Most important rights are property rights

"The most important rights in any society are property rights," argues a University of Chicago economics professor.

While he seems an unlikely ally of Canadian farmers, farmers would likely cheer if they read his article in the April issue of the Fraser Forum, published by the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think-tank.

"Property rights define ‘mine and thine’" and determine the owner’s right to use his or her resources as they wish, provided they don’t infringe on another’s property rights, Peter Leeson writes.

Property rights are indispensable for prosperity for three reasons, he says.

1. "Property rights permit market exchange and market exchanges permit market prices...and market prices are signals that direct market traffic."

Without property rights, if a disaster killed Saskatchewan’s wheat crop, wheat from other provinces would not flow to Saskatchewan because there would be no change in market price, as prices would be necessarily fixed because no one owns anything. One would have no influence on price because their demand, or supply, is not their problem.

2. "Property rights create incentives for individuals to act on information about how to use resources productively." If it’s your combine or your land, you’ll want to use it to earn a profit because you get a direct benefit.

3. Property rights make liberty possible.

"Besides material well-being, our overall prosperity also depends on our freedom," Leeson writes. "The Soviet Union’s constitution officially guaranteed its citizens freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. But these guarantees were meaningless because the Soviet Union’s socialist economy abolished citizens’ property rights. Citizens could not own printing presses. Nor could they own assembly halls. How, then, could they exercise their supposed freedoms?" How can there be freedom of religion where citizens cannot own places of worship? How can there be a right to privacy where citizens cannot own homes? There can’t be. If citizens do not have property rights, then even the most basic civil freedoms are impossible."

In conclusion, "There are two threats to individuals’ property rights: thieves and government."