The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.
Category: property
Protection of property
Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.
The prime function of government
The prime function of government is the protection of the different and unequal faculties of man for acquiring property.
Property rights are foundational
No other rights are safe where property is not safe.
No right to self-defense, no peace
If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.
Property rights = freedom
The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights …
Descent into monarchy
There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh – get first all the people’s money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants forever. … There is a natural inclination in mankind to kingly government. … I am apprehensive … that the government of the states may, in future times, end in a monarchy.
The importance of private property rights
If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization. There is no experience to the effect that socialism could provide a standard of living as high as that provided by capitalism.
The importance of private property
5 billion of the world’s 7 billion people don’t have the documents to live in a particular place. To be precise, they don’t have the legal property rights required to reside, own assets or do business in their own or any other country. That’s 5 billion without any enforceable guarantee that they will not be expropriated or environmentally contaminated by powerful business, government, terrorists, or criminals. That also means they will struggle to have access to credit or the ability to raise capital since borrowers typically need to pledge some kind of property in exchange. Only 1 billion people living in the West, Japan, Singapore, and the like, and another billion in the westernized areas of developing and former Soviet nations have the documents to protect and leverage their rights.
Property must be protected
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.