ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 28, 1996 TAG: 9607300123
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PETER S. FOSL
THOMAS Jefferson knew what many politicians and pressure groups today seem to have forgotten - that the rights of property must be limited in order for a democratic society to flourish.
Political activists in the "wise use" movement, and members of the Democratic and Republican parties who are currently working to roll back environmental, social-service and labor legislation, seem to believe that what serves the interests of property serves us all. They are mistaken and suffer under a historical conception of the nature of private property.
Writing to James Madison in 1785, Jefferson advanced the remarkable notion that "the Earth is given as common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry, we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not, the fundamental right to labour the Earth returns to the unemployed."
That a society has a duty to provide employment for its people; that the Earth in the first place belongs to us all; that citizens have a "fundamental right" to work; and that property may be expropriated and returned to the unemployed if work is not provided them - these are ideas it is impossible to imagine our political leaders promoting today.
Much of the reasoning supporting Jefferson's claims remains sound, however, and ought to be incorporated into our contemporary political conversation. What, then, was it that Jefferson understood that we seem to have forgotten, and why did he think that way?
First, Jefferson understood that private property by its very nature excludes people. Properly managed, private property is essential to a free society. It provides security, stability, incentive and personal identity. Property also bears with it a cost, however - the cost of preventing those who do not own property from using it. The characteristic sign of private property is "Keep Out."
Where property is readily available to all, this sort of exclusion is benign. Where property is unreasonably difficult to come by, however, it is pernicious.
Unfortunately, what Jefferson observed during his own time still applies today: It is the "unequal division of property which occasions the numberless instances of wretchedness ... in this country." In short, private property often produces suffering.
The tendency of private property when unregulated is to concentrate and to polarize societies, producing two starkly distinct classes, one exceedingly rich and powerful, the other exceedingly poor, disenfranchised and miserable. This is the direction in which the United States is heading.
The legacy of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton years of unregulating markets has been the unprecedented proportional redistribution of property in the United States to the very rich, and the intensification of poverty and suffering among the poor. Jefferson would not have been surprised.
A second lesson from Jefferson is that the rights of property must be limited by what today we would call environmental considerations. For early modern political theorists, like Jefferson and Locke, property owners compromise their rights to control and even own property when their use of the land destroys it.
The Earth, these thinkers held, must be available not only for everyone currently living to labor and inhabit. It must also be available to future generations.
Environmental regulations aimed at creating a limited, efficient and sustainable economy are not simply recent innovations. but are policies consistent with the political philosophy of our founders.
A third lesson from Jefferson is that genuine democracy can flourish only when property is properly limited. When enormous proportions of a democratic nation's wealth are concentrated in the hands of a few, the political process becomes stunted and twisted. Policies and legislation increasingly serve the interests of the controlling economic minority, while neglecting or even harming those with little or no holdings.
Today in the United States, one half of 1 percent of the population owns approximately 35 percent of our wealth, and the proportion controlled by the wealthy is increasing. This is an unhealthy condition for our polity, and it must be reversed.
To what sort of policies, then, can a greater appreciation of the political insights of Thomas Jefferson lead us? We must:
* Ensure decent, safe employment for all our citizens, even at the cost of profit.
* Safeguard the planet from the corrosive effects of our economic activity.
* Enlist the state, labor organizations and our own personal resources to produce a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Such efforts should be advanced not simply as a matter of sympathy or compassion for the suffering of the poor, for animals or for the beleaguered middle classes. They should be advanced also out of civic duty, out of a sense of responsibility to our children, and out of a commitment to the well-being of our democracy.
Peter S. Fosl teaches social-political and early modern philosophy at Hollins College.
ALEXANDER HUNTER/Washington TimesNDER HUNTER/Washington TimesNDE1/3
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