By way of The Independent Review (Spring 2000)
Richard Pipes is best known as an important scholar of Russian and Soviet history. In Property and Freedom, he combines his mastery of Russian history with a much broader subject, the relationship between private property and liberty. Relying primarily on the histories of England and Russia, Pipes makes a compelling argument that freedom and private property are intimately linked. As he puts it, "While property in some form is possible without liberty, the contrary is inconceivable" (p. xiii)...
Pipes begins his investigation with a brief but useful survey of some of the common but frequently vague terms he uses in the book. The term property, he explains, has several levels of meaning, the broadest of which can "encompass everything that properly belongs to a person . . . including life and liberty" (p. xv). It is this broad understanding of the term property that "provides the philosophical link between ownership and freedom" (p. xv)...
Chapters 1 and 2 are entitled "The Idea of Property" and "The Institution of Property." The first is a kind of intellectual history of the development of the concept of property, and the second is a historical narrative of how the institution of property developed. Both chapters provide clear, concise reviews of the main points of each history, including well-chosen examples from the historical and anthropological literature...
Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate different ways in which two specific states, England and Russia, actually developed historically. These case studies are the strongest part of the book. Pipes marshals an impressive battery of evidence to demonstrate how in England the importance of private property led steadily to the development of a strong spirit of individual freedom and a vigorous democratic tradition...The history of Russia is so different from that of England, Pipes argues, largely because of the historically weak tradition of private property in Russia. Pipes uses the Weberian concept of a "patrimonial" state to describe Russia. Unlike their counterparts in England (or, indeed, in western Europe in general), the Russian monarchs historically considered themselves and were considered by others as not only the rulers but the owners of their realm. Although private property existed, it did not exist independently of the state, but "emanated from it"...
The final chapter, "Property in the Twentieth Century," picks up the historical narrative appoximately where the two case studies end. During the twentieth century, the institution of private property comes under relentless attack, first from the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and communism and, finally, from the welfare state. Pipes makes a strong argument that the welfare-state policies that have emerged in western Europe and North America over the past several decades (including the increasing acceptance of the concepts of "positive rights," "entitlements," government "takings," and so forth) undermine private property and, hence, individual liberty...
Pipes continues with this theme in the last section of the book, entitled "Portents." Neither a conclusion nor an epilogue, this section amounts to a warning of coming disaster if the antipropertarian spirit of the welfare state is not checked. Pipes cites Tocqueville in stressing the dangers of a despotic democracy in which, as Tocque-ville described it, the "nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd" (p. 292)...
Property and Freedom is an important contribution. By providing two very closely argued historical case studies, Pipes has issued a kind of invitation (challenge?) to historians with expertise in other civilizations or national histories to corroborate or refute his thesis. If he successfully provokes such further studies, he will have advanced the discussion of the link between property and liberty even more significantly.
