One major reason people are not loyal to the principle of the right to private property is that they have a misconception of its main function. Many think only the wealthy benefit from it. And even if they do not have anything against being rich, they do have something against unfair legal advantages for those who are.
It may seem paradoxical that we work so hard all year so we can sleep on the beach for a week, but there is a method to our madness. As we work harder, leisure time for others increases in both quality and quantity, and we can assume that everyone else is returning the favor. Everyone else, that is, except the government.
In the real world, human action can only manifest itself through material objects; man must utilize the resources that nature gives in order to employ means. If man desires to live, he must obtain food, shelter, and other physical necessities. On the most fundamental level, to exist in this universe, man must occupy space.
Can there be a right to freedom of speech without that right being firmly based on property rights?
The Lord of the Rings is the epic journey to destroy the One Ring, which symbolizes power. More precisely, the book aligns itself against power--not "economic power" or "social power," but specifically political power. This is also the central theme of the classical liberal political tradition.
Robert Nozick writes, "The fundamental question of political philosophy, one that precedes questions about how the state should be organized, is whether there should be any state at all. Why not have anarchy?" Why not, indeed? James Ostrowski reflects on the recent death of philosopher Robert Nozick.
Why shouldn't the worker who is willing to render the best services for the least pay be the one who gets the job? Instinctively, most of us recoil in disgust at the suggestion that wages should reflect nothing more than the cold calculus of supply and demand. Yet few of us realize just how essential this "cold calculus" is for the long-run welfare of laborers themselves.
Edmund Burke was born in Dublin on this day--January 12--some 273 years ago. He is often called the father of conservatism, but the central passion throughout his writings and speeches is opposition to arbitrary power, especially in the hands of the government, with its "officious, universal interference" in people's lives.
It occurred me last weekend that children should not grow up without a thorough exposure to the great cartoon from 1962, "The Jetsons." Its celebration of technology and commerce, its retro-style optimism, its hilarious dovetailing of bourgeois normalcy with gizmo-crazed futurism, its complete absence of political correctness (excluding, of course, the atrocious 1990 movie by the same name) – all combine to make this one of the great cartoon achievements of any time.
Wilhelm Röpke made it his life's work to help construct and defend the free society, to diagnose the ills of capitalism, and to suggest concrete solutions. Röpke was never shy about criticizing the abuses of the body politic which endangered its health and rendered it defenseless against infections from the far Right and far Left. Röpke favored untrammeled free trade, regional liberties, and respect for traditional peoples and ways of life.
