Property Rights and Influential Men

July 07, 2022

Proverbs 22:28 

Remove not the ancient landmark, which your fathers have set.

Against the Marxist idea of property held in community, private property is basic to a biblical economy. Fundamentally, Marxism sets itself against the family, and that is why the family disintegrated in most of the developed world between 1840 and 2010. The basis for property rights is found in two principles—the eighth commandment and the family unit. Even in the tenth commandment, it is our neighbor’s wife, property, and labor that we are not to covet. It is plainly assumed that each neighbor is part of a family unit. Before we even discuss the class envy and the thieving redistribution of the wealth that make up the Marxist doctrine, we should remember that Marxism intends to destroy the sphere of the family. Destroy the family, and you will destroy property rights. Without the family, there is no inheritance to pass on to future generations. Without the family, there can be no private property that stays in the possession of that family unit from generation to generation. 

Now you should see how the destruction of private property by the massive growth of government ownership and control over all property in developed countries is tied to the destruction of the family. Since 1900 the family has almost completely disintegrated in the West. From the first settlement at Plymouth Colony, the divorce rate stayed at 0.1% for at least sixty years. Now half of our marriages end in divorce. The number of couples living together outside the bonds of marriage increased thirteen-fold from 1970 to 2010, and the nuclear family now makes up less than half of American households. 

For the first two years of their settlement, the Plymouth separatists experimented with communal property. Quickly, they discovered that this led to “a kind of slavery,” and slothfulness. Each family was then allotted twenty acres, and according to Governor Bradford, “This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor or any other could use.” Farther north in Connecticut, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were put in place in June of 1639, to guarantee the legal protection of each family’s property rights referred to as “allotments of inheritance.” 

This passage calls into question the role of eminent domain. Does a government have a right to confiscate a man’s vineyard or business to provide for a public highway or other important public project? If a thousand people owning the properties between two cities did not all agree to build a road connecting the cities, there is no way that such a road would ever be built. Thus, in order to build modern empires with transportation systems, it would be impossible to do it without access to everybody’s property. So governments provide what they consider to be “fair market compensation” for real property and proceed to build their highways and railroads—with or without the consent of the property owners. And they will even exercise the power of eminent domain for private interests and their “important” projects. Men will naturally resort to tyrannical means in order to build their powerful empires and centralized systems. But God condemns this sort of thing. You may remember old King Ahab, who took Naboth’s vineyard by force to use for his own purposes. Naboth refused to take compensation for it because it was an inheritance handed down to him from his fathers. 

If God wills it to be so, private air travel may one day enable far more decentralized systems of commerce. Hundreds of small airports in communities everywhere will not require the exercise of eminent domain. There will be less of a need to centralize one national economy by expensive highways built by violating private property rights. Decentralized family economies will replace the large corporations that violated private property rights in order to build what were supposed to be vibrant, free economies. But they were never free economies, for they were always controlled, regulated, and even owned by governments. The technology that accommodated tyrannies can do the same thing for freedom. It is just a question of whether men’s hearts will return to the socio-economic system designed by the wisdom of God, the Creator of the world. 

In the 1930s, there were 7,000,000 family farms operating in America. Now, eighty years later, there are only 500,000 family farms left where the family lives off the proceeds of the farm. There is little fathers have to teach their sons anymore, and very little industrial capital or trade skills passed from generation to generation, from father to son. Such is the plight of the modern family. In order to rightly appreciate the principle contained in this proverb, men must once again root themselves in a local area, instead of wandering from city to city like vagabonds. As young men are mentored by their fathers in a family business, trade, or certain life skills, they will be more likely to embrace the inheritance of their fathers and root themselves in decentralized communities. Then once again, the ancient landmarks, the businesses, the cultural art forms, and the agricultural endeavors of their fathers will be treasured by sons and grandsons. 

Proverbs 22:29 

See a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.

A busy man is an influential man. But we must be careful not to conclude that every man who has learned the lesson of diligence understands the more basic principles of life, such as Proverbs 1:7, for example. There are some very busy tyrants, who kill more babies in abortion clinics than their competitors. It is possible that the tyrannical kings like Herod, Ahab, and the Pharaoh were industrious men. While diligence is a commendable character trait, it is not the only character trait, nor the most fundamental. 

Nevertheless, diligence is necessary to bear influence. So we will train our children to fear God and to be humble and loving, but also to be diligent in business. What tremendous influence for good can be accomplished by one diligent, God-fearing man! 

Family Discussion Questions:

1. How are families, inheritance, and property rights related? 

2. What is Marxism, and what are its intentions toward the institution of the family and property rights?

3. What is eminent domain, and how does it interfere with property rights?

4. What is the best way to gain influence in civil government?