The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

340 THE FREEMAN Junelife did not pay, and hence theyhunted far and wide, recognizingno property in land. But when thewhite men came and the fur tradebecame profitable, hunting landsand even individual beaver houseswere allotted to families. In thelanguage of economics, they internalizedexternal costs and benefits.The cattle grazing industryacted similarly when the cattlemendiscontinued the "free range" andfenced their individual holdings.Man has been slow to defineproperty rights in water and air,not only because of its seeming inexhaustibility,but also because ofits fluidity. It is recognized, however,that an owner has a right topure ,vater on his land, eventhough it flows from his neighbor'sland. In like manner, a householderhas a property right topure air over his house and lot, forwhat would the latter be worth ifoverlaid with a vacuum? Thegrowing insistence that powerplants, steel mills, and the likecease pollutingtheir neighbors' airis a recognition of this right.To. pollute my neighbors' land,air, or water is to trespass on hisproperty. The rights of propertyneed to be more sharply delineatedand respect for· them intensified.For maximum protection and conservation,resources now said to bein the public domain should be reassignedto the private domain.Not the socialists but the capitalistshave the solution to pollution!,IDEAS ONLIBERTYSocial Reforms,SOCIAL REFORMS which require the citizen to depend too directlyon his government for food, occupation, employment, crops,clothes, and homes, compel abrogation or abandonment of constitutionsand bills of rights .... The false laudation of the strengthof these instruments naturally creates an impression that theyconstitute an unbreakable barrier against oppression. But nothingcould be farther from the truth. They are futile in every respectif the general principles of government are not observed. Theyhave value only in an economic structure of free enterprise andprivate property.From "Liberals" and the Constitution by HENRY PLOW DEEPER