Destabilized Property
Property Law in the Sharing Economy

This book studies the rise of access over ownership and the sharing economy's challenges to the liberal vision of property.

Shelly Kreiczer-Levy (Author)

9781108475273, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 November 2019

196 pages
25.5 x 17.8 x 1.5 cm, 0.51 kg

'The age-old institution of private property keeps changing, and the sharing economy poses unique challenges to ensure the right mix of fairness and flexibility. We could have no better guide than Shelly Kreiczer-Levy to the ways that property law must adjust to this new environment.' Joseph William Singer, Bussey Professor of Law, Harvard University, Massachusetts

The sharing economy challenges contemporary property law. Does the rise of access render our conception of property obsolete? What are the normative and theoretical implications of choosing casual short-term use of property over stable use? What are the relational and social complications of blurring the line between personal and commercial use of property? The book develops a novel conceptualization of property in the age of the sharing economy. It argues that the sharing economy pushes for a mobile and flexible vision of engaging with possessions and, as a result, with other people. Property's role as a source of permanence and a facilitator of stable, long-term relationships is gradually decreasing in importance. The book offers a broad theoretical and normative framework for understanding the changing landscape of property, provides an institutional analysis of the phenomenon, discusses the social, communal, and relational implications of these changes, and offers guidelines for law reform.

Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. Stability and property use
3. The decline of stability in the new millennium
4. The rise of the access economy
5. Access as an alternative to ownership
6. Fragmentation of intimate property
7. Evaluating flexibility in property use
8. What's next? The future of the access economy
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Property law [LNS], Law & society [LAQ], Sociology [JHB]