IT MIGHT SEEM unusual for a public interest legal organization to focus so intensely on the debate over capitalism and socialism. After all, these are economic systems, and PLF’s main interest is law. But hopefully you’ve seen through the other articles in this issue that law and economics are inextricably linked. That’s why it’s critically important for PLF to engage in the ongoing debate about these competing systems.
For 46 years, PLF has existed for one purpose: to defend individual liberty. We believe that when people are free to live peacefully and productively without government interference, they improve themselves, their families, and their communities.
Our belief in individual liberty has two dimensions. First, it’s the right thing for its own sake. Giving people freedom to make their own decisions is how you treat adults with respect, as they deserve. Second, liberty leads toward peace, prosperity, and progress.
This is where capitalism comes in. When people are secure in their liberty and property, they are able to exchange with each other on a voluntary basis. For instance, when I buy a loaf of bread at the grocery store, that trade creates a win-win: Not only do I get the food I need, but the baker gets income he needs. Both sides are better off after the trade.
This is the magic of the market economy. Wealth is created through the aggregation of voluntary exchanges between people. When people make economic exchanges for their own good, and the good of those they care about, they unintentionally contribute to a richer, more prosperous world.
Socialism, based on the belief that government edicts will lead to more prosperity than people making their own decisions, is the antithesis of the capitalist system. But socialism can’t work on a foundation of individual liberty. Implementing a socialist economy requires undermining the legal foundations of liberty that PLF fights for:
Property Rights: A defining factor of socialism is the abolition of private property, so that governments make economic decisions instead of individuals.
Economic Liberty: This too must be abolished under socialism. People must follow central government dictates rather than make their own economic choices.
Free Speech: Socialist governments must clamp down on free speech to keep their control of the economy.
Equality Before the Law: Socialist governments profess to treat people equally. But in reality, those connected to government get preferential treatment. And it’s usually minority groups that lose out.
Separation of Powers: The Soviet Union may have had the trappings of separated government powers, but power was centralized in the Communist Party. It’s an inescapable fact: If a socialist government is going to control the economy, it must have centralized power. In most PLF cases, we’re not fighting these extremes. But we do combat the gradual chipping away of our rights that lead us down a path to socialism, and sometimes it gets pretty darned close.
At the U.S. Supreme Court last year, we fought a bogus “critical habitat” designation that threatened to take most of the value of Edward Poitevent’s land in Louisiana. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wasn’t trying to completely take away his ownership of the property, but by taking away most uses of that property, they would make his ownership essentially in name only.
In the state of Washington, we successfully challenged Seattle’s “wealth tax,” which targeted high-income earners with an added tax, despite provisions in the Washington Constitution that prohibit levying taxes on targeted segments of the population.
Thankfully, in both of these cases, PLF was able to convince courts to undo these encroachments of government power on individual liberty. We must be ever vigilant to make sure that the foundations of individual liberty and capitalism are strengthened to avoid the creeping growth of socialism.
