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Property
Robert Lamb
polity
Copyright page
Copyright © Robert Lamb 2021
The right of Robert Lamb to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1919-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1920-0 (pb)
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Dedication
For Lawrence
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to George Owers at Polity for first suggesting (in late 2015) that I write this book and for being – along with Julia Davies – supportive and patient as I followed the established academic convention of missing multiple agreed deadlines. I am not in the habit of missing more than one such deadline, but the last four years have been very hectic. Thanks are due to various colleagues and family members, but particularly to whomever developed the ‘out-of-office’ email message that helped me keep some time to myself during my tenure as head of department, enabling me to make (slow) progress on the manuscript.
Much of what I have learned about property over the years has come from conversations with other scholars. Many of these conversations were at stimulating workshops organised by Chris Pierson, through the Political Studies Association’s ‘Politics of Property’ specialist group that he led so brilliantly. The comments I received on the manuscript from the three anonymous referees (and from three others on the original proposal) were very useful, including objections from one overwrought libertarian critic, which helped persuade me that I was on broadly the right track. Ross Carroll provided valuable comments on the text towards the very end of its composition and I benefited from the excellent copy-editing of Tim Clark. While writing a book that is essentially an introduction to its subject, I have had in mind the two teachers who first introduced me to political philosophy as an undergraduate – Gabriella Slomp and Kevin Francis – with such infectious passion and enthusiasm. Most importantly, as well as providing her typically piercing thoughts on the manuscript, Sarah Drews Lucas helped keep me loved (and sane) as the last years have flown by. This book is dedicated to our son, who was born this week, amidst a global pandemic.
R. L.
Exeter, April 2020
Introduction: What is Property?
In his novel The Information, Martin Amis makes the following observations – via his hapless protagonist Richard Tull – about the worldview and attitudes of an artist:
He