Property Rights as Obstacles to Progress

FOR our forefathers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, property rights meant generally rights of an individual over the land, the tools, and the materials with which he worked in earning a livelihood. Most of the original settlers of America owned small properties of that sort in the old country, and they came to this country with the hope of obtaining greater security of ownership. Individual ownership of productive property continued to be a dominant feature of our economic system until well into the nineteenth century. When we adopted our present Constitution, some 90 per cent of the free inhabitants of America owned the properties upon which they worked. A hundred years ago, about 80 per cent of the citizens engaged in economic enterprise were small farmers, traders, mechanics, and craftsmen, each working with his own land, tools, and materials. Even as late as the eighteen-sixties and seventies, by which time there had been a considerable extension in the use of machines, the typical shoemaking shop, flour mill, slaughtering or packing house, or textile, furniture, or wagon factory was a local enterprise, owned and managed by an individual or a group of individuals residing in the community. At times in our history we have sought to safeguard and promote, by our governmental policies, this independent individual enterprise. Our

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