Property rights are defined in many ways. It often happens that academics who are interested in the scope, regulation, or protection of private property rights debate endlessly at cross purposes because they do not share the same definition of property rights in the first place.

Some debaters attempt to beat their opponents by initiating a definitional game of “gotcha.” So, you agree—or do not agree—with copyrights. But what is your definition of property rights? Gotcha!

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Many Americans, perhaps a substantial majority, still believe that, irrespective of any problems they may have caused, labor unions are fundamentally an institution that exists in the vital self-interest of wage earners. Indeed, many believe that it is labor unions that stand between the average wage earner and a life of subsistence wages, exhausting hours of work, and horrific working conditions.

According to certain experts, there is an urgent need to remove cash from the economy. It is argued that cash provides support to the shadow economy and permits tax evasion.

“Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.” — Patrick Henry

The man of “Give me liberty or give me death!” fame was once lost among the obscure. Like Thomas Paine and Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry had failed at just about everything early in life, including farming and running a store.

It is worth recalling how, in his work Socialism, Ludwig von Mises explained—in the section regarding Contractual Marriage—that it was actually capitalism that enabled women’s emancipation; the greater financial resources made possible by capital accumulation allowed them to become independent of male domination:

During the Commercial Revolution—roughly from the 10th to the 14th century—medieval Europe experienced a demographic recovery, an improvement in agricultural productivity, a revival of its long-distance trade, and the diffusion of market institutions. In this context, the Hanse were merchants from Lower Germany and the Elbe river basin who found themselves scattered across a vast region around the North and Baltic seas.