Replacing Property as a Source of Wealth Creation

[Geee]

Human Events:

One of the interesting things about our country, the independence of which the Founders declared 235 years ago today, is that we have been a property-holders' democracy.

This is not something the Founders originally advocated. While they protested taxation by a British parliament in which they were not represented, they did not think that everyone had a right to vote. Like their British contemporaries, they thought that only those property-holders should vote. Otherwise representatives elected by the poor majority would vote to take away the property of the rich minority.

But in the early years of the republic, it became apparent that almost all white males were farmers who owned the land they farmed. As property-holders, they could be trusted with the vote.

So by the early 19th century just about all the states extended the franchise to adult white males. It would be extended in time to blacks and women, as well.

In this property-holders' democracy, elected representatives have naturally sought to facilitate the accumulation of property, as Walter Russell Mead has pointed out in his unfailingly interesting Via Media blog on the-american-interest.com.

For a century this property took the form of the farm. Government sold land cheaply and on credit, and under the Homestead Act gave it away free to those who worked it for a few years.

Government set up agricultural colleges and financed agricultural research. It regulated the rates railroads could charge farmers.

In the Great Depression, when 25 percent of Americans still lived on farms, government started subsidizing producers of certain crops. Amazingly, it hasn't stopped, although only 2 percent of Americans live on farms, though one hears that agricultural programs have been on the chopping block in various budget negotiations.