Tagged: Property

Government-Controlled Digital Currency

There is an increasingly open discussion, at the highest reaches of banking and government the world over, of adopting new forms of digital currency controlled by central banks, which banks in turn will work out the details together, thus coordinating the parameters and conditions of this exciting new age of digital currency at a global level. The parameters and conditions being discussed in...

God vs. Private Property?

My article, “Hysterical Christian-Haters for Property Rights” got a fair amount of attention from people craving some kind of rational conversation about that lynchpin issue of modern liberty — property rights, that is, not Christian-hating. Every time I write about property, however, there are always a few holier-than-thou progressives lurking in the weeds to say, “But Christianity is against private property ownership.” If...

Addendum to “The True Meaning of Socialized Medicine”

“The True Meaning of Socialized Medicine” has received a lot of attention, and garnered some very thoughtful and interesting comments from readers. One aspect of the article that has perhaps received less notice than I had hoped, however — the gist of the piece, for me — is the relationship between government-run health care and a fundamental principle of classical liberalism, self-ownership. This...

The Last Line of Defense: Property

“Property is theft.” Proudhon’s classic anarchist paradox is more than a catchy slogan for international leftism. It encapsulates a complete and comprehensively absurd view of humanity, one which finds its contemporary apotheosis in President Obama’s more prosaic rendition, “You didn’t build that.” In other words, “You didn’t build that” is just “Property is theft” without the irony. By speaking his true mind without...