What are the connections between liberty and property?

“…power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” -Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper #79

A malignant idea exists in socialistic thought that societies can have political freedom with limited economic freedom.

More precisely, this dangerous idea is that political and economic freedom are separate and distinct freedoms and that one can survive without the other.

Furthermore, in democratic socialism the theory is that wealth can be forcefully redistributed through the government, or in other words that society has a right to the economic labor of all individuals.

At the heart of this destructive ideology is that economic freedom is unnecessary and that a society can still be free without it.

Europe has embraced this ideology to a large extent, and America is not that far behind.

However, there is an inseparable connection between liberty and property, a connection that, if severed, leads to the loss of both liberty and private property.

Why It Matters

It is your unalienable right to work, to labor, and to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Freedom means the ability to control your destiny through your own effort–if the government takes the fruit of your labor (your property) for anything other than taxes to support its proper role, it reduces your ability to create the life of your choice.

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is no force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist.” -John Adams

Furthermore, property is a tool to express your unique contribution to the world.

Bill Gates shares his vision and business skills by creating computers. Ray Kroc shared his drive and innovation through real estate and hamburgers.

Without private property rights, these men and others like them would have no outlet to express their individuality.

If a person wishes to pursue their happiness by creating a business, that happiness will be deterred if they do not have access to create a physical manifestation of the business through property.

John Locke wrote extensively about this topic in his Second Treatise on Government. He wrote,

“[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

“It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer; no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to….

“He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his.

“I ask then when did they begin to be his? And ’tis plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put a distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than nature, the common mother of all, had done: and so they become his private right.

“And will any one say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? … If such a consent as that was necessary man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him.

“We see in commons, which remain so by compact, that ’tis the taking part of what is common, and removing it out of the state Nature leaves it in, which begins the property; without which the common is of no use.”

Without economic freedom all other freedoms are obsolete. With freedom comes the responsibility to use your hands, your mind, and your strength to care for yourself, to provide you and your family with economic necessities and desires.

With responsibility comes opportunity to create your own destiny. Unless your private property rights are protected your ability to determine your life is severely limited.

Recommended Reading:

• The Mainspring of Human Progress by H.G. Weaver
• The Virginian by Owen Wister
• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt

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Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.