In a country built on the institution of private property,
property-owner rights have been under attack. By arguing that
private property is a fundamental liberty whose protection deserves
the highest priority, Ellen Frankel Paul challenges one of the
dominant trends of the past half century: the erosion of property
rights via zoning and land use restrictions, carried on by
government exercising its "police power" or promoting "the public
interest."
Paul begins by examining the arguments of environmentalists in
support of land-use legislation, and explores a few particularly
troubling examples of the exercise of eminent domain and police
powers. She traces the philosophical arguments for the two powers
as well as their tortuous judicial history, the meaning of property
rights and investigates how previous thinkers have defended these
rights is detailed, and Paul suggests a more adequate defense for
them. In the concluding portion of the book, the very legitimacy of
eminent domain is questioned and the author offers recommendations
for its reform.
This analysis is wide in scope and makes creative use of
historical, legal, economic, and philosophic methodologies. It not
only gives an account of the present power regulations on land, but
also provides an exhaustive history of the development of the law
in these two areas and of the philosophical ideas of the thinkers
who helped shape this process. This book is distinctive because it
places a theory of the just acquisition of property at the heart of
the answer to the question of the extent to which governments can
rightfully exercise the powers of eminent domain and police.
"Amazingly, in a country built on the institution of private
property, the right to property in land has been under increasing
assault, and has seldom been defended. Paul's book--by arguing that
private property is a fundamental liberty whose protection deserves
the highest priority--is a major step toward filling the
void."--Robert Hessen, Stanford University
"Ellen Frankel Paul" is Deputy Director of the Social
Philosophy and Policy Center, and is professor of political science
and philosophy at Bowling Green State University. She is also an
adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute.
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