Revering the Constitution

[Lisa & Ian Murray]

The taxonomy of property and the accompanying "rights" structure that we on
the left think we have is to weak to counter the reverence that is found
throughout US society at large regarding the Constitution.  It is Business
property per se, and the claim to have a right to accumulate as much of it
as one desires that stands in marked contrast to the "need/right" for a
personal shelter of X number of square feet for living space.

I would suggest that one of the philosophical tasks for left scholarship in
the next century  is to counter the weak taxonomies of property discourse
that have been developed since Locke and Hobbes.  Perhaps, following the
recent essay by Daniel W. Bromley, we could pick up Rousseau's and Marx's
torch and develop a richer repertoire of property categories that analyzes
all the economic and ecological effects of various types of business
properties currently in existence and demonstrate how they constitute
barriers to equality and sustainability.

The Constitution says nothing regarding the government' ability to
reappropriate property for the common good, only that it compensate those
from whom it takes...

Ian Murray
Seattle, WA

Daniel W. Bromley "Rousseau's Revenge: The Demise of the Freehold Estate",
in Who Owns America: Social Conflict Over Property Rights, edited by Harvey
Jacobs, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1998