If you’re waiting for “Where did we go wrongs?” and honest soul-searching to offset the vitriol and rancor, you’re in for a long wait.
It was my first day at the University of California at Berkeley Law School, Boalt Hall. For the class on property law, we’d been assigned an article by Charles A. Reich, “The New Property,” (LINK). Mr. Reich observed that many people receive various benefits from the government, what he called the new property. Unfortunately, in Mr. Reich’s view, those benefits had inadequate legal protection. They should, he argued, be afforded protection akin to traditional property rights.
“What did you think of the article?” the professor asked the class of about two hundred students. Up went my hand and the professor called on me.
“Everything the government gives was taken from someone who produced it,” I said, or words to that effect. “If you don’t start protecting the property rights of the producers, you won’t have to worry about the property rights of the recipients.
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