Private property is conventionally construed as an external good: homes, cars, marshmallows. Ownership becomes a dominion over something discrete from oneself.

While private ownership of homes, cars, and marshmallows is certainly essential to a free society, it remains subsidiary to the paramount property right of self-ownership. As John Locke observed, "[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself." James Madison similarly wrote that man "has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person." Without this fountainhead, all the mansions, Masseratis, and marshmallows in the world mean nothing.

[continues 489 words]