Liberating Planet Earth

122 Liberating Plarwt Earth
Property and Demoeracy
The commandment against theft does not read: ‘You shall not
steal, except by majority vote.” We need to have private property
rights respected not just by criminals, but also by individual citizens
who find that they can extract wealth from others by means
of state power. Furthermore, private property rights must be
respected by profit-seeking businesses that would otherwise petition
the state for economic assistance: tariffs, import quotas,
below-market interest rate government loans, and so forth. To
violate this principle is to call for the so-called “corporate state,”
another form of the welfare state — fascism, monopoly capitalism,
or whatever. Whenever such a system has been constructed, it has
led to reduced productivity and an increase in bureaucracy. The
politicians are simply not competent enough to plan for an entire
economy. To promote such a system of state planning and protection
of industry is an illegitimate use of the ballot box, meaning
democratic pressure politics.
Let us consider an example which has been debated from the
Puritan revolution of the 1640’s until today: the ~ro~tnty qual~cation
for voting. In the 1640’s, the English Puritan military leader Oliver
Cromwell led his forces to victory over the King, Charles the
First. At the Putney Debates of Cromwell’s New Model Army in
1647, Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law, debated Rainsborough, the
representative of the democratic faction, the Levellers. (The
Levellers were not communists, but they were committed to a far
wider franchise. The communists in the English Revolution were
the Diggers, who called themselves the “True Levelers.”)
Rainsborough argued that since all men are under the laws of
a nation, they deserve a voice in the affairs of civil government.
Ireton countered with a ringing defense of property rights. A man
must have some stake in society, meaning property to defend, if
he is to be entrusted with the right to vote. Men without permanent
interests in the society — property, in other words — are too
dangerous when handed the power of civil government. The
property qualification is crucial to preserve society in a democratic
order. “And if we shall go to take away this, we shall plainly