Bill:  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans dare to speak favorably of the private property principle.  The governmental policies each seeks to promote are, by their nature, contrary to individual property rights.  This is why they couch their positions as “health” or “women’s rights” issues, or as “law-and-order” concerns, “national security,”  “civil rights,” “environmental,” or “equal protection” matters.  If Boobus was to see the connection between any statist programs and the diminution of property interests, politically embarrassing questions might ensue.  At least one erstwhile “progressive” thinker saw the implications of Marxist ideology when, late in his career, he wrote:  “It seems obvious to me now — though I was slow coming to the conclusion —  that the institution of private property, the dispersion of power and importance that goes with it, has been a main factor in producing that limited amount of free-and-equalness which Marx hoped to render infinite by abolishing this institution.”

This former Marxist was Max Eastman, who helped to make up for his earlier commitments to socialism by actively promoting Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, and later hosting a publication party to celebrate Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action.

The Best of Butler Shaffer