Redevelopment, Democracy and Property Rights
by Tibor R. Machan
We have in and around the community where I live, just as do millions of others throughout the country and, indeed, the world, many public projects beloved by large numbers of people, often even the majority. These are often called "redevelopments" and are unabashedly destructive of the institution of private property rights by deploying, quite brazenly and arbitrarily, the eminent domain powers of government so as to take property from some and lease it to others who would "improve" it. Usually, the improvements involve some prettying up of strips of roadside or altogether reconstituting a business neighborhood so it looks presentable to those who drive by or stop there to trade.
It would be utterly silly to argue about the propriety of redevelopment programs on the basis of whether they in fact improve the looks and feel of areas of some community. What looks or feels good to some citizens can be pretty horrendous to others. Aesthetics is not necessarily a subjective field but whether something is appealing to a person has a lot to do with individual differences.
In the part of the country where I live there are many people who love the glitzy neighborhoods, with artificial lakes and white-washed buildings; but there are those who detest these, as well, and would prefer living in a neighborhood with a more helter-skelter, unruly, disheveled appearance. There simply is no reigning standard for such things. Whether there might be is a complicated matter, best left to be worked out spontaneously and unforced in a diverse, multiethnic and multi-cultural place like most regions of the U.S.A.
While most people realize well enough that majorities have no authority to dictate how they ought to dress or make themselves up or coiffure themselves, in this matter of prettying up the neighborhood they often see nothing odd about running roughshod over other people who do not share their enthusiasm for the project. Some are blatant about it, as for example one supportive citizen who finds it unseemly that those not in favor of these projects do not accept the idea that popularity should trump private property rights. We are implored to "Ask people in the neighborhood ... if they miss" what was destroyed by various redevelopment projects. And if the people-meaning, of course, the bulk of them-do not miss the shops and buildings that had been replaced, well then it is all OK, isn't that so?
No, it isn't. In a genuinely free society majority will doesn't trump individual rights. That's the stuff of Nazi Germany, in fact, where Hitler was voted in democratically and then became a dictator who represented "the people," not really all that differently from how local city politicians claim they are just representing "the people" when they misuse the power of eminent domain so as to revamp a neighborhood's looks and feel in ways they prefer.
Was it not said that, well Hitler may have been a ruthless dictator and Fuehrer but, didn't he build a wonderful Autobahn? And didn't Mussolini make the trains run on time? In fact, there isn't a fascist or communist dictator or any other kind of despot who didn't use brutal coercive powers to produce some kind of good, in the midst of all the terror unleashed. And certain people would go so far as to excuse all that brutality because they got some good that they wanted.
In a free society, however, these crumbs thrown to some-even the majority-of people simply aren't sufficient to justify the violation of individual, including private property, rights. That is why the Fifth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution states, unequivocally, that "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." This means, plainly and simply, that on those very rare occasion that private property may be taken by the government, it has to be for public use. And what is public use?
There is the rub. For the American Framers that meant a use that benefits-or is in the interest of-all citizens as citizens-for example, building a military installation, a court house, a police headquarters or a strip of road. "Public" is the crucial concept that telegraphs to us the Framer's thinking about the importance of private property-only when a bona fide public purpose is being served may that right be sacrificed. And that would be a rare thing, indeed.
Why? Because however out of control people may be on their own turf, if it is their own turf that is what free men and women are authorized to do.
That is the price of liberty-not even democratic control of individual citizens and their use of their property is permitted. So, if my little shop is a bit disheveled, my church isn't designed by the fanciest of architects, my factory is just a large rectangular slab, so be it. Freedom means not just diversity but some uncomfortable diversity at that.
It is so tragic that for the sake of neighborhood appearances that they prefer millions of Americans now are willing to violate individual rights. Wait until they see the end of it and find that when they do not like "the will of the people," it will be too late to insist on their own will in their own private domain. The very idea will be just a faint memory by then.
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