Private ownership in the encyclical Rerum Novarum: from the Book of Genesis and Aristotle to the Spanish Housing Act of 2023

Abstract

This paper analyses the position on private ownership adopted by Leo XIII’s influential encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) in light of the economic and social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, its antecedents, and its subsequent impact. The encyclical called for a third way that would transcend both liberal and socialist conceptions of private ownership, placing it at the service of the “common good.” This complex concept would be appropriated by different regimes to pursue their own ends throughout the 20th century and so far in the 21st, without any of them achieving its full and satisfactory implementation. The article reflects on the importance today, in the midst of the Digital Revolution, of avoiding the concentration of property in the hands of large corporations, as well as preventing its simple expropriation by governments, in order to avoid abandoning citizens to a servile state.