Formal property’s contribution to mankind is not the protection of ownership; squatters, housing organizations, mafias, and even primitive tribes manage to protect their assets quite efficiently. Property’s real breakthrough is that it radically improved the flow of communications about assets and their potential.#
If the written law is in conflict with the laws citizens live by, discontent, corruption, poverty, and violence are sure to follow.#
Property is not a primary quality of assets but the legal expression of an economically meaningful consensus about assets.#