The Doctrines of Specification and Accession: Potential Bases for Legal Ownership through Labor?

Abstract

This paper explores the viability of the doctrines of accession and specification as potential sources of a historical-legal basis for ownership rights accruing to labor by recognizing its unique capacity to create value. Focusing on examples from American case law, the origin and development of these doctrines are documented. The changes in these doctrines, from their first appearance in the early civil law or Code of Justinian to the present, often reflect the historic changes in the composition of products, the legal relationship between labor and capital and the changes in the dominant mode of production. The purpose of this inquiry is to determine if a legal rationale exists which justifies collective ownership of the means of production.