Transition From in Rem to in Personam Dimensions of Property Essay

Transition From in Rem to in Personam Dimensions of Property - Essay Example This paper is the best analysis of the most important theoretical concepts, developed by great economist and lawyers during last centuries, regarding the definition of a property. From the concept of right in rem, property rights impose a duty and attach to anyone, thus, providing a sense of security to a person who introduces improvement to the resources In the desire of the economists and economically oriented lawyers to define property in the context of the economic system, they drifted away from the in rem concept of property. They sought to determine property relationships in an economic perspective using some variables. This evolved property as a right to a thing to a mere collection of rights and privileges which are easily distributable, categorizing it as rights in personam. For the realists, the move to dethrone the concept of property as a natural right is politically motivated. Since property is a mere collection of interests, which social convention determines, the state may intervene, regulate and redistribute property. The state may vary list of interests for the general welfare, thereby allowing greater state intervention on economy and reducing the constitutional rights guaranteed to property owners Although law and economics movement was skeptical towards state intervention, its economic scholars embraced the legal realists conception of bundle-of-rights. To them, property is a listing by the state of permitted uses of a limited resource - the hyper-realist conception of property attributed to Ronald Coase. His 1960 article, The Problem of Social Cost, becomes the groundwork for later theorists on this subject. Three schools of thought followed Coase’s view of property as a collection of use rights.