December

by Lawrence W Reed POTOMAC PRINCIPLES-Kill Big Business's Bank by Doug Bandow ECONOMICS on TRIAL-Best Textbooks for a Free-Market University by Mark Skousen DEPARTMENTS Perspective-Sheldon Richman Book Reviews -Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine by Jasper Becker, reviewed by Steven W. Mosher; Why the Left Is Not Right-The Religious Left: Who They Are and What They Believe by Ronald Nash, reviewed by Doug Bandow; The USA Tax: A Progressive Consumption Tax by Laurence S. Seidman, reviewed by Roger W Garrison; The Future of Money in the Information Age edited by James Dorn, reviewed by Steven Horwitz; Bank Deregulation and Monetary Order by George Selgin, reviewed by Parth 1. Shah; The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, reviewed by George C. Leef; Pick a Better Country by Ken Hamblin, reviewed by James A. Woehlke. Index 1997 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Published by The Foundation for Economic Education Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533 Phone (914) 591-7230 FAX (914) 591-8910 E-mail: freeman@westnet.com FEE Home Page: http://www.fee.org President: Donald J. Boudreaux Editor: Sheldon Richman Managing Editor: Beth A. Hoffman Editor Emeritus Paul L. Poirot Lewisburg, Pennsylvania Book Review Editor George C. Leef Adjunct Professor of Law and Economics, Northwood University Editorial Assistant Mary Ann Murphy Columnists Doug Bandow Cato Institute, Washington, D.C.

Lawrence W. Reed Mackinac Center for Public Policy Midland, Michigan Mark Skousen Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida Contributing Editors Charles W. Baird California State University, Hayward Peter J. Boettke Manhattan College Clarence B. Carson American Textbook Committee Wadley, Alabama Thomas J. DiLorenzo Loyola College, Baltimore, Maryland Joseph S. Fulda New York, New York Bettina Bien Greaves Resident Scholar, FEE John Hospers University of Southern California Tibor R. Machan Auburn University Ronald Nash Reformed Theological Seminary Edmund A. Opitz Chatham, Massachusetts James L. Payne Sandpoint, Idaho William H. Peterson Adjunct Scholar, Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. Jane S. Shaw PERC, Bozeman, Montana Richard H. Timberlake University of Georgia The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533. FEE, established in 1946 by Leonard E. Read, is a nonpolitical, educa tional champion of private property, the free market, and limited government. FEE is classified as a 26 USC 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

Copyright © 1997 by The Foundation for Economic Education. Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue, provided credit is given and two copies of the reprinted material are sent to FEE. The costs of Foundation projects and services are met through dona tions, which are invited in any amount. Donors of $30.00or more receive a subscription to The Freeman. Student subscriptions are $10.00 for the nine-month academic year; $5.00 per semester. Additional copies of this issue of The Freeman are $3.00 each. For foreign delivery,a donation of $45.00 a year is suggested to cover mailing costs. Bound volumes of The Freemanare availablefrom The Foundation for calendar years 1972 to date. The Freeman is available in microform from University Microfilms,300 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48106. PERSPECTIVE Property-Key to Self-Determination Private property is at the center of the freedom philosophy. It has been said that all human rights are ultimately property rights. It has been said that the right to life is a property right in one's person. It has been said that without property rights, the right to life is an empty idea. Yet private ownership is an issue that divides people and dictates their positions on many other issues. We can say that the two great competing world views in political theory individualism and statism-are irreconcil ably at odds over the question of property.

The conflict is more subtle than it used to be, but it is just as real. The strictly economic virtue of property is hardly in dispute anymore. The collapse of communism and explicit socialism is inter preted by many people as a victory for private property. Even stalwart socialist economists have conceded this point. While the economic function of property is now virtually unquestioned, there are political and social aspects to property that deserve attention. Property is vital to pri vacy. One protects one's privacy ultimately by invoking private property. (See Tibor Machan's article in this issue.) Thus, it is important for such things as freedom of religion (and nonreligion). It is required for freedom of the press and speech. Imagine a free press where private individuals could not own paper, presses, and ink. Property is at the center of every issue relating to human liberty. Imagine a society in which all property was owned collectively. Actually, that is hard to imagine. Ownership refers to the power to use and dispose of things. Collec tives as such cannot use and dispose. Only individuals can do so because only individ uals can act. When "society" appears to own property, the actual power of use and dis posal rests with a group of identifiable government officials. They are the de facto, if not the de jure, owners. Even in a democratic society, in which the people fill 714 political offices by voting, it is misleading to say the people collectively own and control property. The most we can say is that each citizen has a small say in who the de facto owners will be. In contrast, other apparent forms of "collective ownership," such as a corporation, suffer from no similar concep tual problem, since they are the result of explicit contractual relationships entered into by specific individuals. Moreover, and this is critical, each stockholder, unlike the citizen "owner," can sell his share of the company whenever he likes.

In a society in which all property was collectively owned, everyone would be, in fact, an employee and tenant of the gov ernment. That's not a comforting thought. Again, the right to cast a vote every four years for the administrators of the public's property would not make these circum stances any more comforting. Everyone would in a significant sense be at the mercy of the state. To be sure, in a free-market society, many people also will be employees and tenants. But there are two important differences between that situation and collective own ership. First, in the market there is compe tition among employers and landlords; that process benefits employees and tenants. Second, a person's status as an employee or tenant can be temporary. An ambitious person can save or borrow the money to start his own business and to buy his own home. If the market is fully free, the pos sibilities for transforming oneself from an employee/tenant to an employer/home owner are maximized.

This consideration, when added to the fact that private property is essential for a free press, free conscience, and privacy, adds up to a rather strong recommendation for property rights: they are crucial to self-determination. Let's define self determination as the ability to influence the PERSPECTIVE direction of one's life in a major way within the context of one's talents and capabilities. (Obviously, factors outside of anyone's con trol may affect one's life.) It should be obvious that private property is an element without which self-determination is impos sible. One will have little say over the direction of one's life if the state controls all economic life. In the marketplace, however, one has choices-even if one does not own land or a business. Secure ownership of one's wages and the acquisition through lease of living space provides control over one's own life that cannot be approached in any collectivist scheme. It is no coincidence that collectivists, while sometimes paying tribute to self-determination, don't really like when people assert too much power to determine their life course. (See Loren Lomasky's discussion of autonomy and au tomobiles in this issue.) Few people call for full-fledged socialism anymore. Today semi-socialists favor heavy government regulation of property in the name of the environment or social justice or some such reason. But the principle re mains. To the extent government regulates the use of private property, it steals the power of self-determination from people.

(One example: if the government can wreck your retirement plans by declaring your property a wetland, what has happened to self-determination?) Nominal private prop erty that is regulated by the state does not fully escape the flaws of socialism. Fascism, which is the name of such a system, is more like socialism than it is different. Nazism, that virulent brand of fascism, means na tional socialism. If the freedom philosophy is to prevail, advocates of private property will need to make it clear that without full protection of property rights we are all poorer-and not just in the economic sense. -SHELDON RICHMAN 715 THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON LIBERTY Freedom and the Car by Loren Lomasky Y ears before the automobile evolved into a transportation necessity, before me andering mudded ruts were replaced by multilaned asphalt, pioneering motorists took to the roads for pleasure. Today tens of millions still drive for pleasure, but in creasingly it is a guilty pleasure. From a multitude of quarters motorists are indicted for the harms they leave in their wake.