The idea that a

The idea that a relatively fixed group of privileged people might shape the economy and government for their own benefit goes against the American grain. Nevertheless, the owners and top-level managers in large income-producing properties are far and away the dominant power figures in the United States. Their corporations, banks, and agribusinesses come together as … Read more

Many Southern Plantation owners

Many Southern Plantation owners were working towards the day when they could convert their investment to more profitable industrial production as had been done in the North, and others felt that freemen who were paid wages would be more efficient than slaves who had no incentive to work. For the present, however, they were stuck … Read more

But America was built

But America was built by optimists. Optimists like my friend Amanda, who recently started a small business. When she went to buy her website address-her first and last name-she found that someone already owned it, but wasn’t using it. So my friend emailed the owner of the site to ask if she could buy it. … Read more

Some years ago, someone

Some years ago, someone had come up with the idea that the State should hold all Titles to vehicles, mailing a Certificate of Title to the ‘owners’. This created a legal fiction that the State owned the vehicles. Drivers were thus driving a State owned vehicle, mandating drivers must have a license to drive a … Read more

Anybody who has ever

Anybody who has ever owned a dog who barked when strangers came near its owner’s property has experienced the essential continuity between animal territoriality and human property. Our domesticated cousins of the wolf know, instinctively, that property is no mere social convention or game, but a critically important evolved mechanism for the avoidance of violence. … Read more