by Debra Medina
As we continue to explore the tools available to restore private property ownership in Texas, questions abound as to just why that is such a big deal. While many instinctively understand that the payment of property tax undermines true ownership (as do the many restrictions on property use which exist in virtually every jurisdiction in Texas), the property tax has become such a fundamental mechanism for funding local government and schools, we have difficulty understanding how we ever got along without it.
It remains important to the preservation of a free and prosperous society, that public policy be developed around ideas and principles which serve to protect freedom however and eliminate and resist those policies which destroy it. If it is established that property ownership is essential to freedom, one can begin to take hold of the notion that the taxing of that property must be eliminated.
Murray Rothbard discussed Aristotle’s thought on private property in Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, excerpted below. An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Jeff Riggenbach, is available for download. All courtesy of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
“Aristotle…set forth a trenchant argument in favor of private property. Perhaps influenced by the private-property arguments of Democritus, Aristotle delivered a cogent attack on the communism of the ruling class called for by Plato. He denounced Plato’s goal of the perfect unity of the state through communism by pointing out that such extreme unity runs against the diversity of mankind, and against the reciprocal advantage that everyone reaps through market exchange. Aristotle then delivered a point-by-point contrast of private as against communal property. First, private property is more highly productive and will therefore lead to progress. Goods owned in common by a large number of people will receive little attention, since people will mainly consult their own self-interest and will neglect all duty they can fob off on to others. In contrast, people will devote the greatest interest and care to their own property.
Second, one of Plato’s arguments for communal property is that it is conducive to social peace, since no one will be envious of, or try to grab the property of, another. Aristotle retorted that communal property would lead to continuing and intense conflict, since each will complain that he has worked harder and obtained less than others who have done little and taken more from the common store. Furthermore, not all crimes or revolutions,
declared Aristotle, are powered by economic motives. As Aristotle trenchantly put it, “men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold.”
Third, private property is clearly implanted in man’s nature: His love of self, of money, and of property, are tied together in a natural love of exclusive ownership. Fourth, Aristotle, a great observer of past and present, pointed out that private property had existed always and everywhere. To impose communal property on society would be to disregard the record of human experience, and to leap into the new and untried. Abolishing private property would probably create more problems than it would solve.
Finally, Aristotle wove together his economic and moral theories by providing the brilliant insight that only private property furnishes people with the opportunity to act morally, e.g. to practice the virtues of benevolence and philanthropy. The compulsion of communal property would destroy that opportunity.”
Our founders understood that there is wisdom in the minds of men. We must begin again to study and debate the foundational principles of freedom, to insure that the discourse in Austin and the policies adopted by the coming legislature return to Texas a limited government intent on securing life, liberty and property rather than on growing government and its interference in our lives.
You can assist in this effort by subscribing to www.WeTexans.com and engaging your legislators on these important issues as we prepare for the coming 2011 legislative session.
