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August 14, 2026 

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SOCIAL SECURITY: A system for providing financial assistance to the poor, elderly, and disabled. The social security system in the United States was established by the Social Security Act (1935) in response to the devastating problems of the Great Depression. Our current Social Security system has several parts. The first part, Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) is the one the usually comes to mind when the phrase "Social Security" comes up. It provides benefits to anyone who has reached a certain age and who has paid taxes into the program while employed. It also provides benefits to qualified recipients survivors or dependents. The second part of the system is Disability Insurance (DI), which provides benefits to workers and their dependents in the case of physical disabilities that keeps them from working. The third part is Hospital Insurance (HI), more commonly termed medicare. Medicare provides two types of benefits, hospital coverage for anyone in the OASI part of the system and optional supplemental medical benefits that require a monthly insurance premium. The last part of the social security system is Public Assistance (PA), which is the official term for welfare and is covered under it's own heading.

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PRIVATE PROPERTY:

An economic institution in which goods, resources, commodities, or other assets (property) are owned and controlled by households and businesses (the private sector) rather than government (the public sector). Private property is a key institution, along with individual freedom and competitive markets, that helps to form the structure of capitalism.
Private property creates critical incentives for the efficient operation of competitive markets used in a market-oriented economy. Under private-property ownership, control over resources is relinquished (that is sold) when owners are compensated for their opportunity cost. Owners have the incentive to sell their assets to the highest bidder, which means resources are being directed to the highest valued uses. This is just the sort of thing that leads to an efficient use of resources.

The alternative to private property is collective ownership of property, also termed common-property goods. This can take the form of direct government ownership, such as public parks or municipal office buildings, in which a specific government entity also has control of the property. Or it can take the form of shared public ownership, such as the oceans or atmosphere, in which every member of society in principle shares ownership, but no one in particular has actual control of the property.

<= PRIVATE GOODSPRIVATE SECTOR =>


Recommended Citation:

PRIVATE PROPERTY, AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2026. [Accessed: August 14, 2026].


Check Out These Related Terms...

     | property rights | ownership and control |


Or For A Little Background...

     | private sector | public sector | incentive | efficiency | institution |


And For Further Study...

     | government functions | three questions of allocation | free enterprise | capitalism | laissez faire | opportunity cost |


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