THE SANCTITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
THE SANCTITY OF PRIVATE PROPERTY
By JACOB G. HORNBERGER
No myth is more pervasive among the people of the United
States than that which claims that the American economic
system is based on the sanctity of private property. The
American people have been taught since the first grade in
their government schools that America is the bastion of
private property while the Soviet Union and China represent
the system of public ownership or control of property.
Myths die hard. But it is important that they be exploded, no matter how painful the result. Let us do so to this myth of the American system of "private property" which grips the minds of most Americans.
The significance of the Declaration of Independence had nothing to do with the military battles between the colonists and the British forces. Instead, its importance lay in one of the most dramatic and revolutionary declarations in the history of man: that man's rights do not come from government but instead come from God. With one fell swoop, and for the first time in history, people unseated public officials as the source of their rights and replaced them with the Creator!
The result? With many exceptions (slavery being the worst), the Americans implemented the freest society in history: no income tax, welfare, social security, licensing, or virtually any other law which took money from some, through the political process, and gave it to others, or which regulated peaceful human behavior. Why? Not because it would result in a more prosperous society (which it did). But rather because their lives, liberty, property, and conscience belonged to God, and it was no business of Caesar how they exercised them as long as they did not inflict violence or fraud on others.
What about 20th century Americans? Maintaining the illusion that they are continuing the vision and heritage of their American ancestors, they have instead resorted to the age-old idea that Caesar should be permitted to have ultimate control over these fundamental rights.
Two thousand years ago, the Prime Exemplar told us that we were to render unto Caesar what was Caesar's and unto God what is God's. But He did not tell us what belonged to Caesar and what belonged to God. He left that up to us to figure out. Let us see how Americans--both past and present--have made this determination. Let's examine, for example, income and the ability to earn income.
The Americans who lived from 1787 to 1913 believed that the fruits of their earnings belonged to God, not Caesar. From the very beginning, they did not permit their public officials to levy a tax on their income. When the politicians tried to do so, the people sued. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people, and against the government, and declared the income tax in violation of the Constitution which the people had adopted in 1787.
Public officials complied with the ruling but immediately began persuading the American people to alter their Constitution to permit such a tax. The arguments which the politicians used were evil and seductive. First, they argued that only the rich would be taxed; the poor and middle class need never be concerned. It was the perfect embodiment of violations of God's commandments against covetousness, envy, and stealing. The politicians also promised that the income tax would never exceed a minute percentage.
The American people fell for these evil, seductive, and false promises and amended the Constitution to permit Caesar to do what their ancestors had fought so hard to prevent Caesar from doing: gaining control over their earnings. With the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, the American people rendered unto Caesar that which had previously been rendered unto God: the fruits of their efforts.
A second example: licensing of occupations, professions, and businesses. By and large, the 19th century American rejected licensure. So, American society throughout the 1800s was highly unusual because, unlike all of the other societies in history, a person did not have to seek permission from the political authorities before he began pursuing a living. Lawyers, doctors, hairdressers, blacksmiths, and so forth learned their trade and went into business without asking anyone's permission. But consumers, as the ultimate economic sovereign, through their decisions to patronize a business or not, made the final determination on whether a person would continue in his line of work.
The 20th century American, resorting to the Old World way of thinking against which his ancestors had rebelled, rejected this dramatically different way of life. He did not want to have to make his own decisions on whether people were competent or not. He also did not want unrestricted competition in his own trade. So, he turned to Caesar and, through licensure, rendered unto him the power to regulate the ability to make a living.
Is the real significance behind these two renderings-- occupation and income--the economic consequences? No! The true significance is that the American people, who are so ready to worship God on Sunday, have chosen to reject Him the rest of the week. They believe that God and government should be partners with each other with respect to people's economic activities, blocking out of their minds that, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
The essence of what the 20th century American has done, despite the myths and illusions under which he chooses to operate, can be summarized as follows:
"God, we know that You created us. We also know that our talents and abilities are gifts from You which we utilize to earn our daily bread--our property. We also know that our American ancestors rendered these great gifts to You and would not permit Caesar to interfere with them.
"But times have changed, Lord. Those principles were fine for the simple times of the 1800s but they just don't apply to the more complex way of life in the 20th century. So, we're placing Caesar--the organized means of coercion and compulsion--in partnership with You.
