Elements for a general critique of property: immaterial labor and the economic construction of scarcity

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the contrast between the two main definitions of economy, from the formal tradition and from the material or substantive tradition, and in a context of new enclosures on nature and culture, traditional conceptualizations of private property are taken back to confront them with the contemporary tendency towards an artificial creation of scarcity for the immaterial production. From here, we propose to discuss the traditional notions about private property and its relation to the definition of economy, with the ultimate objective of providing some conceptual elements that would contribute to a critical analysis of property as a social institution.