Private Property

Hernando de Soto says that the poor need property rights but he provides no theoretical grounding for such rights, writes Gabriel Calzada.

Free markets shift resources from where they are less valued to where they are most valued, benefiting consumers. When private property and free markets are allowed to operate, a natural conservation of resources occurs. Nothing is a resource unless it is useful to man.

Gary Galles draws attention to writings that heavily influenced 18th century American politics.

The judiciary's war on private property continues in Las Vegas. To borrow a line from Rush Limbaugh, the bad guys in the old west used to wear black hats, now they wear black robes.

Airline security had been imperfect, but airlines were capable of improving, and had every incentive to do so. The industry could respond to real threats without creating unnecessary passenger inconvenience. But instead, Congress, with the blessing of the White House, short circuited the market process and created a new bureaucracy.
 

The ACLU constantly files lawsuits against property owners who attempt to protect their property rights. Many of these lawsuits are supposedly to protect free speech rights. But can there be a right to freedom of speech unless that right is firmly based on property rights?

No restaurant or bar owner can force anyone to work or eat at his or her establishment, so at best, the state is "rescuing" people from their own free choices, which means that the political authorities—and the activists cheering them on—are in effect also coercing those workers and patrons into making choices that meet state approval.

Shopping at a mall, joining a country club, or working for a business are not rights. Remember that before you get angry at not being able to stay at the mall, not being able to play golf at Augusta, or not getting hired because you don't look the part. In order for something to be taken from you or denied to you, it must be yours in the first place. 

In the writings of modern evangelical environmentalists runs a disturbing theme: the idea that it is possible for a small group of individuals to improve upon our use of the environment through coercion. In the name of stewardship, they lay claim to control of every aspect of our lives.

Some freedom-minded people pin their hope for liberty on withdrawing from an unfree world. We might refer to this as "economic secession." Despairing of advancing the cause of liberty in society at large, they hope to be able to secure their own liberty anyway. This approach is doomed to fail, write Paul Birch and Gene Callahan.