Private property

Private property, not to be confused with individual property or personal property, describes a labor relationship to the means of production. As a concept, private ownership of property can exist only in the specific context of a political system which defines how it exists and how it can be used.

Under capitalism, a right to private property is not based on one’s own labor (as in one form of individual property) but appropriation of the products of the labor of others.

History

Bourgeois private property developed at the end of feudalism when feudal and guild labor reached their limits. A new class of industrialists developed and gradually expropriated peasants, guild members, and manufacturing workers, turning them into propertyless proletarians.

At the end of capitalism, the proletariat overthrows the bourgeoisie and abolishes private property as the productive forces grow.