Since inheritance records are available, it has been consistently the case that the bottom 50% of the wealth distribution - the 50% of the population with the least wealth - have almost no property to pass on to their children.

Prima facie, it seems hard to justify such a state of affairs. A common justification given for large concentrations of property is that large concentrations of property are the reward given for being an effective member of society (by supplying goods and services which are in high demand) - while incurring significant risks in terms of failure. Whether or not one finds this justification convincing in the abstract, it cannot explain why such "merit" should result in a permanent allocation of property to a person and their descendants. Any kind of contribution by any person is necessarily finite. This is the case even with the most beneficial and risky contributions. One might argue that some contributions have incalculable effects into the future. Who can say, after all, how much the invention of Penicilin was worth in the long term? But this subtly shifts the discussion from the supposed merit of the contribution to the magnitude of the effect. There was still only a finite amount of work (and risk) involved.

So might it be preferable to consider property to be a temporary allocation of resources which are, in principle, communal, and should eventuall return into circulation - for example via taxes on wealth and inheritance?