Posted on 11/26/2014 3:46:22 AM PST by Kaslin
This Thanksgiving, I give thanks for something our forebears gave us: property rights.
People associate property rights with greed and selfishness, but they are keys to our prosperity. Things go wrong when resources are held in common.
Before the Pilgrims were able to hold the first Thanksgiving, they nearly starved. Although they had inherited ideas about individualism and property from the English and Dutch trading empires, they tried communism when they arrived in the New World. They decreed that each family would get an equal share of food, no matter how much work they did.
The results were disastrous. Gov. William Bradford wrote, "Much was stolen both by night and day." The same plan in Jamestown contributed to starvation, cannibalism and death of half the population.
So Bradford decreed that families should instead farm private plots. That quickly ended the suffering. Bradford wrote that people now "went willingly into the field."
Soon, there was so much food that the Pilgrims and Indians could celebrate Thanksgiving.
There's nothing like competition and self-interest to bring out the best in people.
While property among the settlers began as an informal system, with "tomahawk rights" to land indicated by shaving off bits of surrounding trees, or "corn rights" indicated by growing corn, soon settlers were keeping track of contracts, filing deeds and, alas, hiring lawyers to sue each other. Property rights don't end all conflict, but they create a better system for settling disputes than physical combat.
Knowing that your property is really yours makes it easier to plant, grow, invest and prosper.
In Brazil today, rainforests are destroyed because no one really owns them. Loggers take as many trees as they can because they know if they don't, someone else will. No one had much reason to preserve trees or plant new ones for future harvests; although recently, some private conservation groups bought parcels of the Amazon in order to protect trees.
The oceans are treated as a commons, and they are difficult to privatize. For years, lack of ownership led to overfishing. Species will go extinct if they aren't treated as property. Now a few places award fishing rights to private groups of fishermen. Canada privatized its Pacific fisheries, saving the halibut from near collapse. When fishermen control fishing rights, they care about preserving fish.
Think about your Thanksgiving turkey. We eat tons of them, but no one worries that turkeys will go extinct. We know there will be more next year, since people profit from owning and raising them.
As the 19th-century economist Henry George said, "Both humans and hawks eat chickens -- but the more hawks, the fewer chickens; while the more humans, the more chickens."
(Sadly, even Henry George didn't completely believe in private property. He thought land should be unowned, since latecomers can't produce more of it. Had he seen how badly the commonly owned rainforest is treated, he might've changed his mind.)
Hernando de Soto (the contemporary Peruvian economist, not the Spanish conquistador) writes about the way clearly defined property rights spur growth in the developing world. Places without clear property rights -- much of the third world -- suffer.
"About 4 billion people in the world actually build their homes and own their businesses outside the legal system," de Soto told me. "It's all haphazard and disorganized because of the lack of rule of law, the definition of who owns what. Because they don't have (legally recognized) addresses, (they) can't get credit."
Without deeds, they can't make contracts with confidence. Economic activity that cannot be legally protected instead gets done on the black market, or on "gray markets" in a murky legal limbo in between. In places such as Tanzania, says de Soto, 90 percent of the economy operates outside the legal system.
So, few people expand homes or businesses. Poor people stay poor.
This holiday season, give thanks for property rights and hope that your family will never have to relearn the economic lesson that nearly killed the Pilgrims.
Property doesn’t have rights. It can be forfeited at the whim of any law enforcement agency in our former republic.
Yes, sadly the ever expanding scope of regulations is making private property less and less secure in our once free country.
What are property rights? I have to pay county and school taxes on my property. If I don’t it’s taken from me. I’m not allowed to build on, improve on or add on to my property with out a permit. I’m not allowed to burn, hunt or let the grass grow above a certain height. If the government wants all or part of my land for anything they can just come in and take it under eminent domain.
Property rights... what a joke.
agreed. I’m not sure if I own my property or it owns me these days.
