Analysis of Kelo vs. New London The unpopular Supreme Court decision of Kelo vs. New London has broken many citizens trust in having secured property rights. In Kelo vs. New London, the City of New London was condemning the property of several homeowners, in order to sell the land to private developers that would use the land to make a retail condo development. The local government approved the new development in order to gain higher tax revenue and to bring more jobs to the area. Homeowners who believed that their waterfront residence was being unfairly taken contested the City’s actions in court.
It was believed that in order to cast a logical vote, one needed to be economically involved in society by owning land ("The Expansion of the Vote: A White Man's Democracy”). Powerful government leaders and representatives upheld the property requirement in hopes to silence the voices of the lower class, who they believed
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States was written by Charles Beard in 1913 and describes Beards opinion on the Constitution of the United States at an economic standpoint. Beard believes the constitution was written by rich landholders who wanted their land to be protected. In order for their land to be protected, the lower class would be expensed. He found out that many land owners had “personalty” which is extra land to the West, trading stocks and other money related items. Beard claimed the slaveholders or higher class were not influenced by philosophy, instead just wanting money for themselves and not thinking of the classes below them.
According to David Nash, “He certainty was the first to make the message of individual and natural rights traverse boundaries in what, for the 18th century, was the blink of an eye”
John Locke interpreted that when citizens are given the right to property they are truly given all combinations and locks to keep their values and possessions safe from outside force such as the
With this policy, land was divided into numerous small states, while simultaneously uniting them all in one nation. This then allowed for more independence among the people allowing them to choose their own institutions, including religion. Natural rights philosophers continued to support the natural world and the laws that govern it. Men like Hobbes and Locke introduced topics such as inalienable rights, including but not limited to, “Life, Liberty, and Estate.” All of these structures were later used in the creators development of the U.S., considering they were alive to watch all of these progressions occur before their very
Eminent Domain: A Process Of Unparalleled Failure Although it was an undefined process at the time, eminent domain was prominent as far back as the 18th century when America was first being discovered. The colonization of America by the US government allowed for some of the greatest accomplishments we know today, however this was at the cost of Native Americans whose homes and land were seized without any compensation. Despite the benefits of providing land and food to the common people, human nature tends to favor only the majority of people. The use of eminent domain by colonists in the 18th century for example was a detrimental process that unjustifiably took advantage of many indigenous tribes in the Americas taking away their land, culture,
Vadim, 33, used to be an alcoholic —having ended up at a rehabilitation clinic for nine months, he could not manage his debts, which eventually loaded up to an unthinkable million rubles. His kidney is worth five million on the black market, he says, and without the organ, he will have twenty years more to live (“The Backbone Kidney”[Pochka Opory]). In fact, even though Vadim’s story is not unique, he is one of the few willing to risk their lives and violate the law in order to survive. All the medical implications of the case aside, how moral is it to criminalize a market for human organs sale while often it is the last hope for people to increase their well-being. Should humans be allowed to exchange their parts for material goods?
He divided property into two ways, private and common. Locke believes that God is in charge of the world. In chapter v. of property, Locke states, “God, who has given the world to men in common, has also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage in life, and convenience.” Locke used labor to say common is a way to private property. By a man doing labor, he can call property private.
Both social contract philosophers defended different views about moral and political obligations of men living in the state of nature stripped of their social characters. The state of nature illustrates how human beings acted prior to entering into civil society and becoming social beings living under common legitimacy. The state of nature is to be illustrated as a hypothetical device to explain political importance in the society. Thomas Hobbes, propounded politics and morality in his concept of the state
As we have established, if the primary role of the state is to secure and maintain the most possible happiness for the people, the surely an unjust state would not be a state capable of achieving this goal. Monarchies seem the ideal constitution to Aristotle because the virtue of the monarch is not diluted by the potentially selfish desires of others. However, this is also the least stable of the
Since the ancient times the research of a ‘Just’ society has always been linked with the Natural Law, a corpus of eternal, universal, and immutable rules, as the Nature, valid for everyone. The precursor of the Human Rights can be located in the Natural Rights theorized during the Renaissance humanism. Even if some rights had already been recognized, or affirmed in ancient and previous times, they were strongly connected to some divine power or religion. Nonetheless there are some precedent examples of interest. The Magna Charta signed in 1215 by that King John of England, who committed himself to respect, contained among others in its list , the rights of all free citizens to own and inherit property, to be protected from excessive taxes,
He further comments that the full unrestricted right to property, that is, to do whatever we can provided that there is no violation of other people’s rights, will finally lead to some reduction of liberty, mainly for the people who does not have property and have to rely on the assistance of others. Morever, Nozick’s comparison of income tax to forced labour has been attached by a number of critics who question the legitimacy of treating the two as remotely equivalent. Nozick’s reliance on Locke’s theory of individual property may be wrong. Locke argues that we acquire ownership over a thing by mixing our labour with in, but I am wonder whether or not it can apply to natural resources.
Ownership causes one to become selfish and so self-absorbed in their property that they wouldn’t allow other people to experience the joy they have through their property. In “My Wood,” Forster explains how uneasy he felt when he saw people walking through his woods and going to his blackberries. Because of the unease that he felt, Forster thought that in order to show people that the blackberries and his wood was his, he should build a pathway with high stone walls, blocking the view of the blackberries from the public, just like the wood near Lyme Regis, where people “circulate like termites while the blackberries are unseen.” Through the example, Forster illustrates how the ownership of his wood causes him to become selfish and so self-absorbed in his property that he wouldn’t want people coming into his wood and experiencing the blackberries. We often time are just like Forster.
Moreover, as much as the acquisition of wealth for its own right is in opposition to what constitutes virtue in the Aristotelian society (Politics), this capitalist ideal is found present in the definition of the Lockean good life. Due to the fact that citizenship is the duty to be watchful of the government, and freedom is one of non-interference in the pursuit of a private life, the good life then is adherence to these ideals. Freedom and thus human flourishing, then, are obtained when the individual adheres to the nature of law in regards to being mindful of consumption, whilst securing their own property through the combination of their labor with the land. Under the common wealth they have agreed to, property will be secure. The individual is free to flourish and secure property.
