I'm a pragmatist. I find the philosophical 'discussion' on the metaphysical "purpose" of private property to be uninteresting and mostly worthless.
I am, however, perfectly willing to entertain many possible critiques, if they are shown to be practical and better than the alternatives. Feudal property law, for example, I don't find to be nearly as flexible or efficient (which was around for quite a while, as well). It's no accident that our notions of property came into greater strength with the industrial revolution. If you look at the states with both strong public and private property systems, like the Scandinavians, you'll find that our system has also been far from static.
Speaking as someone with a minor in philosophy, I have to agree with Paul Graham[1] that unfocused philosophy based on general principles (like "what is 'property?'") is terribly useless. If you want to make a difference, innovate.
I never said I disagreed with Marx's critique! However, I would note that goal and result are not necessarily the same.
I would say Marx succeeded in producing a lot of interesting practical results which could actually be implemented. On the other hand, some of his stuff smacks more of religion than it does of praxis. His "law of value," for example, seems very unfalsifiable, in a sense. He speaks of the approach to true value when supply and demand equilibriate, but his conditions of equilibrium are often either poorly defined or simply tautological (e.g., the true value of a good is when it meshes with the law of value, thus the law of value is the true value of commodities).
Indeed, many of Marx's ideas have been through the crucible. Some, like a command economy, have mostly been burned to disintegration. Others, like the provision of health care to anyone who needs it, financed by the people according to their ability, seems to have had huge success among most of the civilized world.
All in all, I don't have problems with Marx's approach, just the idea that rehashing ideas from a century ago in pretty much identical ways counts as innovation.
I am, however, perfectly willing to entertain many possible critiques, if they are shown to be practical and better than the alternatives. Feudal property law, for example, I don't find to be nearly as flexible or efficient (which was around for quite a while, as well). It's no accident that our notions of property came into greater strength with the industrial revolution. If you look at the states with both strong public and private property systems, like the Scandinavians, you'll find that our system has also been far from static.
Speaking as someone with a minor in philosophy, I have to agree with Paul Graham[1] that unfocused philosophy based on general principles (like "what is 'property?'") is terribly useless. If you want to make a difference, innovate.
[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html