Abstract
In 1947, Takeyoshi Kawashima published a groundbreaking book titled SHOYUKEN-HO NO RIRON (THEORY OF PROPERTY LAW). In the spring of 2013, a symposium was held to discuss how “A NEW THEORY OF PROPERTY LAW” might look if we update and revise Kawashima’s work and try to come up with a new theory. Because the draft of this paper was written as a comment to the symposium, Part I of this paper addresses the significance and problems of Kawashima’s classic work. In Part II, the author’s ideas for “A NEW THEORY OF PROPERTY LAW” are proposed. The significance of Kawashima’s work can be summarized in three points: one, it is a law-and-society piece, not a doctrinally analytical piece, of property law; two, it has a historical perspective; and three, it is dialectical. On the other hand, two problems can be observed: one, Kawashima equated modern law to capitalist law or law in the era of capitalism; and two, Kawashima paid insufficient attention to labor and commercial law. Historical analysis of these two central components of capitalist law and the economic basis out of which these laws emerged, yields a richer historical theory than Kawashima’s. By broadening our perspective from capitalist property to modern property, the author tries to overcome the problems of Kawashima’s work and presents his theory of both modern and contemporary property law.
