Property rights are thought of as the domain of the local conservative battling his government for rights to develop environmentally protected land. In fact though it is simply an intellectual tool, not even a 'Motley' one, as in the title of this blog.
In economic theory ownership is defined as an ability to control a resource, of course including your own labor and brain. This may seem droll, but ability to 'control' a resource is, theoretically, supposed to be determined on your ability to manage the resource. Those that are not able to manage do not gain the resources to control anything more than themselves, if even that.
But it is not so simple as econ 101 would have us believe. For one, information is not free.Perhaps most importantly their are very definitely things that make government ownership of PARTIAL property rights desirable. The utility easement on your property is perhaps the simplest and most easily understood example of such a well defined partial transfer.
