Private Property Quotes - Page 4

• Even if we were not sinful by nature, the sin of having private property would suffice to condemn us before God; for that which he gives us freely, we appropriate to ourselves.

  Huldrych Zwingli

  Giving, Sin, Wealth

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• The foundation of any and every civilization, including our own, is private ownership of the means of production. Whoever wishes to criticize modern civilization, therefore, begins with private property.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Mean, Civilization, Wish

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism”

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• The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house - this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Faith, Real, Inspiration

  Gilbert K. Chesterton (2013). “The Essential Gilbert K. Chesterton”, p.280, Simon and Schuster

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• The foundations of liberty are private property and the rule of law; this system guarantees the fewest possible forms of injustice, produces the greatest material and cultural progress, most effectively stems violence and provides the greatest respect for human rights. According to this concept of liberalism, freedom is a single, unified concept. Political and economic liberties are as inseparable as the two sides of a medal.

  Mario Vargas Llosa

  Rights, Law, Two Sides

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• Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.

  St. George Tucker

  Two, Rights, Government

  St. George Tucker (1990). “A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia”

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• My concern over private property is that it no longer fosters individuality. The historic destiny of private property is that it has created a highly corporatized economy, and I have to ask myself why. What is it in the market that led 100 capitalists to dissolve into 10 as a result of rivalry and accumulation, 10 into 3, and I think if the system has its way, those 3 into 1?

  Murray Bookchin

  Destiny, Thinking, Individuality

  Source: reason.com

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• A people averse to the institution of private property is without the first elements of freedom

  Lord Acton

  People, Elements, Firsts

  Lord Acton (2016). “The History of Freedom: Great Event”, p.247, VM eBooks

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• Private property is a necessary institution, at least in a fallen world; men work more and dispute less when goods are private than when they are in common.

  R. H. Tawney

  Men, Fallen World, Common

  R. H. Tawney (2016). “Religion And The Rise Of Capitalism”, p.39, Verso Books

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• Private Property, the Law of Accumulation of Wealth, and the Law of Competition... these are the highest results of human experience, the soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.

  Andrew Carnegie

  Law, Competition, Soil

  Andrew Carnegie (2006). “The Gospel of Wealth Essays and Other Writings”, p.15, Penguin

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• One ideological claim is that private property is theft, that the natural product of the existence of property is evil, and that private ownership therefore should not exist... What those who feel this way don't realize is that property is a notion that has to do with control - that property is a system for the disposal of power. The absence of property almost always means the concentration of power in the state.

  Daniel Patrick Moynihan

  Mean, Evil, Politics

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• The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.

  George Carlin

  Mistake, Men, Thinking

  Las Vegas CityLife, August 09, 2007.

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• The great blessing of private property, then, is that people can benefit from their own industry and insulate themselves from the negative effects of others' actions. It is like a set of invisible mirrors that surround individuals, households or firms, reflecting back on them the consequences of their acts. The industrious will reap the benefits of their industry; the frugal the consequences of their frugality; the improvident and the profligate likewise. They receive their due, which is to say they experience justice as a matter of routine.

  Tom Bethell

  Blessing, Mirrors, Reflecting Back

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• I have an admiration, even though I'm not likely to do that sort of thing myself, for [Ayn] Roark's behavior when he decided that his design was not being followed - which was a gross violation, by the way, of private property rights, because the building was his.

  Murray Bookchin

  Rights, Design, Way

  Interview with Jeff Riggenbach, reason.com. October 1979.

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• If men are discharged of reverence for ancient usage, they will treat this world, almost certainly, as if it were their private property, to be consumed for their sensual gratification; and thus they will destroy in their lust for enjoyment the property of future generations, of their own contemporaries, and indeed their very own capital.

  Russell Kirk

  Men, Lust, Sensual

  Russell Kirk (2001). “The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot”, p.44, Regnery Publishing

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• The way to maximize production is to maximize the incentives to production. And the way to do that, as the modern world has discovered, is through the system known as capitalism - the system of private property, free markets, and free enterprise.

  Henry Hazlitt

  World, Incentives, Way

  Henry Hazlitt (1971). “Man Vs. the Welfare State”, p.95, Ludwig von Mises Institute

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• The protection of private property does more than promote market efficiency; it enhances the level of human freedom in the most intimate and personal parts of our lives.

  Richard Allen Epstein

  Wisdom, Doe, Market Efficiency

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• Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services.

  Pope John Paul II

  Wisdom, Political, Vacuums

  Pope John Paul II (1996). “The Encyclicals of John Paul II”, Our Sunday Visitor (IN)

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• We hold that the ownership of private property is the right and privilege of every American citizen and is one of the foundation stones upon which this nation and its free enterprise system has been built and has prospered. We feel that private property rights and human rights are inseparable and indivisible. Only in those nations that guarantee the right of ownership of private property as basic and sacred under their law is there any recognition of human rights.

  John Rarick

  Wisdom, Rights, Law

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• The very foundation of private property and free contracting wears away in a nation in which its most vital, most concrete, most meaningful types of private property and free contracting disappear from the moral horizon of the people.

  Joseph A. Schumpeter

  Meaningful, People, Foundation

  Joseph A. Schumpeter (2013). “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”, p.141, Routledge

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• The slave states of Western world are an outgrowth of monopolistic capitalism - an economic system which is opposed to the wide distribution of private property in many hands. Instead, monopolistic capitalism concentrates productive wealth among a few men, allowing the rest to become a vast proletariat.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Wisdom, Men, Hands

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• Monopolistic capitalism is to blame for this; it sunders the right to own property from responsibility that owning property involves. Those who own only a few stocks have no practical control of any industry. They vote by postcard proxy, but they have rarely even seen "their" company. The two elements which ought to be inextricably joined in any true conception of private property - ownership and responsibility - are separated. Those who own do not manage; those who manage; those who manage and work do not control or own.

  Fulton J. Sheen

  Wisdom, Responsibility, Two

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• One of the most extraordinary examples in recent decades [of unitary visions of constitutional enterprise] is found in a book called "Takings"... Epstein makes an extremely clever but stunningly reductionist argument that the whole Constitution is really designed to protect private property... Can a constitution reflecting as diverse an array of visions and aspirations as ours really be reducible to such as sadly single-minded vision as that?

  Laurence Tribe

  Clever, Book, Vision

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• The continued existence of society depends upon private property.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Existence, Property, Depends

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Liberalism: The Classical Tradition: The Economist”, p.73, VM eBooks

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• Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property-by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Order, Effort

  Ayn Rand (1988). “The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z”, p.394, Penguin

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• Taxation of private property, or the regulation of such property so as to reduce its value, can become in effect a form of servitude.

  Mark Levin

  Taxation, Regulation, Form

  Mark R. Levin (2009). “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto”, p.63, Simon and Schuster

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