Private Property and Individual Liberty

The institution of private property makes possible three things essential to our liberty:

  • It encourages productive activity, allowing us to turn our ideas into actions and to realize the benefits of those actions.
  • It allows us to engage in voluntary trade with others, multiplying the benefits of individual action a thousand-fold.
  • It enables us to safeguard and develop our resources responsibly and to secure peace and prosperity as a result.

To appreciate the importance of private property in your own life, you need o­nly to consider the significance of these two facts:

  • Private property represents everything you obtain through productive effort or voluntary trade.
  • Its essence is your right to determine its use.

Next. . .

A Tale of Two Counties

 

 Santa Cruz County:


After 26 years, Santa Cruz County and Supervisor Ellen Pirie, continue to block economic use of Liberty Garden



and

 

Alameda County:



Michael Shaw, owner of Lockaway Storage, delivers Misprision of Treason Notice to Alameda County

 


"To release the potential productivity and diversity of a landscape, an owner must be free to engage in rigorous disturbance, and free to pursue a reasoned and creative process of trial and error. This process would be suited to the choice of each individual and the uniqueness of each property,"

–Michael Shaw from Ecological Restoration, Spring 2002