Incidents Of Ownership Research Articles

A comparison of tenurial change and privatization in two Garden City communities: Sunnyside Gardens, New York City and Garbatella, Rome

ABSTRACTThe paper problematizes public housing privatization. It compares the trajectory of tenure change in two garden communities – Garbatella, Rome and Sunnyside Gardens, New York City – which privileged public and private ownership, respectively. The cases are currently dealing with tenure change. Sunnyside experienced the enclosure of gardens and citizens’ attempt to reclaim what was held in common in order to bring back the communal spaces. Garbatella is a place where growth over time of rights, powers, immunities, and privileges is manifested in long-lasting processes of appropriation of public housing goods. Despite their different stories, Sunnyside helps to problematize the process of public housing privatization in Garbatella which is further complicated by tenure complexity, State-induced rent gap and institutional displacement. The analysis of tenure change, done by using the ‘incidents of ownership’ notion developed by Marcuse, contributes to the understanding of what public housing privatization means in social and spatial terms. Housing privatization leads to an erosion of the in-between space where individual and collective aspiration meet as a precondition for the reproduction of what is held in common: spatial goods such as open spaces and housing – a fundamental aspect of our citizenship.

ARE MODERN AMERICAN LIBERALS SOCIALISTS OR SOCIAL DEMOCRATS?

AbstractThis paper answers the title question, “Yes,” on both counts. The first part of the paper argues that modern liberals are socialists, and the second part argues that they are also social democrats. The main idea behind the first argument is that the state has effectively taken control of the incidents of ownership through its taxation, spending, and regulatory policies. The main idea behind the second argument is that the institutions of social democracy are replicated by the institutions favored by modern American liberalism. Specifically, the takeover of the American healthcare system, Social Security, employers' mandatory contributions to unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation insurance replicate the institutions of social democracy.

A Life Estate Conception of Property

The dominant conception of ownership in Anglo-American law ever since Blackstone, at least, has been the fee simple absolute. Among the incidents of ownership in this absolute conception is the jus abutendi or right to waste. A life estate conception of property would abrogate this right to waste while preserving the attractive features of the fee simple absolute, including in particular alienability and freedom of testamentary disposition. This article argues that liberal society has always disapproved of waste, in each of two senses -- dissipatory use or destruction and non-urgent use. The evolution of forms of ownership towards an absolute model was in fact motivated in part by a desire to curtail waste in its dissipatory sense. As value has moved away from land and into intangible repositories, paradigmatically money, the problem of non-urgent waste has become more pressing. Whereas prior scholars have not been able to conceive of a practical general law against waste, the tax system can bring about just this result, through a progressive consumption tax. Such a tax makes the wealthy fiduciaries of society's capital stock, now seen as the main element of social property. The article is presented as an extended illustration of a political and interpretive argument, in the spirit of John Rawls.

Federal Estate Taxation: "Policy Facts" under Section 2042 (2) Held to Determine "Incidents of Ownership"

Federal Estate Taxation: "Policy Facts" under Section 2042 (2) Held to Determine "Incidents of Ownership"