A "Commonest" Manifesto: Property and the General Welfare

Historians of the colonial period generally agree that the Revolution was fought to foster and preserve property, the term conventionally understood then as now to mean private property. The authors' discussion of property and the general welfare, called a "Commonest Manifesto," divides into four parts. Part II defines "property" and "general welfare" so that agreement or disagreement with the thesis concerning property's promotion of the general welfare can proceed from commonly grasped terms. Part III provides a brief history of property and how the borders of exclusive right relate over the centuries to the general welfare. Part IV suggests why natural law approaches to private property in the contemporary era may help explain but fail to provide adequate justification for the property system, which is justified instead on a consequentialist basis as an accommodation principally to new resource production.