Hypotheses and Key Questions

Our key questions for the second funding phase are oriented, on the one hand, towards the comparative perspectives that have emerged during the first funding phase. We will also pursue hypotheses from the first funding phase, which suggest a connection between the continuing increase in importance and the simultaneous questioning of (private) property. We proceed from several assumptions: 1) As property expands, it will diversify. 2) The further advance of private property in particular will trigger criticism, resistance, and counter-movements. 3) Property is increasingly being subordinated to other, namely geopolitical and ecological goals. 4) Its transformations cannot be reconstructed uniformly as an extension of a Western liberal core pattern, but are based on ‘asynchronous’ and, above all, heterogeneous property traditions that nevertheless interact with each other. When these assumptions are combined with the comparative perspectives, the following overarching key questions emerge for our second funding phase.

Diversification of Ownership

Our assumption is that ownership diversifies when new objects of property are developed or when traditional forms of ownership prove to be insufficient to regulating a field of disposal characterised by diverse claims and interdependence. Examples include the economic use of wind energy, data streams or academic research, the increased valorisation of reproductive processes, home ownership or water, the sustainable use of ecological resources, the preservation of biodiversity, and even changed corporate practices or sharing economies. These developments require new regulations of property that may change the meaning of the concept and the overall structure of the institution. The resulting arrangements differ from the notion of private property but also from that of state property and common property under state trusteeship. Also, they often include non-proprietary elements. These assumptions can be tested and refined using the following research questions:

  • Extensional: Does the expansion of ownership to previously non-proprietary objects lead to its diversification? What is the causal link in each case?
  • Intensional: In what cases can the diversification of property ownership be seen as a more differentiated form of existing ownership models? In what cases does it give rise to new combinations (e.g., of state and private ownership)? And in which cases does it even tend to redefine the basic understanding of ownership?
  • Temporal: Are the diversified forms and systems of ownership historically new, or do they continue older patterns (as in the case of commons)? Are they still in an experimental stage or have they already stabilised? And can a specific point in time or period be identified when the diversified pattern emerged or became important? And (where) is the temporality of ownership itself changing? For example, is there a shift towards accelerated turnover or ownership forms that reflect longer-term (ecological) consequences?
  • Spatial: Is the trend towards diversification of ownership concentrated in countries and regions of the world with a particular character, such as a strong liberal or welfare state tradition? Where does it arise from the overlap and hybridisation of different regional property regimes? To what extent should we distinguish between countries and world regions, and to what extent between the (municipal to transnational) levels of multiscalar statehood?

Resistance to Advancing Propertisation

The disembedding, reorganisation, or re-creation of ownership is a contentious issue in many places. From the growing propertisation of goods, through the ‘privatization of public services’ (Altvater 2003), to disputes on how access and usage rights are organized in the digital space, the expansion of private ownership in particular provokes criticism, resistance, and counter-initiatives. Added to this are the dynamics of inequality that are often associated with propertisation. Based on the insights we have gained, particularly in the previous project area C on ‘alternatives,’ we want to further pursue and discuss innovations and debates that are clearly directed against the advance of private ownership. Commons, stewardship, and self-ownership in the area of natural resources, open licences for cultural goods and software, initiatives to recollectivise social infrastructure, and some new practices of the sharing economy do not simply create a diversification in ownership structures (although they often contribute to this). They are also often intended to ward off or undermine private ownership. Such models can be located at different points on a continuum between confrontational and complementary alternatives and are designed to bring about systemic change only in some cases. The following questions will help us explore this area of tension:

  • Extensional: How politically and economically relevant are the resistance efforts and alternatives to the expansion of private ownership (in the respective contexts)? Do they challenge the trend towards propertisation or even private ownership as a basic institution, or do they remain limited to theoretical speculation and small alternative milieus? Are the groups and classes engaged in resistance mainly those without any ownership or those threatened with losing ownership, or are these initiatives instead driven by the relatively privileged middle and upper classes?
  • Intensional: Where do the resistance to private property and alternatives raise systemic questions or offer the prospect of a non-proprietary order for specific areas such as science, cultural production, or software development? Where are they essentially questions of distribution? And where do they fit into conventional property orders, possibly even against the explicit intentions of their proponents?
  • Temporal: Can we identify periods in which resistance to propertisation was particularly strong? How do the ownership-related policy positions of such phases relate to each other and to earlier peaks, as in, for example, the Western Left? Which other parts of the political spectrum were or are currently involved?
  • Spatial: Where are criticisms of and resistance to Western liberalism significantly shaped by opposition to Western patterns of ownership, imposed propertisation, and the enrichment of Western owners? What roles do non-Western ownership traditions, the interests of privileged or subordinate population groups, and those of elected or authoritarian governments play in this? In what debates (such as intellectual property and generic drugs in the pharmaceutical industry) are global inequalities also at stake?