"Oh mighty Caesar, we render unto you control of our talents and abilities and the fruits of our efforts. We know that you did not give us these but nevertheless we are placing them under your dominion and control. Take care of us, mighty Caesar. Decide for us what line of endeavor is most suitable for each of us. Determine how much of our earnings we shall be permitted to keep and how much you need to retain. Provide us our security--our daily bread--in times of need because our other God sometimes doesn't do a perfect job in this regard. We trust you, mighty Caesar, with our lives, our liberties, our properties, and our consciences. You shall henceforth be partners with our other God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We love you. We adore you. We worship you. We give you thanks. We are here to serve you."
Since ancient times, political rulers have hated the existence of God. Why? Because they know that our's is a jealous God. He demands absolute and total allegiance. Our God does not accept partners! Therefore, political rulers, who invariably also desire to be worshipped, bear terrible resentment against such competition.
In ancient Rome, the Caesars developed an interesting method to circumvent this dilemma. They allowed people to engage in different religions but only on the condition that permission was given by the State. Most people sought and were given such permission. So, although people were worshipping another deity, Caesar did not mind because by permitting them to do so, Caesar remained the ultimate sovereign.
However, one group of God's worshippers saw through this scam: the Christians. Refusing to take any act which placed Caesar above God, they chose not to seek Caesar's permission to worship Him. And the price they paid? Their lives.
Thank God our American ancestors secured the passage of the First Amendment which prohibits Caesar from gaining control over our churches. If only we 20th century Americans had the same strength of conviction with respect to our lives and earnings. If only we would truly sanctify private property rather than just giving it lip service. If only we would render our lives and property back to God instead of Caesar. If only we would place God as sovereign over all of our life rather than just a small part of it.
Myths die hard but if we fail to kill them, we shall continue to reap what we sow.
The last thing which Americans of today wish to face is that they have abandoned the principles of private property on which the United States were founded. In last August's Freedom Daily, I pointed to two examples of where the American people have permitted their public officials to assume absolute and total control over private property: income taxation and licensing of occupations. Let us examine two additional examples to assist us in destroying the myth of the sanctity of private property in 20th-century America: international trade and the oil business.
One of the favorite pastimes of Americans is to look down their noses at the socialist systems which are now crumbling all over the world. Americans honestly believe that the American system of "free enterprise" has prevailed in the battle of "capitalism" vs. socialism; and they believe that the world should now simply copy the "private property" system of the American people.
But what is it about the socialist countries which Americans find so objectionable? After all, the socialist nations embody much of that which Americans would never consider abandoning in the U.S.: free housing and medical care for the poor, the prohibition of private citizens from gaining significantly high amounts of wealth, free schooling for all children, and inexpensive food for everyone.
But one of the most significant characteristics of the socialist systems is government control over a citizen's ability to sell goods and services to people in other parts of the world. In other words, the essence of the socialist societies in regard to international trade is that the government reigns supreme over the individual and his property; that is, all property in the nation, even when legal title is nominally held in the name of private citizens, is either owned or controlled by the political authorities.
One of the best examples of this lies ninety miles away from American shores. In Cuba, a nation guided by the principles of free public housing, free medical care, free public schooling, and inexpensive food for the populace, people are not permitted to sell goods and services to others around the world without the permission of their government officials. The government takes the position that all property ultimately belongs to "the people" and, therefore, subject to political control.
Americans rightfully object to the Cuban way of life. But they have a terrible time recognizing that these same principles are found in 20th-century America. Like his Cuban counterpart, no American is free to sell, without the permission of his public officials, what supposedly belongs to him to people around the world. If an American, for example, decides to sell a quantity of wheat or penicillin to the Cuban people, he is prohibited from doing so by his own politicians and bureaucrats. In fact, if an American even travels to Cuba without permission of his public officials, he is incarcerated and fined. This was exemplified last year when an American fisherman was actually sent to jail by American authorities for organizing a fishing trip to Cuba.
Now, the American government officials justify this prohibition on the basis of the Cuban ruler, Fidel Castro, being a bad communist (as compared to the apparently "good" communists of Red China with whom Americans are permitted to trade). But the problem lies not with the American government's determination of who are good communists and who are bad ones. The problem lies in the American people permitting their politicians and bureaucrats to assume and exercise the same power over their lives and property as that found in such nations as Cuba and China.
And despite the fact that the American government maintains ultimate control over the buying and selling decisions of the American people, Americans continue to believe that when American government officials have this control, it is a private property system; and that only when Cuban, Chinese, or Soviet government officials have it, is it considered a socialist system.
