Eminent domain: destruction, not production — VOICES for REASON

Much has been written lately about the pitiful epitaph to the long-running eminent domain dispute that gave rise to the Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London. Several years ago, the city seized Susette Kelo’s house (and a number of surrounding properties) in a scheme to enhance tax revenues. The idea was to clear a large tract of land on which private developers could build offices, residences, and commercial buildings. That complex would, it was hoped, please Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant whose R&D facility in New London was one of the city’s biggest cash cows.

Now Pfizer has announced it is pulling up stakes and leaving New London. Not only will its R&D facility become a ghost town, but the vacant land where Kelo’s house once stood will remain a weed-choked wasteland for the indefinite future.

This whole ill-begotten folly is a valuable reminder of an important truth about the taking of property through eminent domain: it’s essentially an act of destruction, not of economic production. And that would be true even if a new development were to go up in New London.

Loose talk often treats governments as “creating jobs” or “creating development opportunities.” But economically speaking, governments create nothing and produce nothing, not when exercising the power that sets them apart from every other human institution. What power? Physical force—the power of arrest, fine, and imprisonment.

It was that power, deployed against unarmed and defenseless property owners, which destroyed the buildings and improvements highly valued by their owners. It was all done in the name of revitalization, progress, and production. But there is no rational concept of economic production that starts with the theft of property from unwilling victims.

Nowadays governments view property the way leeches view flesh—as a source of tax revenues to feed their endless appetite for spending. If they really wanted to promote economic development, they would renounce eminent domain altogether. Can you imagine a better way to earn the loyalty and productivity of a citizenry than to protect their right to be secure in their property?

Image: Wikimedia Commons