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Public Choice104: 398–400, 2000.

Richard Pipes,Property and freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,1999. 328 pages. $30.00.

Future historians will remember the late 20th century for its rediscovery ofproperty rights, which intellectuals have neglected for more than a hundredyears. Richard Pipes’Property and freedomis one of a flurry of recent books(others include Tom Bethell’sThe noblest triumph, David Landes’Thewealth and poverty of nations, and several by Richard Epstein) that probe thesocial benefits of private property rights.

Pipes, a respected historian of Russia, long ago learned that the crit-ical difference between the history of Western Europe and Russia was the“weak development of property” in the East. Realizing that property rightsare the “key to the emergence of political and legal institutions that guaranteeliberty”, he decided to explore the history undergirding that fact.

Pipes casts a wide net in his effort to understand and illustrate the roleof property in spurring and maintaining freedom. He examines the shiftingattitudes toward property over the past few centuries, looks at the evidenceof property rights in primitive societies, and covers their development inWestern history (Greece, Rome, medieval Europe). In some detail, he re-counts the history of property in three contexts: England from pre-Normantimes to the triumph of democracy at the end of the 17th century; in Russiafrom pre-Muscovite times to the threshold of the Russian Revolution; andin the modern United States. In an effort to point out that property rightsare “natural”, he even touches on topics such as animals’ territoriality andacquisitiveness in children.

Every reader will get something valuable from this book. The chapter onRussia is particularly illuminating. Since the Middle Ages, Russian noblesand peasants alike have had, at best, only conditional rights to land. Peterthe Great, often viewed as having “Westernized” Russia, did not enhanceprivate property; rather, he seized landed estates with abandon. Serfdom,which developed in Russia in the sixteenth century (about the time it wasdisappearing in the West), tied peasants both to the estates of nobles andto the state. “. . . The soil theytilled belonged to the crown either directlyor indirectly”, says Pipes. “And it was controlled, in most regions, by thecommune”. Communism is more easily understood with this background.

Beyond this, it is refreshing to observe an accomplished historian lookingat periods of history through a property-rights lens. Because much of thishistory is outside Pipes’ area of expertise (nearly every other book he haswritten is about Russia), he takes up the task in a spirit of inquiry and strives

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for objectivity. His reading ranges over an impressive array of disciplines andauthors.

In spite of these great strengths, however,Property and freedomis likely todisappoint readers ofPublic Choice. Pipes reflects the view, commonly heldby historians, that democracy is the touchstone of freedom and that politicalhistory is the chief framework for assessing freedom. He champions propertyas “traditionally the most effective bulwark of freedom”, whose existenceallowed England to become a parliamentary democracy and whose absencekept Russia from developing freedom and the rule of law.

While he is undoubtedly right about this, his emphasis makes it difficultfor him to see private property rights as a bulwark against all arbitrary power– as a right as fundamental and important as what he calls “civil rights”and “social justice” (goals that he sometimes views as antithetical to privateproperty rights).

The weakness of Pipes’ treatment becomes clear in his discussion of prop-erty in the 20th century. To him, the modern welfare state poses a “noveland paradoxical situation”. Private property rights have been eroded by ademocratic government pursuing the public good. This is paradoxical becausePipes believes that major state intervention is necessary in modern times.Specifically, he states that the government must protect the public good bymonitoring pollution, protecting against racial or religious discrimination,ensuring air safety, licensing physicians, and providing medical care for theelderly and the poor. These all restrict property rights, yet Pipes appears toview them as justified. Since the people in a modern democracy elect thelegislators, “whatever they legislate implies popular consent”, he says.

It appears that Pipes (whose reading is remarkably broad in many areas) isnot very familiar with the public choice literature, or else he fails to see its rel-evance. This blinds him to problems of majoritarian rule such as the rationalignorance of the voter and the power of special interests in a democracy.

Gradually, however, as Pipes reviews the steps of the modern U.S. govern-ment that damage property rights, from minimum wage laws to forfeituresof property for violating drug laws, he recognizes that something vital isbeing lost. At the very end of the book he states that the right to property is“arguably more important than the right to vote”. This seems to be an opinionattained at the end of his inquiry, not one that informs the book as a whole.

What Pipes does not recognize, at least when he starts out, is that privateproperty rights, which include the rights to protection of one’s person, do notjust lead to freedom; they are the essence of freedom. When well-protectedby the rule of law (a critical caveat), they are the underpinning of a peacefulsociety because they allow people to engage in trade, which is a productivealternative to competition through physical power. England was strong, pros-

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perous, and largely free because English citizens had control over their livesand their property. Russia was weak, poor, and enslaved by its own leadersbecause few Russians had anything they could call their own.

Had Pipes viewed property rights this way at the beginning of his project,the book might have been somewhat different. He might have sought theorigins of property less through understanding territoriality or acquisitivenessand more through the social benefits it offers. However, what he has done isimpressive.Property and freedomwill be a rich resource for future writerswho, thanks to Pipes and others, will be much more attuned to the value ofproperty rights than is this generation.

JANE S. SHAW, Political Economy Research Center (PERC), 502 S.19th Avenue, Suite 211, Bozeman, MT 59718-6827, U.S.A.; e-mailshaw@perc.org