What would be a true private property system? One in which the individual is free to buy and sell goods and services anywhere in the world without the interference of his public officials. And it would be a way of life in which people were trading not because the politicians and bureaucrats permitted them to do so but rather because they have the absolute right to sell whatever belongs to them to anyone anywhere in the world.
A second example of this myth of private property in America: oil and gas. Despite their commitment to "free enterprise" and "private property," the American people believe that whenever a person owns what other Americans need, the politicians and bureaucrats must take control over it and redistribute it to the needy.
The best illustration of this tendency toward the socialist principle of public ownership or control over the means of production concerns oil and gas. Whenever the owner of oil or gas decides to sell his product at a higher price than that which American consumers decide is "reasonable," the politicians and bureaucrats, as a result of political pressure from the American people, threaten not only to prohibit him, through price controls, from doing so, but also to take away, through a windfall profits tax, whatever "unjust" profits the producer has made. In other words, while proclaiming the superiority of the American "free enterprise" system over socialist systems in which governments maintain extensive controls over prices and profits, the American people approve of these same socialist principles in their own nation. But, of course, they do so under the rubric of the American "private property" system rather than under the American "socialist" system.
One of the ironies is that during depressed economic conditions, when some oil companies go broke or bankrupt, the American people take the attitude of, "That's their problem. They chose to go into the oil business, and they can't cry when it fails to pan out." But when conditions change, and demand for the product suddenly increases, Americans take the same attitude as their counterparts in China, the Soviet Union, and Cuba: "It's not fair for others to have more when I have less. I need the oil and gas. He's gouging me. I am 'forced' to pay these high prices. Take his product and his income away from him and give it to me."
And another irony is that when price controls are instituted, the problems which arise from those controls are never blamed on the controls themselves. Instead, just like in other socialist countries, the problems are always blamed on others, usually "the evil, greedy, profit-seeking, bourgeoisie swine of a capitalist pig."
The best example of this was the price controls imposed on the oil industry by the American government in the 1970s. What was the result of those controls? The same result found in the Soviet Union, China, and Cuba when price controls are imposed there: shortages and long lines. But did the American people blame them on the political controls themselves? Of course not. That would have been considered unpatriotic. So, the shortages and long lines were blamed on American oil- producers. And how do Americans explain the fact that no shortages and long lines have developed as a result of the recent Middle East crisis? They are unable to do so because they have no idea only political control over prices, and not private owners and producers of oil and gas, create shortages and long lines.
The major disaster of price controls and windfall profits, of course, is the abandonment of the sanctity of private property. But the secondary disaster is that the economic situation always becomes worse as a result of the political intervention. People do not realize that prices are simply the market's method of providing signals in the same way that a thermometer uses temperature to provide signals. High prices are simply the market's way of telling people to produce more and consume less. But rather than permit the signals to guide the actions of producers and consumers, the American people pressure their rulers to break the thermometer. Rather than cope with the bad news which the messenger has brought, people instead choose to kill him. And the inevitable result is just like that found in socialist countries everywhere: shortages, long lines, and general market chaos.
What Americans of today recognize so well with respect to other nations, but unfortunately refuse to see in their own country, is that people can never be free whenever public officials maintain ultimate control over the disposition of their property. Like their counterparts in countries all over the world, unfortunately Americans have a terribly difficult time "letting go" of the apparent security of political control over the means of production. Proclaiming the virtues of freedom and private property for people in other parts of the world, Americans are terribly fearful of trying it for themselves. And it is this paralyzing fear of freedom that causes Americans to continue their deep emotional and psychological commitment to the 20th-century myth of American "free enterprise" and "private property."
When will private property truly be sanctified not only in the U.S. but in other nations as well? Only when the time comes when people stop believing that they have a right to take away what belongs to someone else. There are fewer more destructive forces than the belief that it is acceptable to covet and steal what belongs to another as long as it is done through the political process. Whether it involves a person's income, his occupational pursuits, his goods and services, or his trading decisions, the succumbing to the urge to take from those who have more will always result in the impoverishment or destruction of the people of a nation regardless of whether they are Romans, British, Soviet, Chinese, Cubans, and, yes, even Americans. As our American ancestors understood so well, only those nations which have a political system which protects free economic activity are those nations in which the citizenry are blessed with peace, prosperity, and harmony.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of
Freedom Foundation, P.O. Box 9752, Denver, CO 80209.
From the August 1990 issue of FREEDOM DAILY, Copyright (c) 1990, The Future of Freedom Foundation, PO Box 9752, Denver, Colorado 80209, 303-777-3588.