In "The Problem of Social Cost", Coase (1960) used a simplified conception of propertyrights as the outcome of mere contracting in independent exchanges. This conception has beensuitable for successfully analyzing many important issues, including that of externalities relatedto the use of assets and public goods. However, its implicit assumption that exchange in propertyrights does not affect future transaction costs provides an inadequate basis for understandingproperty institutions and has caused confusion on the efficacy of private ordering and the role ofthe state and legal institutions. It has thus limited the scope of most of the economics of so-calledproperty rights to analyses of political interactions and contract rights in personal exchanges. Inthe real world, property is defined by interaction between multiple exchanges which causeexchange-related non-contractible externalities among market participants. When suchexchange-related externalities are considered, property becomes inherently linked to public andlegal interventions, which are indispensable to reach true property that is, in rem enforcementand truly impersonal asset-based exchange.