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I agree with Ann and John that we have to look at the consequences of any set of property rights in order to decide whether they are morally justified. But I have problems with standard utilitarianism because it allows the possibility of one group of people being exploited viciously in order to increase the welfare of another group.

This happened in the United States when a minority of Africans was exploited by the slave system. It is entirely possible that a strictly utilitarian argument might have justified slavery. Utilitarianism is too risky.

But let me make a broader point. I want to get beyond the obvious fact that property rights have economic consequences. You are all focused on the idea that property rights give the owner power over things such as land or houses or a factories. Of course that's true, but the more important thing is that property rights give owners power over PEOPLE. This was a point made by Morris Cohen decades ago. In a world of small farmers and shopkeepers that power is minimal because it is so widely dispersed. But in a world of large corporations things are different. In that world -- OUR world -- property gives a few owners a great deal of power over others.

As a result, when we ask what kind of property rights we should have in our society, we have to look at the way they impact the power that wealthy people have over the rest of us. For example, how do they affect our politics? Do they give wealthy people too much political influence? And is that influence compatible with a well functioning republic?

You might want to read the essay by Morris Cohen in C. B. Macpherson's anthology on Property.