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Dear friend of the FMF
In this week’s feature article, Martin van Staden explains that the concept of private property is not a Western import that opposes the “objective link” which African communities enjoyed with their property and land. Livestock and equipment were and are privately owned. Homesteads and the land which “they farmed and used daily” were generally inherited by the next generation and formed the basis for their system of property rights. Despite intellectuals engaging in semantic games, the truth is that “communal and private property are not opposites” This is “evident in the nature of the framework that private property provides: the owner(s) decide.”
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Quotable quote
“In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
“Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.”
– From an essay by Frédéric Bastiat, “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen,” 1850
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Private property is a fact of life, not a ‘Western’ creation – MARTIN VAN STADEN
There are ‘critical’ intellectuals who question the validity of the institution of private property. They judge property ideologically, however, rather than from a factual perspective. Private property is not an idea imported from “the West”. It is a consequence of human nature. |
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Wednesday, September 27 EVENING TALK – Garreth Bloor – Local government legislation towards creating an enabling environment in cities @18H00 @ FMF – RSVP http://www.freemarketfoundation.com/View-Event?i=158
27-29 October Libsem Wakkerstroom (non-FMF event) This year’s libertarian seminar will be held at Papillon in Wakkerstroom from 27-29 October. The registration which includes 3 lunches, teas and coffees is R450 per person. For more information, please contact Frances Kendall on fkendall@icloud.com
LIVE STREAMING IS AVAILABLE FOR ALL EVENTS via the FMF’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FMFSA/
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