The Prioritisation and Subordination of Ownership

The question of where ownership, particularly economic ownership, is subordinated to other principles became relevant through recent developments we observed during the first funding phase: the Covid crisis and the subsequent recovery programmes, the resulting impetus for a more consistent climate policy, and the intensified economic and military geopolitical conflicts of recent years. A comparative analysis is needed to examine whether the repoliticisation of ownership is a lasting trend. Under what conditions (legal traditions, forms of government, etc.) can it become dominant? Are the most active countries putting pressure on others and what longer-term effects are emerging from this development? In extreme cases, the partial subordination of property could threaten the functional differentiation of society (or be an important means of limiting the economically induced concentration of power) and determine a country's economic system – for example, whether China is an authoritarian capitalist economy or a state capitalist economy. In this area, too, the research questions can be broken down systematically:

  • Extensional: To what extent are property rights subordinated to political or other purposes? Does this structurally limit the importance of private property in certain national or international contexts?
  • Intensional: What types of property are affected? Is (transnational) corporate property particularly at risk, or does it continue to enjoy special protection? In doubtful cases, which goals are prioritised over the preservation and protection of private and corporate property?
  • Temporal: Has there been a notable increase in the political subordination of property in the very recent past (since the Covid pandemic)? What historical comparisons can be made, and to what extent do the war economies of the 20th century provide a viable model? And is the subordination of property only temporary or indefinite?
  • Spatial: Is the subordination of ownership to other goals a recognisable response to developments in countries outside the reach of Western liberalism, namely, Russia and China? Or is there a global trend towards deglobalisation and renationalisation, driven by technological and ecological factors?

Global Interactions Between Heterogeneous Property Dynamics

The key questions we ask about the diversification of, resistance to, and subordination of property are based on the observation that core elements of classical Western private ownership – supplemented by innovations in modern corporate property – encounter various obstacles in their expansion. Even when we take into account the world history of colonialism and the continuing influence of the Global North, this insight has a clear geographical bias. As already explained in the comparative spatial perspective, we are aware that global developments regarding property are heterogeneous in a strong sense (i.e., they have different origins; see, among others, the anthologies by Polanyi et al. 1957, Hann 1998, and Benda-Beckmann et al. 2006), so that structural diversity must be examined alongside the process of diversification. With our projects on India, China, Namibia, Chile, and Argentina, we attempt – at least by way of example – to ‘provincialise’ the Western view (cf. Chakrabarty 2000), without denying our focus on European and North American countries. This makes it all the more important to also consider patterns of ownership that do not originate in the Western tradition and to examine interrelationships that are not characterised by the (assumed) supremacy of the Global North. For this reason, we have included the spatial dimension in all our key questions – and we are also explicitly pursuing questions on the global heterogeneity of property:

  • Extensional: In what transnational constellations are Western property interests no longer on the offensive but rather on the defensive or simply of little relevance? To what extent do such shifts in power distribution affect ownership regimes themselves as in, for example shifts in political authority?
  • Intensional: What alternatives to Western liberal private property continue to exist or are re-emerging globally? To what extent are aspects of family solidarity, cultural continuity, collective land use, and political power distribution integrated differently than in the West? And where do countries of the Global South, such as Chile, serve as testing grounds for expanded or deregulated forms of property?
  • Temporal: What turning points and upheavals are decisive for the studied countries beyond Europe and North America? Are fundamental movements towards the expansion of and challenge to (private) property taking place here in different time frames?
  • Spatial: Which ownership regimes have become intertwined and interconnected in the course of globalisation, which have remained separate, and which are currently drifting apart again? Can Anglo-Saxon common law, for example, still be seen as the global standard for corporate and financial property?