Deirdre McCloskey wrote:
>
> I am as the British say gobsmacked.
>
> What's our next move?
>   
As there have been no responses to this question as yet, let me give it 
a try. I presume the question means, "What do we, as people with an 
interest in economic history, do?" The answer is, "Explicate the history 
of property." The reason OUP and others can get away with this is that 
they are asserting a private property right, and property rights tend to 
be regarded, quite properly, as more or less "sacred." So there is a 
sort of "the govmint ought to leave property alone!" and  "a property 
owner can do whatever he likes" mentality that surrounds such questions. 
However, while private property is proper to man, the particular forms 
of property are always conventional. It is the community that states the 
rights and obligations of any particular form of property. In a tribal 
society, the "community" means whatever social arrangements govern that 
village; in a nation-state, the community means, in large measure, the 
government. We depend on the government to record our titles and defend 
our rights, and without government (of whatever form) there can be no 
private property. Therefore, "private" property is, paradoxically, a 
government question and cannot exist without gov't. Indeed, property is 
the most basic of all economic relationships, and everything else 
depends on the particular form of property.

Property has had any number of forms throughout history. Our own forms 
are of somewhat recent vintage. Property as radically private only gets 
codified in English law with the Statute of Frauds in 1677. The property 
rights of corporations, in their current form, only go back to 1876 and 
the /Santa Fe v. Santa Clara/ case, an egregious example of legislating 
from the bench.

Private property has its most secure justification where exclusive use 
of property is necessary to make it useful. If everybody has a right to 
use your living room, your living room will be useful to no one. 
Property has its weakest justification where common usage enhances 
rather than limits property. Knowledge is property of this sort; the 
more that people use it the better it gets. The only justification for 
"privatising" knowledge is to ensure that those who worked to produce it 
get a fair reward. But surely, this is a temporary right, asserted only 
for as long as is reasonable, and not perpetual.

By merely explicating the different forms and justifications for 
property, we show that there are other possibilities and assert than any 
particular form must have a specific justification. This, I think, is a 
beginning of a response.

John M?daille