The Edges of the Field: Lessons on the Obligations of Ownership - Hardcover

Singer, Joseph William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807004383 ISBN 13: 9780807004388

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 2000

Synopsis

"Startling new answers. . . . Turns the inherently inegalitarian implication of property on its head." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In The Edges of the Field Harvard law professor Joseph William Singer offers a cogent look at America's complex relation to property and ownership. Incorporating examples as far-reaching as the experience of Malden Mills owner Aaron Feuerstein, the Torah, and the musical Rent, Singer reminds us that ownership is a curious blend of security and vulnerability between owner and nonowner. He proposes that the manner in which property shapes social relations of power is as important as ownership rights.

"In this compact, challenging book, a top legal scholar Joseph Singer argues that with property rights go human responsibilities...The result is a very welcome, readable achievement. It is also much needed." —Milner S. Ball, author of Called by Stories: Biblical Sagas and Their Challenge for Law

"[An] often surprising meditation on what haves and have-nots owe each other." —Booklist

"Singer courageously champions the idea that there must be some limitation to our economic doctrine of maximizing the shareholder's profitability. A brilliant and creative idea which will sustain for the long-term our economic system." —Aaron Feuerstein, president and CEO of Malden Mills, Inc.

About this title

About the Author

Joseph Singer is professor of law at Harvard Law School and author of Property Law: Rules, Policies, and Practices. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Reviews

Do private property owners have the right to do as they please with their property, or do they have larger responsibilities to the community? Can farmers, for instance, use their land as they wish, or are they obligated to engage in soil conservation because the land is a natural resource that has value to the community at large? Singer, a professor of law at Harvard, provides some startlingly new answers to this question. Most people believe a larger responsibility is associated with ownership, he argues, but American law mostly supports an individualistic conception of property. Singer offers as an example of this individualistic perspective the case of Aaron Feuerstein, a textile factory owner who continued to pay his workers for several months after a fire temporarily shut down production, though he was under no legal obligation to do so. Feuerstein believed that owning property conveyed responsibilities; his story reinforces the longstanding American belief that ownership of property builds character. Singer then turns the inherently inegalitarian implication of property on its head: if owning property has such a positive effect, expanding the number of people who own property is just as important as protecting the rights of those who are already owners. For Singer, recognizing the value of property ownership suggests at least a mild effort at redistributionDhardly what the traditional defenders of property had in mind. "The have-nots," he writes, "should be entitled to legal rules and economic institutions that allow them to become haves." This is an original twist on a familiar issue. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807004383
• ISBN 13: 9780807004388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 125