Mine!

November 30, 2020
Heller (The Gridlock Economy), a professor of real estate law at Columbia Law School, and Salzman (Drinking Water), an environmental law professor at UCLA, examine how competing principles of ownership shape human behavior in this illuminating account. According to Heller and Salzman, there are only six stories that “everyone uses to claim everything.” They walk readers through each of these concepts, contending, for example, that foraging laws, copyright regulations, and mineral extraction rights all involve competing ownership principles of labor (“You and you alone deserve to reap what you sow”), possession (“This is mine because I’m holding on to it”), and attachment (“It’s mine because it’s connected to something that’s mine”). By identifying these principles and understanding them as rival stories rather than hard-and-fast rules, voters and lawmakers will be better equipped to deal with issues such as climate change and the social costs of the sharing economy, according to Heller and Salzman. They stuff their survey with intriguing legal cases and historical lessons and display flashes of wit. Readers will gain fresh insights into the law and society from this entertaining and instructive guide.

February 15, 2021
A look at the increasing complexities of ownership. Law professors Heller and Salzman bring their expertise to bear on this cogent explanation of the myriad ways that humans define, claim, and defend ownership. Ownership, they assert, "is the scaffolding that society uses to structure every struggle over the things we all want." Those things range from knee space on airplanes to inheritances, internet passwords to genetic codes, natural resources to online purchases. Illustrating their analysis with abundant examples, the authors identify six pathways to claiming ownership: possession, attachment, first-in-time, labor, self-ownership, and family. Possession "is a primal instinct rooted in animal behavior and hardwired in our brains," but it does not always apply to disputes over ownership, such as in cases of inheritance and divorce. The authors cite lawsuits, for example, where husbands or wives claim ownership to finances based on their contributions to their spouse's career and earnings--even future earnings. Awarding ownership because of labor (I've made it, it's mine) becomes problematic when it applies to complex systems, such as technological or scientific discoveries. Patents, which were designed to protect the holder's ownership, have created "ownership gridlock" that can inhibit innovation, such as the development of new drugs. The online world presents new complications. "When you buy online," write the authors, "you get limited ownership of whatever you buy, with terms that the internet company can change at will." They continue, "the companies we interact with online are masters of ownership engineering." Because "much of our identity is bound up with the things we own," the authors are rightly skeptical of the sharing economy, which fragments ownership. If, for example, Airbnb renters take over a community, neighborhood solidarity erodes. Being cognizant of rules of ownership, they hope, can make each of us "a more effective advocate for yourself, your community, and our common good." For a more in-depth examination of ownership as it applies to physical land, pair this book with Simon Winchester's Land. A thoughtful and illuminating study.

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