@article{Valsania_2020, title={Thomas Jefferson on Private Property: Myths and Reality}, volume={7}, url={https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/ricognizioni/article/view/4339}, DOI={10.13135/2384-8987/4339}, abstractNote={<p class="Default2">&nbsp;Thomas Jefferson is sometimes presented as a radical egalitarian—the same figure upon<br>which early nineteenth-century American socialists built their theories. But he did not condemn private<br>property. By the same token, he did not advocate redistribution. In the Declaration of Independence,<br>Jefferson omitted to list property among inalienable rights because he had good reasons to do so. For<br>him, property neither fostered a society of self-seekers, nor promoted a purely instrumental and ad-<br>versarial relationship between individuals and the political community. Jefferson was no utopian,<br>either in the sense that he wanted redistribution, or in the sense the he was nostalgic about the “simpler”<br>societies of the past. Rather, Jefferson’s sole “utopianism” was enticed by the thought that in America,<br>after the Revolution, there was no urgent need of further redistribution.</p&gt;}, number={14}, journal={RiCOGNIZIONI. Rivista di Lingue e Letterature straniere e Culture moderne}, author={Valsania, Maurizio}, year={2020}, month={Dec.}, pages={123-135} }