Chapter 1: Why “Property” - Foreign Military Studies Office - U.S. Army

‘socialist activism’ or ‘participatory democracy.’ Attendantmovements have championed programs labeled land reform, agrarianreform or something more radical such as nationalization orcommunization.The relationship that political democracy has to propertyownership is no mystery, and is an eternal friction. To be property atall there must exist a social contract that recognizes preferential rights;but how stable is the contract if at any moment a new majority canchange the government’s end of the bargain? It is the question ofmodern times, of the American and Communist revolutions, of thetaking laws, and of almost all fights. The answers are essential, too. Ifwe hold firm to what we know of the experiences of market economics,we see that some folk become richer than others, and that sometimesthe material winners create dangerous levels of resentment and envyamong their neighbors. The rich then confront the reality of property...that property is an agreement with social authority to recognizepreferential rights so that the preferential rights don’t have to bedefended tooth and nail. Those with a larger slice of the ownership piemay act indifferently or arrogantly to the perception of unjustdifferentials. The rich may be oblivious to underlying social formulaeof mass action (steered by creative leaders as well as by the vagaries ofhuman emotion) that can cause renegotiation of the social contract.Protection of property rights and the status quo is almost synonymouswith conflict resolution, but only up to some point of tension that ismarked by ostentatious advantages, at which time the balance ofequities sometimes passes to those leaders who can mobilize andmanage political action, maybe in the context of electoral democracy,maybe not. We need not be surprised at the tension betweendemocracy and property, but we might seek the details of the matter,facts we rarely have in any appreciable measure.37