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Property is a legal relation, by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing.

1. Property is a legal relation.

As has already been stated, a legal relation is the relation of an obligated party, one to whom a procedure is prescribed by legal norms, to an entitled party, one for whose sake it is prescribed.

Property is the legal relation of all the members of a group of men who by legal norms are excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing, to him—or to those—for whose sake they are excluded from it. Here the circle of the obligated is much broader than that of the entitled; the former embraces, say, all the inhabitants of a territory or all who belong to a tribe, the latter only those among them in whom certain further conditions (for instance, transfer, prescription, appropriation) are fulfilled.

2. As to the conditions of its existence, this legal relation is involuntary.

As discussion has already shown, a voluntary legal relation exists when legal norms make entrance into the relation conditional on actions of the obligated party, of which actions the purpose is to bring about the legal relation; per contra, an involuntary legal relation exists when legal norms do not make entrance into the relation conditional on any such actions of the obligated party.

If property were a voluntary legal relation, then there could be excluded from ultimately disposing of a thing only those members of a group of men who had consented to this exclusion. But all members of the group—for instance, all the inhabitants of a territory, all who belong to a tribe—are excluded, whether they have consented or not.

3. The substance of this legal relation consists in some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing.

Some one's having, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing means that this group is excluded from the thing in his favor; that is, they must not hinder him from dealing with the thing according to his will, nor may they themselves deal with it against his will. Now, the exclusive disposition of a thing within a certain group of men may by virtue of a legal relation belong to several, part by part, in this way: that some—or one—of them have it in this or that particular respect (for instance, as to the usufruct), and one—or some—in all other respects which are not individually alienated. Whoever thus has, within a group of men, the exclusive disposition of a thing in all those respects which are not individually alienated, to him belongs, within that group, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of the thing.

To whom this belongs by virtue of the legal relation—whether, for instance, it belongs among others to him who by labor has made a thing into some new thing—depends on the legal norms by which the legal relation is determined. On them also depends the question, within what limits this belongs to him: the dispository authority of him to whom the exclusive disposition of a thing within a group of men ultimately belongs is limited not only by the dispository authority of those to whom the exclusive disposition within the group proximately belongs, but also by the limits within which such dispository authority is at all allowed to anybody in the group. Especially, it depends on these legal norms whether a privilege of exclusive ultimate disposition belongs to individuals as well as to corporations, or only to corporations, and whether it applies to every kind of things or only to one kind or another.

4. As a legal relation by virtue of which some one has, within a certain group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, property is distinguished from all other objects, even from those which most resemble it.

By being a legal relation it is distinguished from all the relations in which one has the exclusive ultimate disposition of a thing guaranteed to him solely by the reasonableness of the men who surround him, or solely by his own might, as might be the case in a conceivable kingdom of God or of reason, and as is often the case in a conquered country.

Being an involuntary legal relation, it is distinguished from those legal relations by virtue of which the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing belongs to some one solely on the ground of a contract, and solely as against the other contracting parties.

That by virtue of this legal relation some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of ultimately disposing of a thing, distinguishes property from copyright, by virtue of which some one has exclusively, within a group of men, not the disposition of a thing, but somewhat else; and furthermore from rights in the property of others, by virtue of which some one has, within a group of men, the exclusive privilege of disposing of a thing, but not of ultimately disposing of it.

5. What is briefly summed up in the definition of property may be expanded as follows, if one takes into consideration on the one hand the previously given definition of a legal norm, and on the other the above explanations of the definition of property.

Some men are so powerful that their will is able to affect in its procedure a group of men which embraces them, and these men will have it that no member of this group shall, within certain limits, hinder a member picked out in a certain way from dealing with a thing according to his will, nor, within these limits, himself deal with the thing against the will of that member, so far as the will of another member is not already in particular respects regulative with respect to that thing equally with the will of that member. When such is the condition of things, property exists.

[Distinguishing the State from arbitrary dominion as he here does (p. 34), and then saying that Anarchism consists solely in the negation of the State, Eltzbacher implies the unsound conclusion that Anarchism does not involve the negation of arbitrary dominion. This is because he incautiously takes the word of the learned public that the only cardinal points of Anarchism are law, the State, and property, without making sure that those who say this are using the term "State" in the precise sense defined by him. But are not many of his "arbitrary commands" law and State by his definitions? Every robber in his band (p. 31) is as much required to keep the secret as are the peasantry, and under the same penalties. In restraining a subject population I restrict my liberty of emigration or investment, and forbid myself to be an accomplice in certain things.]