Demythologizing Property and the Illusion of Rules: A Response to Two Friendly Critics

Academic life can be a depressing experience. Despite the enormous amount of time many academics spend producing written scholarship, most of us have little expectation that more than a tiny handful of people will read our published work, if indeed it is read at all. And probably even fewer of us have any expectation whatsoever that the results of our often wrenching labor will be publicly aired. It is a rare occasion when an academic’s scholarship is the subject of public recognition. But oh, how we crave any sort of public commentary, favorable or critical! So, I am extremely grateful that Dean Dagan and Professor Underkuffler found my book, The Global Debate over Constitutional Property: Lessons for American Takings Jurisprudence, worthy of public critique. I am deeply grateful to them for participating in this discussion and also to the Editors of the Cornell Law Review for devoting the space in these pages to make this public conversation possible. In this brief Essay, I will confine my comments to what seem to me to be Dean Dagan’s and Professor Underkuffler’s main points