What Belongs to You

Should you be free to do whatever you want? You say yes, until the hard cases arrive. The neighbor who runs his stereo at full volume at three in the morning. The factory that pours its waste into the creek above your pasture. The driver who takes the crowded sidewalk because the road runs slower. Then you add the qualification every honest person adds: free to do what you want, so long as it harms no one else. That single qualification is the beginning of property, and most people never examine it.

This lesson examines it. You will learn what property actually is, why it reaches far past the house and the car to cover your body, your good name, and the promises made to you, and what grounds your claim to any of it. The answer is firmer than feeling and older than any government decree.

After this lesson you will locate the exact point where one person's freedom ends and another's begins, and state that boundary in words you can defend. What lies beneath the boundary is the work of the course.