In a 1787 letter, Benjamin Franklin wrote to a colleague, “I am of the same opinion with you respecting the freedom of commerce. . . . Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, etc., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.”
Franklin did not deny that all true rights and freedoms are important, but he noted that on a practical level, the right to freely participate in the marketplace is the most crucial. After all, if we are not free to buy and sell and trade and save, we will have little hope for securing enough food and shelter, let alone building up any level of financial independence or lasting prosperity.
The right to participate in the marketplace also assumes a basic respect for private property. Without private property, after all, there is no marketplace. There is no incentive to invest, save, or bring goods and services to market. Without private property, there is no way to plan for the future, and one’s goods are always subject to confiscation from the more powerful. In other words, a world without private property is a lawless world.
This is partly why Ludwig von Mises equated private property to civilization, writing in Liberalism, “The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.”
The choice we face is between the civilizing and liberating effects of private property and the impoverishment of interventionism and socialism.
At our Supporters Summit in Delray Beach, Florida, this year, more than a dozen of our top faculty gathered to explore how economic freedom undergirds civilization. In this issue of The Misesian, we bring you gently edited transcriptions of three of these insightful lectures plus the highlights of that memorable weekend. The first lecture comes from Senior Fellow Shawn Ritenour, who explains how property and commerce are the building blocks of human cooperation. Only through this cooperation can we reap the benefits of the division of labor and higher productivity, both of which are essential to a rising standard of living.
The second comes from Senior Fellow Alex Pollock, who examines how freedom in money is an essential antidote to state power. There is a reason, Pollock shows, why governments seize control of money at the earliest opportunity.
Finally, we feature Academic Vice President Joseph Salerno’s latest look at how much private markets have succeeded in bringing down the cost of living. Governments everywhere do their best to destroy the benefits of growing industries by inflating away our prosperity, yet resilient markets still are able to generate prosperity.
In this issue you’ll also find plenty of news about the Mises Institute and photos from our most recent events, plus a new book review from perennial favorite David Gordon.
As always, thank you for your support of the Mises Institute. Remember that we’re not just fighting for freedom. We’re fighting for civilization itself.
