Limits to Property

It is time to turn away from the increasingly narrow and restrictive Anglo-Saxon approaches to ownership of property that currently characterise the global economy.

Faced with monumental health, social and environmental problems, the crude use of property as a ​‘right to exclude’ leaves us without the tools we need to solve the crises.

Why does property matter? Simply because it is a matter of life and death. The global economy keeps growing but, in climate change, it is meeting natural limits. The gap between rich and poor within and between countries keeps growing too, undermining social stability and making the world a less safe place.

Increasingly restrictive property regimes are a mirror image of the growing gaps between rich and poor, both within and between countries. This report argues that our approach to who owns what, lies behind these problems, and that a new attitude is needed to how property is claimed and then shared around the world.