Abstract

This paper develops a general theory of the legitimacy of institutional conventions through an examination of property. Property is not an object; it is a social relation among persons concerning things, sustained by institutions that define ownership, transfer, inheritance, and cooperation [Hohfeld, 1919; Honoré, 1961; Waldron, 1988]. Without institutions there are no property rights—only physical possessions [North, 1990; Ostrom, 1990]. The paper argues that property institutions are solutions to coordination problems, and their legitimacy depends upon whether they enable informed agency and flourishing. Drawing upon Locke's three pillars—labour, the "enough and as good" proviso, and the spoilage limitation—reinterpreted through the Noura framework, the paper shows that legitimate property institutions must: (1) account for the cooperative nature of all productive activity [Marx, 1867; Bowles & Gintis, 2011]; (2) secure the requisites of flourishing for all [Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2011]; and (3) prohibit the hoarding of surplus value outside productive circulation [Piketty, 2014; Philippon, 2019; Stiglitz, 2012]. The deep structure of legitimate institutions consists of visibility, symmetry, contestability, repair, education, and the requisites of flourishing [Moore, 2026b]. These are not normative ideals but empirical conditions under which informed agency is possible [Piaget, 1950; Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Gilligan, 1982]. Human beings possess three empirically observable capacities—cognitive, agentive, and moral—that develop only under certain institutional conditions. Institutions that fail to provide those conditions systematically impair informed agency. Therefore informed agents have reason to reject such institutions. Property rights are not a priori; they are conventions within institutions. Institutions must empower informed agency so that everyone has the opportunity to flourish. The paper concludes that the question is not who first mixed labour with resources, but what kind of property institutions informed agents can reasonably accept in a world of interdependent production—and whether those institutions prevent the economic spoilage of surplus value. This paper is cross referenced to As Good and Enough: A Reconstruction of Property Rights, which provides the detailed Lockean reconstructions of the provisos.