PURPOSES

My first aim was to describe the controversy over rights to property and explain why so many people are so infuriated. I tell a lot of stories, and I could have told many, many more.

I wanted to go further, though, and provide intellectual ammunition for people involved in these battles. This requires going beyond the horror stories and putting the issues into a broader context of history, political philosophy, and basic economics. The book examines the philosophy underlying Americans' dedication to the idea that people have a right to private property, describes the current attacks on this right, and explains why these attacks are a very bad thing.

The scope of the work is broad.  PROPERTY MATTERS examines the relationship of old issues affecting real estate to new questions of intellectual property.  It connects the conflict over "the national commons" -- the public lands of the West -- with struggles over wetlands, endangered species, water, urban land use, historic preservation, rails-to-trails, forfeitures and other issues.  The book strongly favors better protection of rights to property, but does not underestimate the difficulty of defining these rights in concrete cases, or the problems of reconciling the conflicts among them.

PROPERTY MATTERS also looks at deep problems of the political system. Conflicts over property provide a useful lens for examining the growth of rational ignorance as a dominating fact of political life, the impact of sound-bite politics, the excesses of single-mission agencies, the declining legitimacy of many government institutions, the theory of public choice, the importance of property rights as a device for mediating political conflict, the many sins of the legal profession, and the influence of prisoner's dilemma problems.

The Kirkus Review says that the conclusion contains, "some uncommonly sensible suggestions on ways to stem the statist tide that, if unchecked, could swamp property rights."  I am flattered, and hope they are right.