Well why don’t you sell your property and live in a tent or something. *rme*
Republic, Res Publica:
The word res, as everyone knows, signified in the Roman language, wealth, riches, property; the word publicus, quasi populicus, and per syncope poplicus, signified public, common, belonging to the people; res publica, therefore, was publica res, the wealth, riches, or property of the people.
Res populi, and the original meaning of the word re-public could be no other than a government in which the property of the people predominated and governed; and it had more relation to property than liberty. It signified a government in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them, was secured and protected by law. This idea, indeed, implies liberty because property cannot be secure unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use, or part with it, at his discretion, and unless he have his personal liberty of life and limb, motion and rest, for that purpose.
It implies, moreover, that the property and the liberty of all men, not merely of a majority, should be safe. For the people, or public, comprehends more than a majority, it comprehends all and every individual; and the property of every citizen is part of the public property, as each citizen is part of the public, people or community. The property, therefore, of every man has a share in government, and is more powerful than any citizen, or party of citizens. It is governed only by the law. - John Adams
The laws, which are the only possible rule, measure, and security of justice, can be sure of protection, for any course of time, in no other form of government: and the very name of a republic implies, that the property of the people should be represented in the legislature, and decide the rule of justice. - John Adams
Your points are why individual ownership of property has fallen so much with younger people; they see little point in slaving away for something on top of which they have to pay high taxes.
Here in NJ that has killed the housing market, and the response (importing illegals to keep housing occupied) has driven even more people from the state (costing us an electoral vote).
You can also be forbidden to plant a garden or fly the American flag. I guess property rights come down to choosing the paint for your kitchen or putting a rug in front of your fireplace, if your allowed to have one of those.
The new EPA rules posted yesterday eliminate property rights in land in all but the paper title. It is not even a law passed by Congress. It is a law passed by the EPA. Congress is more and more just a showpiece.
"Property rights" in the context of this discussion are only meaningful when the property in question is a means of some kind of productive enterprise. That's why all of the examples cited in this article involve agriculture or some kind of industry.
The whole idea of "property rights" gets distorted when you're dealing with property whose sole purpose is a habitat for a person or family. In effect, many of these occupants function no differently than a tenant farmer -- slaving away to pay a mortgage and exorbitant property taxes.
Thanks for posting.
Here’s another good website to visit. Lots of good links and info.
http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/
http://www.propertyrightsresearch.org/loggers.htm
That is outrageous. The EPA must be stopped now
What we need are local home owner organizations that are organized to vote down local tax levies. We’re just ATMs to the better organized boards of education and health and what not otherwise. I don’t even have kids but my property taxes just went up $50/month to pay for a new school. Our property values fell yet our property taxes went up. It’s complete BS. I feel like I should be running around the streets at night setting buildings on fire.
Your problem is your fellow citizens who clamor for things like public education and taxpayer-funded health care.
Where is this? I tried to find something on it.
My fellow citizens voted this particular levy down three times in a row and then the board of education managed to get it on the ballot during a primary election ballot when they knew turnout would be low and then every due paying union member in the school system showed up to ram it down our throats. They were told no three daggone times and still managed to get their way. There needs to be laws against that too. If a tax levy gets voted down, you should have to wait at least 5 years before putting it back on the ballot.
Levin was talking about it last night.
Like I said ... Your problem is your fellow citizens, not the school board.
A person who refuses to vote has no advantage in life over someone who isn't allowed to vote.
This is why I refuse to own real estate unless it is generating a cash flow for me. The ability to pack up and leave on a moment's notice without having a home as an anchor around my neck is worth a lot.
“What we need are local home owner organizations that are organized to vote down local tax levies.”
Keyword: Organize. Do that and your property rights increase, along with other liberties. Add in an elected pro-2nd Amendment, Constitutional sheriff, and you have armed muscle to confront federal fascist bureaucrats.
That’s how our Founders did it with organized Committees of Safety.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.