Property and Freedom
In the Western legal and political tradition, private property is often defended on the grounds that it promotes individual freedom. The nature of this relationship between property and freedom, how-ever, remains contentious. Discussion of this subject often takes place as part of a debate over the legitimacy of government interference with private property, particularly in the contexts of regulatory takings and redistributive taxation. Pro-property, anti-interference advocates tend to suggest that there is a strong relationship between property and freedom. Those on the other side of the debate, however, tend to be more skeptical. The political philosopher G.A. Cohen, for example, has asserted that “the familiar idea that private property and freedom are conceptually connected is an ideological illusion.” In a book on tax policy, Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel similarly deny any relationship between “the right to speak one’s mind, to practice one’s religion, or to act on one’s sexual inclinations” on the one hand, and property rights on the other, on the grounds that interference with property rights “is just not the kind of interference with autonomy that centrally threatens people’s control over their lives.”
In this essay, I argue against both sides of this intractable de-bate. Property and freedom are inextricably linked, and the broad statements to the contrary by Cohen, Murphy, and Nagel are wrong. At the same time, however, a strong relationship between property and freedom does not immunize property from government interference. To support these positions, I shift the discussion of property and freedom away from debates about the inviolability of property. Instead, I focus on the institutional relationship between property and freedom.
