There Is No Prosperity without Private Property
Private property rights are under fire by progressive elites — even as those same elites protect their own property fiercely. But without these rights, a functioning economy is not possible.
Private property rights are under fire by progressive elites — even as those same elites protect their own property fiercely. But without these rights, a functioning economy is not possible.
A common knock on libertarianism is that it is so individualistic that it rejects the concept of community. (Think of the political cartoon in which the libertarian lifeguard let people drown.) In truth, strong communities also need free individuals.
In publicly opposing apartheid, William H. Hutt saw how legal segregation kept black South Africans from pursuing legitimate economic goals. To Hutt, apartheid deprived people of equality of economic opportunity, which kept them in poverty.
The concrete effects of the destruction of money and property on human personality are demonstrated most vividly in the historical episode of the German hyperinflation of 1923.
In our current age of rampant monetary inflation and price inflation, good economics has become more relevant for ordinary people. Inflation is not some arcane matter of consumer price indices and statistics on the monetary base. Inflation, is simply ruinous on the personal level.
After the Indochina War, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world, but dramatic free-market reforms have made this formerly socialist country prosperous.
What makes an entity a property that can be owned is morality.
Conservatives and utilitarian classical liberals support freedom of contract because they deem it "useful" to society. However, Murray Rothbard believed that contractual freedom should be based upon the natural right of self-ownership.
A common knock on libertarianism is that it is so individualistic that it rejects the concept of community. (Think of the political cartoon in which the libertarian lifeguard let people drown.) In truth, strong communities also need free individuals.