General: Ian D. Suttie, Morris Ginsberg, and Susan Isaacs. 'A Symposium on Property and Possessiveness, ' The British Journal of Medical Psychology, April, 1935, Vol. XV, Part 1.

Ian D. Suttie: The relationship between 'The Sentiment of Ownership' and 'The Incentive to Work' is of prime importance. No substitute for the impulse to own has yet been found. The Great War indemnity and Debt are examples that acquisitiveness is not in all respects rational. The miser, the spendthrift and the gambler exemplify pathological

behaviour in the individual. The claim that 'saving' is an economic ideal is unjustified. Public attention is displaced from possession for use to possession for control. Psychologically saving is a shifting of confidence from good will to good faith. This is indicative of anxiety. The individualist possesses himself of the means of production and so assures his security by conferring favours (food) on others. The communist demands his share of the means of production (mother), hates the favoured child (capitalist), and defends himself against jealousy by renouncing special favours. They both seek the same thing by opposite methods and each hates and fears the other. The quarrel has its roots in separation anxiety arising from love privation in infancy. Possessiveness in our economic system has neither the uniformity of instinct nor the rational and practical characteristics of self interest or reality thinking. The motive is not aim-inhibited sexuality (Freud) but self-preservation adapted to the condition of parasitic infancy. Social values attached to the meaning of excreta during sphincter training contribute more to the meaning of excreta than its primary meaning does to the social significance of property. The desire to possess means to have more and others less than is needful, so that mother separation anxiety is mastered through identification with the mother. Practical measures based on these theories must fail unless the development of excessive separation anxiety is dealt with.

Morris Ginsberg: The sentiment of ownership is a complex of all the primary needs interwoven with numerous emotional dispo