The goal of the seminar is to examine what happens to property rights and entitlements when societies undergo rapid change for political, economic, or technological reasons. In doing so it challenges the conventional wisdom that clear property rights are necessary to economic growth and raises the possibility that, on the contrary, property rights must be destroyed to enable rapid growth. We will look at several different instances of social change, drawing on legal history, comparative law, and law and development. Special attention will be paid to the role of formal legal institutions in defending, transforming, or destroying existing economic interests and social arrangements.