No property without law?
The conception of property in Hume and Rousseau
The current German debate on property as a fundamental right is dominated by a perspective in which property is exclusively formed by positive law. This perspective can, however, be questioned by contrasting it with the conceptions of property developed by Hume and Rousseau. For both conceptions, though otherwise entirely divergent, coincide in refuting the purely positivistic approach: whereas Hume regards property primarily as a result of pre-legal social conventions, Rousseau forms his idea of property in the context of the volonté générale, thereby conceiving of property as a post-legal phenomenon.