Globalizing Collective Property in Nineteenth Century´s Political Activism: Émile de Laveleye´s Primitive Property in its Context

Abstract

My paper offers a transnational perspective on the accumulation of knowledge about common land ownership and the internationalization of this knowledge in the second half of the nineteenth century. It analyzes the scholarly and political networks around the book De la proprieté et de ses forms primitives by the Belgian professor of economy Émile de Laveleye (1822-1892), taken as a representative moment in this process. The article shows first how the book was shaping a universalist model of common land ownership by waving together European and colonial debates on the topic that had been developing in national contexts.  Second, by following the English and German translations of the book, it shows how this model was linked to transnational agendas of social politics and land reform.