Don Boudreaux, Chairman of the GMU Economics Department (and member of the IPCentral Academic Advisory Council) considers the anniversary of Kelo, and the fundamentals of property rights:

[T]he "progressive" mind is so eager to validate state control of our lives that it leaps mindlessly from the proposition that government can play a role in protecting our rights to the ludicrous notion that the state gives us our rights. After this leap, it's a short step to the conclusion that rights are conditional upon the whim of the state — that rights aren't really rights at all, but privileges we enjoy only by government's grace.

Of course, this idea isn't actually progressive. It's regressive in the extreme. It reflects Plato's insistence that ordinary people, many of whom are "natural slaves," are best ruled by "philosopher kings" possessing near-dictatorial powers. Not to worry, though: Plato assured us these kings would be wise, selfless and good.

More than 2,000 years later, Locke, James Madison and other modern thinkers exposed this notion as wrongheaded and dangerous. Their works laid the foundation for our understanding that people whose individual freedoms are sturdily guarded by genuine, inviolable rights — including rights to property — are the most productive, prosperous and truly progressive. The court [in Kelo] regrettably rejected this understanding.

The Kelo cloud has a silver lining: It has sparked public outrage. In response to this ruling, the U.S. House and 47 state legislatures are considering legislation aimed at curbing abuse of eminent domain.

posted by James DeLong @ 8:55 AM | Physical Property

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