It All Starts with Property Rights

"... Most would agree that the function of government is to safeguard the property and freedom of citizens. Yet, it must be clear by now that the single greatest threat to any citizen's property is its own government. In the United States, the combined burden of local, state and federal tax immediately confiscates between 30% and 60% of our annual incomes, and hits anything a person saves again at the point of death. And that's just the beginning..." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"To be controlled in our economic pursuits, means to be...controlled in everything."--F. A. Hayek

The feelings that drive us to defend ourselves against government oppression are an expression of our innate compulsion to control our own property. Each of us shares the feeling that it is unjust and an outrage for our hard-earned wealth to be taken from us without our consent.

The drive to control our own property is not unique to modern man. Studies of animal species, observations of hunter-gatherer groups still in existence, and the written history of civilization leave no question that territorialism is a biological imperative. As sociobiologist E. O. Wilson argues, "The biological formula of territorialism translates easily into the ritual of modern property ownership." By the time our early hominid ancestors were wandering the African savannah millions of years ago, the genes that expressed the "property" instinct were firmly wired into mammalian DNA.

The Declaration of Independence suggests that the Founding Fathers sensed this aspect of human nature. It argued that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, of course, are all aspects of property.

The long train of abuses and usurpations that drove the founding fathers to rebel were triggered by the same genes that give rise to your rage when someone burglarizes your home, steals your car or defrauds you. Those genes are equally activated when that attack comes from government.

Most would agree that the function of government is to safeguard the property and freedom of citizens. Yet, it must be clear by now that the single greatest threat to any citizen's property is its own government. In the United States, the combined burden of local, state and federal tax immediately confiscates between 30% and 60% of our annual incomes, and hits anything a person saves again at the point of death. And that's just the beginning.

Governments also hold monopolies on licenses and permits which, in many countries, prohibit rather than encourage business enterprise and wealth creation. Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto in his brilliant book The Mystery of Capital provides numerous examples of how governments around the world discourage private ownership and enterprise. "An Egyptian who wants to acquire and legally register a lot on state-owned desert land (which means, most land) must wend his way through at least 77 bureaucratic procedures at 31 public and private agencies" which can take from 5 to 14 years. "To build a legal dwelling on former agricultural land would require 6 to 11 years of bureaucratic wrangling."

"In Haiti," writes De Soto, "one way an ordinary person can settle legally on government land is first to lease it from the government for five years and then buy it. Working with associates in Haiti, our researchers found that to obtain such a lease took 65 bureaucratic steps requiring, on average, a little more than two years. All for the privilege of merely leasing the land for five years."

Of course, such government restrictions have given rise to tremendous amounts of underground activity, but people are seldom able to do as well as they could if the activity were legal. "Extra legal businesses," De Soto explains, "are taxed by the lack of good property law and continually have to hide their operations from the authorities. Because they are not incorporated, extralegal entrepreneurs cannot lure investors by selling shares; they cannot get low-interest formal credit because they do not have legal addresses. They cannot reduce risks by declaring limited liability or obtaining insurance coverage...moreover, because extralegal entrepreneurs live in constant fear of government detection and extortion from corrupt officials, they are forced to split and compartmentalize their production facilities between many locations, thereby rarely achieving economies of scale."

Moreover, because illegal businesses are always on the lookout for police, they can forget about openly advertising to build their customer base or making less costly bulk deliveries. Underground businesses are also easy prey for local mafias who know they don't have to fear official police protection of the illegal operation.

Failure to comply with the myriad laws, regulations, rules, codes and policies levies an additional cost. Fail to pay your taxes, allow a permit or license to expire, find your property in the way of a new public project, have any illegal drug found on your premises, violate a building code, deposit an unusual amount of cash into your bank account, have inadequate toilet facilities for handicapped employees, or paint your building a shocking color, and you may be fined, arrested, and have your property taken away by city, county, state, or federal authorities. Attempt to resist and they'll take your "primordial property" (you). They will throw you in prison or even kill you.

Ultimately, protection of your property rests on protecting yourself from all threats, the biggest of which is government itself. The United States is considered by many the freest nation on earth and one in which private property is held in the highest regard. In fact, there are many nations in the Western world, the Pacific Basin, and elsewhere that recognize and respect private property to a much higher degree than the United States

Prudent individuals diversify their financial portfolios to protect against market fluctuations, inflation, deflation, recession, depression, currency devaluation and even war. In the same way, they diversify internationally to protect against the abuses of government.

The function of The Sovereign Society is to help identify those political jurisdictions that offer the most effective and cost-efficient methods of property protection. Using offshore bank accounts, trusts, and real estate, as well as spreading business holdings among different countries, are practical ways to accomplish your primal need to defend and protect your property.

John Pugsley is chairman of The Sovereign Society, author of numerous books and reports on economics, investment and politics, and former editor of John Pugsley's Journal. Mr. Pugsley is the author of two best-sellers: Common Sense Economics and The Alpha Strategy.

