Property Rights and the Will to Own
What are property rights and how do we define them? The late Butler Schaffer argued that they come from natural rights and our “will to own.”
What are property rights and how do we define them? The late Butler Schaffer argued that they come from natural rights and our “will to own.”
In a recent symposium on Murray Rothbard's For a New Liberty, philosopher Matt Zwolinski takes issue with Rothbard on Murray’s views of freedom and property rights.
Private property rights are under fire by progressive elites — even as those same elites protect their own property fiercely. But without these rights, a functioning economy is not possible.
A common knock on libertarianism is that it is so individualistic that it rejects the concept of community. (Think of the political cartoon in which the libertarian lifeguard let people drown.) In truth, strong communities also need free individuals.
In publicly opposing apartheid, William H. Hutt saw how legal segregation kept black South Africans from pursuing legitimate economic goals. To Hutt, apartheid deprived people of equality of economic opportunity, which kept them in poverty.
The concrete effects of the destruction of money and property on human personality are demonstrated most vividly in the historical episode of the German hyperinflation of 1923.
After the Indochina War, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world, but dramatic free-market reforms have made this formerly socialist country prosperous.
In our current age of rampant monetary inflation and price inflation, good economics has become more relevant for ordinary people. Inflation is not some arcane matter of consumer price indices and statistics on the monetary base. Inflation, is simply ruinous on the personal level.
What makes an entity a property that can be owned is morality.