The title—“Government attacks free will when it assaults property rights”–of an opinion piece by Andrew P. Napolitano was intriguing. Unfortunately, while the former judge presented two false alternatives of dictatorship, he said virtually nothing about free will and its relationship to property rights. I will correct that oversight. The right to property means the freedom…
While proponents of property rights were celebrating two unanimous victories at the United States Supreme Court in May, another ruling that month garnered little attention. Yet, it could have an impact as far reaching as Tyler v. Hennepin County and Sackett v. EPA. The Court upheld a California law that prohibits the sale of pork…
The Texas Standard reports that the state’s method for funding government schools hurts rural districts and puts an “increasing burden on local taxpayers.” The article goes on to note that, while school property taxes keep going up, the schools aren’t getting any better. And in some cases, they are getting worse. While the article doesn’t…
In 2020. California established the California Reparations Task Force. A few weeks ago, the task force approved recommendations to be considered by the state’s legislature. Several of the recommendations are meant to address housing segregation and past housing decisions based on skin color. At the end of the day, the task force recommends fighting injustice…
In my book, The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures, I show how a century of policies attempting to provide affordable housing have failed. Indeed, those policies have made the housing crisis worse. Yet, politicians and housing activists clamor for more of the same policies. The wrong framework leads to bad decisions. Minneapolis provides us…
In Canada, as in the United States, single-family zoning is under attack. Canadian columnist Terence Corcoran (who labels himself as a member of the “libertarian school of economic thought”) argues, “Zoning should be treated as a fundamental aspect of property rights.” In truth, zoning is a fundamental violation of property rights. The right to property…
In my book, The Affordable Housing Crisis: Causes and Cures, I examine many different policies that have impacted the affordability of housing in the United States, including single-family zoning and federal highway policies. One policy that I did not examine, but which has a significant impact on housing, is minimum parking requirements. CNN reports that…
A recent opinion piece at CNN.com addresses several bills that were introduced in the 2023 Texas legislative session, including a requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in every government school classroom. The article correctly notes that this is part of a decades long battle by religionists to impose Christian ideas through the schools. The…
Many rural Texans oppose school choice because they fear what might happen to their government schools in the future. A story from Marlin, Texas shows that they would be well advised to be concerned about the present. Marlin’s high school delayed its graduation ceremony because only five of the thirty-three seniors met the requirements to…
A little-known aspect of property rights is the concept of adverse possession, sometimes called squatters rights. Founded in common law, the concept holds that a non-owner of property may acquire ownership of that property after use or possession for a specified amount of time. NPR reports of a recent case involving adverse possession. For many…
An editorial by the New York Daily News Editorial Board provides an example of the nonsense that can be written when principles are abandoned. In the piece, the board agrees with the idea that rent control exacerbates the problems it is allegedly intended to remedy. It then cautions the Supreme Court, which may be considering…
Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, uses data from the Census Bureau to illustrate how rent control is “shabbifying” New York City’s rental housing. The bureau’s data shows: The bureau’s report states that housing quality declined across all housing types, but it is too “early to know if this was a…