Property

Auberon Herbert on the “magic of private property” (1897)

Auberon Herbert warns that the use of force is like a wild and dangerous beast which can easily get out of our control (1906)

David Ricardo on how “insecure tenure” of property rights harms the poor (1824)

Herbert Spencer on human nature and the right to property (1851)

J.B. Say on the self-evident nature of property rights which is nevertheless violated by the state in taxation and slavery (1817)

James Mill on the natural disposition to accumulate property (1808)

John Taylor on how a “sound freedom of property” can destroy the threat to Liberty posed by “an adoration of military fame” and oppressive governments (1820)

Lord Kames states that the “hoarding appetite” is part of human nature and that it is the foundation of our notion of property rights (1779)

Louis Wolowski and Pierre Émile Levasseur argue that Property is “the fruit of human liberty” and that Violence and Conquest have done much to disturb this natural order (1884)

McCulloch argues that the right to property extends to “the faculties of (one’s) mind and the powers of (one’s) body” (1864)

Molinari defends the right to property against the socialists who want to overthrow it, and the conservatives who defend it poorly (1849)

Molinari on mankind’s never-ending struggle for liberty (1849)

Percy Shelley on the two types of property [1820]

Robert Molesworth on the benefits of open borders and free immigration (1705)

Say on a person’s property right in their own “industrious faculties” (1819)

Sir Edward Coke declares that your house is your “Castle and Fortress” (1604)

Sir William Blackstone argues that occupancy of previously unowned land creates a natural right to that property which excludes others from it (1753)

Spooner on the “knaves,” the “dupes,” and “do-nothings” among government supporters (1870)

St. John, private property, and the Parable of the Wolf and the Good Shepherd (2ndC AD)

Thomas Hodgskin argues for a Lockean notion of the right to property (“natural”) and against the Benthamite notion that property rights are created by the state (“artificial”) (1832)

Thomas Hodgskin on the futility of politicians tinkering with bad laws when the whole political system needed to be changed (1832)

William Paley on the tragedy of the commons (1785)

Wolowski on property as a sacred right which is an emanation from man’s very being (1863)