Property appears in the Western tradition of political discussion under a number of heads, which might be summarised as follows: First and foremost, there is the tradition begun by Aristotle and continued by Aquinas, in which property appears as a moral and political phenomenon, a prerequisite to the leading of a “good life,” which is essentially civic. In the form of the Greek oikos, a household productive unit inhabited by women, minors and slaves, it provided the individual with power, leisure and independence, and the opportunity to lead a life in which he (not until Mary Wollstonecraft do we encounter a thinker systematically interested in adding “she” to this context) could become what he ought to be. Property was both an extension and a prerequisite of personality (and we should be aware of the possibility that different modes of property may be seen as generating or encouraging different modes of personality). The citizen possessed property in order to be autonomous and autonomy was necessary for him to develop virtue or goodness as an actor within the political, social and natural realm or order. He did not possess it in order to engage in trade, exchange or profit; indeed, these activities were hardly compatible with the activity of citizenship. Greek politics were not based on bourgeois concepts, which seems odd when you consider that “politics” and “bourgeois” have the same root meaning of “living in a city.”