The economic relation whereby productive tools, land, and so forth (the “means of production”) are exclusively owned and controlled by individuals. The private property regime as constituted contemplates that individuals who control (legally or actually) that productive property also control its products. Those who control (“own”) private property under this system can “rent” it, or hire laborers, to put the property into motion such that it alters existing material into new, useful objects. Thus, the control (“ownership”) of a grove trees by a single property owner, where that owner hires woodcutters to chop down the grove and turn it into firewood, is an example of a private-property relation. The controller of the property also controls the resultant firewood, although we may also add that he is expected to pay the wood cutters something for their effort unless they serve him in a slave relation.
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