The Abuse of Property

A fundamental critique of the current property regime, calling for radical social and political change.

In The Abuse of Property, Daniel Loick offers a multifaceted philosophical critique of the concept of property, broadly understood. He argues that property should not be the dominant framework in which human beings regulate the use of things, that property is not the same as use. Property rights, in his view, are not conditions of freedom or justice, but deficient, dysfunctional, and harmful ways of interacting with other people and the natural environment. He dissects not only the classic justifications of property (from John Locke's justification of property as a natural right based on individual freedom to Hegel's justification of property as a form of mutual recognition) but also the classic critiques of property, from Proudhon and Marx up to Adorno and Agamben.

Through an innovative critical approach to legal studies, Loick demonstrates how the concept of property, historically applied to things and people and still a linchpin of our distorted relation with the world, forms a direct line from the Occupy movement to Black Lives Matter and beyond.Better Squat than Rot ix
1 The Use of Property 1
The Liberal Justification of Property 2
The Ontological Justification of Property 20
2 The Abuse of Property 39
The Social Critique of Property 42
The Ethical Critique of Property 53
The Political Critique of Property 70
Epilogue: Not Being at Home in One's Home 85
Afterword to the English Edition: From Occupy to Abolition 87
Acknowledgments 99
Notes 101Included in Publishers Weekly's Fall 2023 Adult Announcements Politics & Current Events list“With searing clarity, Daniel Loïck presents a highly sophisticated, urgent, and necessary interrogation of ‘the tragedy of property.’ Breathing new life into the social, political, and ethical critiques of private forms of ownership, Loïck offers us a novel and sorely needed reconceptualization of the concept of use as a basis for radical political and social movements. Upending complacent notions of the commons, Loïck illuminates how squatting and occupying, along with movements for landback and abolition, centre repair over destruction and collective life over individual profit. This book is an indispensable read for scholars, students, and activists alike.”
—Brenna Bhandar, author of Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land, and Racial Regimes of OwnershipDaniel Loick is Associate Professor in Political and Social Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of A Critique of Sovereignty and other works.