Customer Reviews

Property Rights and Eminent Domain (Social and Moral Thought Series)

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This book clarified for me a great deal about what is meant by Eminent Domain in the US, roughly equivalent in meaning to "Compulsory Purchase" in the UK. Unlike some accounts, the author drills deep into the origins of property rights, and grounds such rights in notions of just initial acquisition, sometimes known as homesteading. In classical liberal property rights theory, this is often one of the more challenging areas. But the book deals with this particularly well. I found myself able to track through about one chapter section a time as I read the book to and from my work during daily commutes, much to the supposed bemusement of my fellow travellers.

My main gripe is that some of the discussion of legal rulings was very complex, but that is probably my own fault in not being familiar with all particulars of the US legal system and Constitution. It helps to know a bit more about the legal system in the US before addressing this book.

It also has a good, if brief, treatment of the land "socialism" of Henry George. George is sometimes treated by some "libertarians" as a kindred spirit, but this book convinces me more than ever that while George was an interesting and original thinker in many ways, he was quite wrong in his treatment of land as being somehow different from "movable goods" when arguing for imposing a land value tax.

Anyway, for those interested in property rights theory, the role of the state, and the times complex changes in US judicial thinking about land and property, this book is a good source of ideas.