The Last Tenth

Abstract

This chapter argues that if possession is nine-tenths of the law — of property — then legalization is the last tenth: the persuasion that the possession is legal. This persuasion depends on legal posturing to produce an air of legality to make claims pass as legal. Legalization is about meaning and social contract. Dismissing law and property as a hoax or a sham in order to focus on “actual,” “factual” access, whether legalized or not, may effectively redact the production of meaning and social contracts in which people seem deeply engaged. The chapter then discusses the structural contingency of change and endurance, and the respective powers to fix and undo property. While all the implicated actors are law makers, in principle, they are not equally in control of its direction. Undoing competing claims often requires the momentary capacity of violence and abrogation, whereas entrenching new ones requires an enduring capacity to perpetuate the recognition of claims. Whereas institutionalization is an achievement demanding stamina, its destruction only has to succeed once.