When a theorist analyzes the institution of property as a social or cultural institution, and when 'e then speaks of "norms", 'e means 'cultural norms'. In speculative sociology these 'norms' can be classified according to the kind of social interaction situation in which they are a solution to certain problems -- problems from the position of all, or of certain, people involved. Thus a situation of inequality may be a problem to the disadvantaged in such a situation in that they may attempt to get rid of the inequality; it may also be a problem to the privileged in such a situation in that they need solutions for the best and easiest way of maintaining the inequality. The type of cultural or subcultural norms which typically help to perpetuate the status quo in inequality situations are partiality norms. (See 3.4.1.) They are norms which on balance strongly support the interests of the advantaged party but which apply to all people equally, since they would otherwise lose their effectiveness: in this respect 'norms of partiality' are impartial.

As we have seen, the best example of a cluster of partiality norms has been said to be the one associated with the institution of private property, particularly those relating to inheritance. The idea of the sanctity of individual property and the (sub)cultural norms associated with it, would thus merely serve to 'perpetuate the position of the haves and their descendants in states which are inherently states of inequality'. According to this cluster of norms it is, indeed, not only the poor who must not steal from the rich, the rich must not steal from the poor either -- at least not in the perspicuous way of Thou shalt not steal. In the end this form of impartiality will benefit the rich. It could be replied that such a sociological analysis of the institution of private property is purely factual or factual-modal, but it is obvious that in a description like this one the inequality of wealth is regarded as unjust. Private property (the institution of inheritance in particular) is therefore described as perpetuating an injustice and this makes that the description is in disfavor of private property norms. Whether the argument is correct depends on the impossibility of justifying the inequality itself.

The perpetuation of inequality is definitely an important argument to limit specific and particular property rights, especially those with regard to inheritance. Central to the idea of limiting private property is that undeserved disadvantages ought to be prevented or rectified, but desert itself is so much impregnated with normativity that the idea is entirely, or predominantly, analytical. Those stressing 'desert' will probably only go farther with their limitations on gross inequalities than those not stressing it. (To this extent the use of the term desert does have some pragmatic meaning.) Does a person also deserve what 'e has justly acquired or received? If not (for these reasons), then the emphasis of the anti-property argument is on the injustice in distribution when the ensuing inequality is not 'deserved' in a narrower sense. If equality is not believed to be a good thing in itself, the question remains of what the criterions of desert are, even in this narrower sense. And then, the whole argument does not really affect property, or private property, in general (that is, the general justification of private property), but only unjust distributions of it, or of shares in it (that is, particular justifications of private property).

Some have claimed that there is an intimate connection between property as such and crime. One theorist, a utilitarian opposed to all systems in which 'one man enters into the faculty of disposing of the produce of another man's industry', draws on the argument that 'the fundamental source of crimes consists in one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute'. If property were divided equitably, this would put an end to oppression, servility and fraud, to coercion and punishment. Envy, malice, revenge and selfishness would vanish where all shared alike the bounties of nature. The accumulation of property atrophies both the intellectual and the moral development of people; both of the haves and the have-nots. Well, this impressive plea for the superiority of egalitarianism sounds very sympathetic, but we must not simply choose the most unfavorable empirical assumptions to reject the unequal distribution of private property, where others equally arbitrarily choose the most favorable ones to support it. Yet, such a choice is necessary for everyone who is at once a utilitarian and an egalitarian. Quite a few utilitarians but too joyfully ignore the most unequal distribution of goods which might follow from the principle of utility itself.

Because utilitarianism is wholly dependent on calculations of the total amount of happiness, or a similar quantity, and because such calculations often cannot be done or simulated at all, it is no surprise that also with regard to private property utility has been an argument for, and an argument against, private property, dependent on the theorist's empirical assumptions. On the social disutility view of property it is thus a source of poverty and social instability, and the needs satisfied by private ownership are said to be minor in comparison with the need to get rid of poverty and the need for stability. Since calculations are impossible at the general level, and since empirical presuppositions remain arbitrary at this level, the argument is not useful when applied to property in general. But just as with the related perpetuation of inequality argument, it becomes more worthwhile at the levels of specific and particular property rights where empirical assumptions can be made more plausible. Utility may then be a reason to recognize, and disutility a reason not to recognize, specific or particular, intrinsic property rights.

The security of property so emphasized by pro-property utilitarians which would be essential to maximum productivity, has been described by others as "a power of discretionary idleness", that is, "a right to keep the work out of the hands of the workmen and the product out of the market". The natural-rights theorists' right to property has, equally sarcastically, been described as "the natural right of investment", that is, "the right to enforce unemployment, and so to make the community's workmanship useless to that extent". Even if property had been 'natural' and useful in the hands of owners who were present in the past, absentee ownership and the character of business enterprise have entirely invalidated the old natural-rights and utility arguments for private property on this view. Production may be 'a matter of workmanship' but earnings are 'a matter of business' -- it is argued. And --as pointed out too-- 'there is a difference between socially desirable productivity and the desire for individual profits'.

A related argument against those whose justification of private property lies in labor-based entitlement or desert is that their reasoning is self-defeating when applied to the means of production beyond what is needed for one's personal livelihood. On this argument the worker's right to the whole produce of 'er labor is said to be defeated by the appropriation of natural resources and capital, and these instruments of production should therefore be held in common. It has already been replied to this that the argument has no force to the extent that 'each unpropertied person retains the material liberty to appropriate an equal share'. This could coincide with 'private property' in the historical sense of property based on the labor of its owner (but it need not in the light of other justificatory theories, as the equal in equal share bears witness to). Hence, also this anti-property argument cannot be advanced as a general objection against all forms of property or private property. But it certainly carries much weight in specific or particular instances.

Property has been cast off by one writer on the 'rational' grounds that it would be difficult to see how someone could own a thing 'e does 'not actually use or consume, or why others should refrain from using or consuming it, when they want it, but do not own it'. In contradistinction to property, usufruct would, then, be 'a clear concept'. Whereas 'property is irresponsible and unconditioned', usufruct would be subject to unforeseen changes of the social or economic conditions and would carry moral obligations. What is a fair share (in the total usufruct) is determined in this view by general principles of 'ethical economics', social facts and the system of production and distribution. Local and economic agents would be authorized in such a society to grant rights of usufruct. Unfortunately tho, this juggling with the concepts of property and usufruct amounts to not much more than a terminological trick which leaves the conditions themselves unchanged. For usufruct presupposes property, and property presupposes a person or group of persons as owners. But in this conception it is nature which is the so-called 'owner' of its component parts, and people (themselves part of it) may then claim usufruct of those (other) parts. What the argument is really against is not property but a particular sort of property, that is, ownership by individual members of a community (with the possible exception of things they actually use or consume), ownership which is irresponsible towards nature and future generations and ownership which is not, or hardly, subject to later changes in circumstances. With the authority vested in and the important tasks assigned to local or specialized administrations, they have become the de facto owners in this 'anarchic' society. In this respect the difference with a totalitarian state without any private property (again, with the possible exception of things people personally use or consume) is only one in scale. Moreover, denying the legitimacy of the concept of property does not even shield an anarchist, social or not, from the question of which part of nature is owned in practise by which community.