Do you prefer to work for yourself and your family or are you working for the dependent families of Democratic politicians? My dictionary, under synonyms for slavery, lists bondage and servitude-refer to involuntary subjection to another or others. Our government used to brag that our income tax system is based on "voluntary compliance", a two word phrase using words that are at the opposite ends of the spectrum, perhaps the ultimate oxymoron of government intelligence.

Who poses the greater danger to your property, Osama and Sadam or the Democratic Party?

Living in Texas, the state takes 8.75% of what I spend, and 3% of my property annually. The more I invest in property and the better my choice of property investments the greater my share of the tax burden. And the more neglect poor property managers practice, the less they are taxed. Why does government feel the need for incentives in the economy? And why are the incentives applied by governments always backward. Penalize the productive and reward the inefficient, is this the government's formula for growing the wealth of all and the economy in general? Who exactly, is the Enemy of the State?

Look into my eyes! You Vill not Succeed !

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Actually, the "Voluntary" in "Voluntary Compliance" is meant to be that you can prepare the return yourself, or hire someone to do it for you, instead of having the taxing agency calculate your tax for you (which is somewhat bogus, since returns are subject to audit). At least that's the explanation on the IRS website.

This new so called religous inititive to give funds to churches etc empowers muslims and mosques as it does anyone else calling themselves a religon
It also empowers the Nature Conservancy to get land sold to it earning a tax credit for the seller..not to anyone else..
Govt both fed and local are seizing land and an unbelievable rate...I heard that Nevada is now 80% owned by the feds

..I heard that Nevada is now 80% owned by the feds
4 -JS-

Thats what crazy about this whole property thing.
Just 200 years ago NO one 'owned' nevada. Spain claimed to, then WE the people 'took over' Spains claim & declared it to be a 'Sovereign State'.
'WE' gave the state a bit of the land, and declared that the rest could be homesteaded, mined, or bought outright. We even gave away large parcels to railroads.

Now, in the last 50 plus years, all that remains, - 80%, - has been declared off limits by the very government 'WE' gave it to.

Something is seriously wrong here, and we all know what it is.
- The 'feds' are out of control.

Hernando de Soto is the economist who helped me to understand that all wealth comes from social and legal infrastructure. If you live in a country that has a "buy me, give me, share me" (so-pe-ka) ethic then you end up with something like Africa. If you have a society that has a corrupt legal system driven by millions of bribes every day you end up with Mexico.

On the other hand, if you have a society where the poor look at the rich and say "if I work hard I can be rich too"; and if you have laws that protect the property rights of everyone, rich and poor, then you will have a healthy society that can produce wealth. The healthier the social and legal infrastructure, the more wealth will be generated. It is really that simple.

But beware, for if you allow your society to be subverted from above or below, if you allow criminals to prosper and frauds to go unpunished and the defrauded are left to suffer without compensation, then you can lose that social infrastructure. When the poor look at the rich and say "if I were as good of a thief as him then I could be rich too" then your society is on its way to Hades.

In a book by Forrest McDonald, I read a comment that I'll quote inaccurately from memory:
Property Rights Blackstone described in absolute terms as supreme and inviolate, but then went on to list in 500 pages the exceptions to that absolute. Just such settled and established nuances are what give us the Rule of Law and not of men where property is concerned. Our common law heritage allows the protection, with the help of government courts, for such property.

In the Rationalist State, whether of the left or not, there is no settled scheme. Anytime a whole new examination of ownership and "Rights" can take place. Hence de Soto's explanation of why Free Markets alone do little to raise the economy of many states. The conversion of personal wealth and property to capital that can be expanded or traded can't take place with assurance.

1.Private property is stolen every day by the Eco-terrorists rife in the Environmental Protection Agency. Tell them an “endangered” species was spotted near your property if you don’t believe it.
2.If corporations can protect their assets by relocating offshore why can’t the individual citizen? I was told that an American must pay Federal income taxes no matter where he resides, even if he renounced US citizenship. Corporations should be held to the same standard without exception.

I am not an attorney or a qualified legal advisor, but I am under the impression that if you relinquish your US citizenship that you are no longer liable for US income taxes on income produced or earned outside of the United States.

Corporations don't pay taxes at all. This is a fanciful lie masquerading as truth. Only people pay taxes. In the case of corporations, it is the shareholders and customers who actually pay the taxes.

Sorry about that (omitting “If true, corporations should...”). Re-read it and said “What an idiot.” I will post with more care in the future. Thanks for calling me on it.
Someone guy from the State Department was on G.Gordon’s radio show maintaining that there is no valid way to renounce citizenship, ergo you owe income tax wherever you go. This came up over the weasel who led the nonhuman shields to Baghdad for mirth & merriment (for Free Republic).
I’d love to see the renouncement issue and the weasels having their days in court.

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