The Unbearable Lightness of Property - alastairhudson.com

society’s of the Third World there is probably little concern about consumer goods in
the manner that is understood in Western Europe or North America. 33 However, by
“society” I mean in this context simply that tier of humanity in the affluent West with
access to consumer goods provided that their salaries enable them to acquire. This we
shall term the “consumer society” and exclude from it those in poverty – an essential
topic for another time unfortunately – and also the entrepreneurs who own the means
of consumption.
Baudrillard’s clearest statement about the consumer society is that no-thing is created
with permanence in mind. It is an essential feature of goods that they will break, that
they will be replaced at some time in the future, or (more significantly perhaps) that
the onward march of technology will render obsolescent the thing which has been
bought: therefore, there is no permanence. 34 It is an essential part of the ideology of
this marketplace that consumers expect that they will in time reach out to buy goods
or lifestyles which are newer, brighter and better: therefore there is no permanence in
mind, the ideology is for change. It is suggested that this relates not only to chattels
but also to the home. Whether it is the decoration or the garden that can be
remodelled, there is also the unerring assumption in our economy that house prices
must continue to rise, that the house will probably be sold before the mortgage
expires, and that the home is no longer just the castle but also the nest-egg.
The metaphor for this postmodern age is the most significant scientific breakthrough
of the modern age: e=mc 2 . The relativity principle demonstrates that there is no fixed
point in space from which we can perceive any other body in space. Rather, the
existence of one body is always relative to the other. Even time is relative in the
space-time continuum. It is essential to note that this most widely-known, but least
understood equation, suggests that we are never at rest. Instead, change is the most
natural aspect of our lives. 35
I will come to suggest that property law is focused on the segregation, tangibility and
permanence of property, whereas the very fundamentals of the world are orientated
around the relativity of one force to another and therefore of change, movement and
evolution. Below, we will consider the necessary tangibility of property in the
ideology of English law – even in circumstances in which the property is itself
intangible.
TANGIBLE PROPERTY THEORY
English law’s desire for the tangible
Tangible property theory is the label I give to a necessary tendency in English
property law to see the property with which it is concerned as being tangible. The
reason for this tendency, I would suggest, is bound up with the genesis of property
rules in dealings with land historically – necessarily an immovable and tangible asset
33 Whether that Third World is reduced to poverty by a combination of incessant war, the harrowing
effects of climate change or exploitation by affluent West.
34 Baudrillard, The consumer society, 1998.
35 Buckminster Fuller, Nine chains to the moon.
11