My New Liberalism.Org Article on the Centrality of Private Property Rights to Liberalism

Property rights were central to the origins of the liberal political tradition. And, in our time especially, they should be central once again. In addition to their inherent value as a vital element of liberty and autonomy, bolstering them is essential to uplifting the poor and disadvantaged and boosting prosperity and innovation. The right to private property can also help protect a variety of other important rights.

Property rights were a central focus of the early liberal tradition. John Locke famously wrote that the purpose of government was the protection of “life, liberty, and property.” Many of the American Founders made similar statements. At the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton avowed that “one great obj[ect] of Gov[ernment] is the personal protection and security of property.” James Madison—Hamilton’s great adversary on many issues—agreed, writing in his famous 1792 essay on “Property,” that “Government is instituted to protect property of every sort… This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”

In more recent times, many—including many left-liberals—have downgraded property rights, and advocated that they be severely limited, often supposedly to protect the interests of the poor and disadvantaged. Yet the poor and disadvantaged have the most to gain from strengthening protection for property rights. Stronger protections would raise living standards for them, and for society as a whole….

As early liberals understood, property is essential to liberty. Almost every important human activity requires the use of property…

Property is also essential to the exercise of almost every type of liberty and autonomy. There is no meaningful freedom of speech without property rights in books, computers, newspapers, printing presses, internet connections, and other facilities necessary to disseminate our words. There is little, if any, freedom of religion without property rights in locations needed to hold religious services, propagate religious doctrines, and operate other religious institutions. The right to contraception protected by the Supreme Court’s famous decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, though usually thought of as a “privacy” right, depends on the right to acquire and possess property rights in contraceptives.

We can make similar points about almost any other form of liberty. If exercising it requires the use of land or material goods, that exercise depends on property rights. Without such rights, the government could at any time negate the liberty simply by denying the ability to use property needed to exercise it.