Why Property Rights Matter

Tom DeWeese is the president of American Policy Center. He's one of the nation's leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education, American sovereignty and independence and protecting our Constitutionally-guaranteed rights. He's the author of 'Sustainable: The War on Free Enterprise, Private Property and Individuals'.Tom began by noting that today we have all these rules and regulations about what you can or can't do with your property, the necessary permits, etc. You have the right to pay the taxes and the mortgage, but every other decision concerning your property seems to take place in a 'back room' somewhere.Jim had Tom talk briefly about early American economist John Locke. Regarding private property and how important it is to freedom, Locke said that if private property rights and protections don't exist, then the incentive for an industrious person (to develop and improve it) is destroyed. Marauding bands can then confiscate property and goods by force, meaning people will be forced to remain at a bare subsistence level because they'll believe that it does them no good to build something because someone will come along and take it away. So private property includes the idea that it belongs to you and is yours to protect, to develop and to use.This is why socialism is a fallacy and doesn't work. Tom described the situation by saying we are not ants where we all live in an ant hill and we all just pitch in and do our part no matter what it is. Then on top of that, we're paid the same amount of money whether it's cleaning sewers or being a corporate executive.