Is it liberal to take people’s property in the name of business?
So the Supreme Court recently made a controversial decision that the Federal government may not pass laws protecting property owners from eminent domain, when the purpose of taking peoples’ land is for private business use. Example, if a business wants to locate where there is a block of homes, other business, etc. a local government may force those people to sell their property to the city and then the city may sell the property to the new business. The puzzling thing to me is that the court split with the “liberal” and “swing vote” justices winning. This means that the liberal justice were in favor of limiting federal power over property rights and not in protecting property owners. The “conservative” justices on the other hand wanted to expand federal power, over state power and business desires. Can anybody make sense of this? Is the world coming to an end?
I’ve been trying to think of situation in which “liberals” would prefer this outcome, but I can’t. Do I even deserve to be in Law School? I personally think that this was a terrible decision on part of some of my most admired justices. Someone please explain. Many people agree…in fact check this out.
Sounds like either fascism or maybe even state run communism (ala Iron Curtain). Either way its very counter individual and pro-business and has me equally confused that its coming from “liberal” justices.
I thought the judicial system cares for the law not the economy. If judges start making decisions based on economic incentives for the state we as citizens are in for one hell of a slap-in-the-face.
To me, the most amazing thing about this is something Justice Stevens wrote in his opinion – that this decision cannot be confused with property being taken from person A and given to person B for the purpose of person B’s private gain because it falls within the scope of the city’s economic development plan, even though at the end of the day person A is losing his property so that person B can benefit. It’s as though Stevens is trying to impersonalize or dehumanize the issue. And so anyone with a so-called carefully crafted plan for economic development could seize private property simply by REFERENCING said plan. Worse, Stevens specifically claims that it is not the court’s responsibility to determine whether or not such a plan is likely to achieve its objectives. This may lead to all sorts of shenanigans between local developers and city officials who could work together to formulate development proposals of indeterminate integrity that undermine the rights of private citizens. In this case, the proposed use of some of the lots in question is only very vaguely outlined and that, according to the prevailing opinion, is just fine. O’Connor disagreed, saying that the legitimacy of the development plan does indeed fall within the realm of judicial authority in a case when citizens are suing to maintain ownership of their land.
The scariest part of all this is that the homes were in good condition – the respondents were not arguing that they were in disrepair or were unsafe or examples of urban blight – and primarily owner-occupied.
Stevens’ opinion gives the impression that the Supreme Court is taking the “look the other way” approach, which favors corporate interests. This is because in attempting to establish that the onus in not on the Court to uphold the rights of the petitioners, he uses arguments that seem to ignore the facts of the matter. A very strange decision.
I completely agree Tony.
The funny thing to me is how often one hears intense arguments for capitalism surrounding viewpoints similar to F.A. Hayek or Ludwig von Mises. However, in the end these people are arguing an economists point of view. There’s nothing humanistic in taking someone’s house. No matter how you view society and/or politics, if it was your home being taken you’d be livid.
When huge class/social issues arise and the resulting lefty/righty conclusions are drawn how many people really care about neighbors, strangers, etc…? We’re so consumed with property and in laws protecting ones own that we miss the real point of society.
People don’t live together to hate one another. We choose to live together for safety and progression. We choose to live together to utilize each others skills and maximize the potential of progression through working as a team.
With all these distractions of class and property it’s really tough to pat each other on the back, especially when you’re getting ready to stab.
I think the House has already passed some sort of bill which would withhold federal funding from any project which seized private property in this manner…introduced by John Conyers, I believe…I don’t really know the details
So I just finished a caerful reading of the case and Tony’s description is exactly right.
Now I’m no advocate of the expansion of property rights, but if we are going to live in a property system we need to recognize the area where property and human rights meet. The Supreme Court has failed to protect the right of individuals to choose where and how they hold property. Instead they focused on economic concerns of development. In my mind this is a violation of the right of choice in a property system.
This is possibly my first and only adventure into right wing conspiracy theory…but the only explaination I can come up with is that the “liberal” justices are paving the way towards a communist notion of their being no individual rights in holding property over state development desires. While this could could have good implications, the takings clause already allowed the state to use eminent domain to take land for certain environmental and social goals…so in the end the only real benefits go to economic development. Perhaps it will allow for greater environmental and social planning, but how many cities are really focused on these goals?
Jeff, since you introduced and refuted your theory all in one paragraph, I guess it’s my turn :)…Maybe Stevens and company are simply, to use one of my favorite phrases, “economic determinists”. Frankly, I don’t know enough about the careers of any of the justices to talk intelligently about this, but based on this one decision that would seem to be the case.
They most definetly aren’t economic determinsts…except in this case. There has to be a greater policy explaination. Except no one can figure it out.
Well, let us know if and when you hear/read one.