Property in a Humane Economy
Grant, James
Book Review/James Grant The Case for Private Property Here is a book on property that has nothing to do with the making of money or with the losing of it, but rather with the freedom to do...
...Add to this government sway over economic life, join the monopoly aforce with that of bread, and City Hall becomes the seat of commissars...
...Petr( examines the land law in feudal Englan( for the laudable reason of determining "whether it is in fact the proponent o broad property rights who wishes to 'turi back the clock.' " He concludes that it not...
...and, in the best-written of the 1 essays, "The Impact of Invasions of Pri vate - Property on Financial Crises," b Louis M. Spadaro...
...enough to have largely escaped contini ing aggression in land titles...
...That is precisely what Property in a Humane Economy does, and with ringing success...
...The authors, who disagree on many things (is or is not self-ownership the basis of all claims to ownership...
...hold this much in common: It is the right to own and dispose of one's property that, in the end, holds the hounds of government at bay...
...Awesome enough that the state should make war, print money, dole out justice, and fix the price of natural gas—it is still more awesome that it should monopolize the doing of them...
...A discussio by Murray N. Rothbard of "Justice an Property Rights" shuns, to this reader disappointment, the brooding question the American Indian...
...Book Review/James Grant The Case for Private Property Here is a book on property that has nothing to do with the making of money or with the losing of it, but rather with the freedom to do both—indeed, with the freedom to do neither, to pass one's days in the full-blooded scorn of mammon...
...Property—the free man's right to do what he will with his own—is the great wall standing between what is private and what is public...
...Without the power to confiscate property, to order economic activity from above, the would-be tyrant is at worst an ambitious politician...
...Much to the credit of Open Court, th excellent collection comes complete wi an index...
...An ancient bestseller, of course, long ago counseled: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal...
...One hopes that they persevere, for this is a book of parts...
...Kohr goes on to say that property, in conferring freedom, need not also conferhappiness...
...For property not only sets me free," writes Leopold Kohr in an article included here, "it also makes me sovereign, and anyone exercising sovereignty over me, such as the state, can only do so through my delegation, not by intrinsic right...
...Spadaro argues prc vocatively that government abridgmer of property rights tends to produce ban runs and crises in the international pay ments balance (the rush out of one cur rency and into another), a view tht makes -compelling sense when we it dude, as does Spadaro himself, currenc inflation in the arsenal of state larceny (Spadaro evidently wrote before th adoption of partially floating world cu: rency rates...
...Knowledge which comes through the kaleidoscopic cultural haze, through the multi-dimensions of language, has a claim to full acceptance," writes one of the dons, in an evident test of his readers' sincerity...
...the essays here date froi 1963 to 1973, and traces of obsolescent appear now and then...
...Matthew or Mr...
...The book offers no defense for materialism and therefore has no quarrel with the word according to St...
...Now comes Arthur Okun of the Brookings Institution, wondering that "some people argue the case for private ownership [of airlines or oil companies] as though it were the same kind of basic liberty as freedom of speech or universal suffrage...
...An argi ment awaits him in Wounded Kne South Dakota...
...Life, liberty, and property,!' shouted yesterday's radicals, uttering the words in the same breath...
...It' makes little difference Property in a Humane Economy edited by Samuel L. Blumenfeld Open Court $10.95 whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail...
...A collection of 13 essays, Property in a Humane Economy is written by 13 academics, a fact apparent on the contents page and on most pages thereafter...
...It does so only for those who love freedom," he writes, "just as marriage bestows happiness not at random, but only on those who love each other...
...Today's radicals—these essayists—agree...
...Quibblers can read "Property in a Hi mane Economy", with profit...
...There is more: "The Decline of Privat, Property and the Diminished Person," ',- James W. Wiggins...
...Henry ("Their refusal to b( stewards of God," he writes, "seems it our day to destine people to enslavemen to false gods, whether mammon or gov ernment") to "Feudalism, Property an( Praxeology," by Sylvester Petro...
...Thoreau (the part played by American money hunger in alienating intellectuals from the higher uses of property is grist for a fourteenth essay...
...Wise words and sorely needed...
...Having proposed scheme ,to wrest land from the ancestor of thieves and bestow it on the ancestor of victims, Rothbard writes, "In tf United States, we have been fortuna...
...34 The Alternative: An American Spectator March 197...
...As to the views of Okun and those budding economic planners who parade each Sunday through the pages of the New York Times, the book mounts a sustained and telling assault in articles ranging from "A Christian Perspective on Property," by Carl F.H...
...Several hundred years later, Henry David Thoreau was warning his fellows against the oppression of barns and houses, "for these are more easily acquired than gotten rid of...
...That property subverts rather than supports the civilized life is an idea deeply rooted in American thought...
...Environmental Pol icy and Property Rights," by Edwin G Dolan...
Vol. 9 • March 1976 • No. 6
