Whether property is swiped in the name of economic fairness or in the name of nature being treated unfairly will depend on which end of the world comes first: everybody on earth in bankruptcy court (total global debt is now $244 trillion, three times the size of the world economy) or everybody on earth crammed into the last 1,878 vertical feet of Mount Everest because of the rising sea level.
In the former case, a horde of people will show up at polling places under the impression that voting machines are like the slots at Mohegan Sun. If they pull the lever often enough there will be a huge payout.
The Internet tells me (for free) that, using the broadest definition of “money” (cash plus all banking and money market account balances), there’s about $80 trillion in the world. The world’s population is 7.5 billion. Dividing it equally, we each get $10,666.67.
We’ll blow through that pretty fast, and the aftermath will be interesting. I’d make a personal recommendation about what to do in this situation, but the Second Amendment is just one more property right soon to be dispensed with.
In the climate change end-of-the-world scenario we’ll all die, which makes abiding by the principles of Classical Liberalism particularly difficult. But before we die we’ll panic.
I understand why people are bothered by climate change. It bothers me four times a year—arthritic winter, allergic spring, summertime bedroom A/C window unit falling out and smashing the patio furniture, and my Harris Tweed sport coat full of moth holes in the fall. But we’ve let our annoyance and worry be turned into abject fear. I’m sure our earthly home could use some tidying, climatologically. But when the house is a mess you get out the mop and the broom, you don’t call the police.
In our panic we’ll demand strict government regulation to prevent carbon emissions. And most carbon emissions result from the exercise of property rights.
Among the properties that belong to you are a pair of lungs. The Internet tells me (for free again) that those lungs emit 2.3 pounds of carbon dioxide a day. Multiply by world population and that’s 17.25 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide, which is much more than the 209 billion pounds of carbon dioxide that burning fossil fuels emits daily.
You can see where the regulatory direction is headed. Exhaling to be allowed by licensed permit only and deep sighs forbidden under any circumstances. And, speaking of exercising your property rights, the lungs of long-distance joggers, gym rats, hot yoga practitioners, and others who engage in vigorous physical activity can emit as much as eight times the average amount of CO2. The police would run you down, except that would cause even more global warming, so they’ll shoot you from a distance.
(Yes, yes, I know. The experts try to explain to me that breathing isn’t like burning fossil fuels because breathing doesn’t involve “sequestered carbon.” But I’m as dumb as the next voter and don’t know sequester from Ryan Seacrest. Or, anyway, I’m as dumb as Senator Elizabeth Warren who, when she introduces a federal law against breathing, will tell us that only the rich will have to hold their breath.)
Your possessions will go away. And, because “possession is nine-tenths of the law,” rule of law goes with them. (That “nine-tenths” adage isn’t about squatters’ rights or who’s borrowed the car. It’s an old maxim of English common law, first cited in print in the late sixteenth century by Richard Carew, high sheriff of Cornwall. Carew was pointing out that the main purpose of law is to protect property. Foremost in the law’s protection is that property most precious to you—you. The foundational property right is your ownership of yourself as a free person. Much as we may hate the private islands, Park Avenue penthouses, trust funds, Learjets, limousines, and other property accumulated by the filthy rich, without property there is no freedom.
If rule of law goes away so does representative democracy—the legal system of checks and balances that’s entrusted with both guidance by majorities and protection of individuals. When government takes ownership of everything the result is either the terror of collectivism or the horror of crony capitalism or, as in China, both. The checks bounce and the balances are weighted by the thumbs of special interests.
Also, lacking civil liberties and property rights, representative democracy is left with nothing to represent except the will of the mob or—as it’s called these days—“activism.”
We already live in a country where activists are snatching the role once played by duly elected and duly appointed officials.
When Dr. Frankenstein is up to something in his castle, does modern America send the county building inspector to check if the electrical wiring is safe? Not when a large group of activists with pitchforks and torches are available to chase Dr. Frankenstein back to the local urgent care facility and make him provide Medicare for All.
As I mentioned before, the collapse of Classical Liberalism is by no means just an American problem. The same Freedom House that brought us the good news about the growth of democracy since World War II brings us bad news in its most recent report, “Freedom in the World 2018.”
• Democracy faced its most serious crisis in decades . . . as its basic tenets—including guarantees of free and fair elections, the rights of minorities, freedom of the press, and the rule of law—came under attack around the world.
• Seventy-one countries suffered net declines in political rights and civil liberties, with only 35 registering gains. This marked the 12th consecutive year of decline in global freedom.
And how will the end of the Classical Liberal world affect your daily life?
Imagine even a trip to the grocery store without Classical Liberalism. How about Mexican tonight? (Or is cultural appropriation forbidden now?) But, first, you need civil liberties just to leave your house. And no matter what you think about immigration, if Hispanic Americans didn’t have civil liberties you wouldn’t know mierda about Mexican food.
