Private Property in Post Secular Law: An Introductory Foray

Abstract

In the global, plural, post-secular legal environment which characterises twenty-first century life, three reflections assist in considering the contribution of Judaism, Christianity and Islam to a re-conception and re-deployment of private property, as a concept, within the broader structures of capitalism and global markets. Such engagements and dialogue between secular law and theology/religion may reveal that what was always viewed as 'secular' law is not really secular at all, and that what is emerging now is a truly post-secular law, one that depends not only upon liberalism but upon overlapping religious anthropologies and cosmologies. The three reflections offered in this article converge on one alternative model, among many, to the standard liberal account of private property, which may in turn sow the seeds of a post-secular model of private property.

Keywords: Post-secular law, legal pluralism, property, theology

JEL Classification: K11