Private property

In the Urantia Book

Among primitives

• Private ownership brought increased liberty and stability, followed by the rise of social classes, but improved machinery is liberating society from labor. 69:9.16
• Private property initially arose from personal touch, expanding to include shared items like tools and weapons within the tribe before extending to encompass spaces marked by bloodshed. 69:9.8
• Food was man's first property, preserved through cooking, drying, and smoking to prevent the decimation of the world by famine. 66:5.3
• Private ownership of land, stemming from agriculture, facilitated the institution of slavery, which in turn raised the master's standard of living and allowed for greater focus on social culture. 81:2.13
• Early property disputes were handled through various methods, including destruction, force, arbitration, and appeal to elders or courts. 70:11.8-12
• The idea that property is a spiritual handicap influenced European philosophy for centuries. 89:3.2
• Respected private property was believed to embody the owner's personality, creating a sense of honesty and security within the community. 69:9.9
• Sleeping space was one of man's earliest properties and later evolved to land ownership assigned by tribal chiefs, eventually transitioning to ownership granted by having a fire site and a well constituted title to the adjacent land. 69:9.11

Modern life

• Private property is essential to modern national life through the acquirement and inheritance of private property and land. 70:9.7 (71:1.4,17)
• The preservation of private property is essential for the institution of self-maintenance, ensuring the future of mankind and civilization. 84:8.6
• Man craves the right to use, control, sell, and bequeath personal property for security. 71:2.14
• Private property necessitated government for security and regulation of human contacts. 70:0.1 71:2.14 81:2.7
• All government, liberty, and happiness have grown up around the purely social right to property, which is not absolute. 69:9.17

Bible parallels

Passages that the paragraphs cited above parallel, quote or reinterpret, from Duane Faw’s Paramony cross-references. Hover a reference to read it.

• Property seen as spiritual handicap 89:3.2 — Acts 2:44-45; 1 Ti 6:8-11.
• Wells & adjacent land 69:9.11 — Gn 21:25-30; Gn 26:19-22.

Where it appears

Private property is linked in 3 paragraphs of the text.

See also

• capital
• competition
• possessions
• wealth

What links here