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From: doc@cxsea.UUCP (Documentation )
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: How governments might be kept from economic intervention
Message-ID: <311@cxsea.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Aug-85 19:14:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: cxsea.311
Posted: Wed Aug 28 19:14:17 1985
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Organization: Computer X Inc., Seattle, Washington.
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> of our lives.  To limit the power of government in the economy, I'd
> suggest a constitutional amendment outlining property rights.
> 
> After all, property rights are often difficult to define.  But it's
> a starting point, and the existence and defense of other "fundamental
> rights" in the U.S. leads me to think that it would work.
> 
Hmmm, I guess I don't see what you would achieve this way. You already
have some measure of protection of your property (due process, etc.).
The problem I see is that "property" is not so easy to define.

In this post-environmental action society, courts now recognize a species
of "property" in one's right to breath clean air, for instance. If
your property consists of a factory up the road which pumps dirt into
the air, and I want to have you closed as a common-law nuisance, our
various "property" rights are in conflict. This is the sort of market-failure
phenomenon that modern zoning and land-use law is founded on. Whatever
wonders of progress libertaria offers, I think I'd still like to see
stiff land-use regs enforced, even though they may seem to burden those
precious rights to "property". Zoning is still cheaper (or more efficient,
if you will), than litigation for nuisance abatement.

    --Joel Gilman @Motorola/Computer X, Inc., Seattle