Paper on the role that the need for security of property has played in shaping institutions by Nick Szabo. I find the conclusion most interesting:

Many deep patterns of history, including striking geostrategic patterns and forms of government and property law, can be explained by the interaction between the security and the productivity of property. Our current political forms and property laws are designed primarily to secure farmland and goods. None of this, including the state itself, is inevitable, but rather is contingent on the form of wealth that must be secured in order to optimize productive generation and use of that wealth. Furthermore, information technology may revolutionize the security of goods. While traditional property is still very important, our political forms and laws are probably very ill-suited to securing information wealth. The bare outlines of how to secure information, and how to use information technology to secure goods, in order to optimize our productive generation and use of that information and of those goods, have barely begun to be recognized.