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Health & Fitness

In Defense of Property

Critics, from Vladimir Putin to commentators here at home, have debated whether it is appropriate for America to be considered exceptional. Can this argument be tied to concerns about increasing concentrations of wealth, decried in some circles?

  America, born July 4, 1776, certainly was exceptional in viewing our people as citizens rather than subjects of a king, queen, or other royal overlord. “Citizens” have inalienable rights, the more famous being “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but also a right to own property. Royal subjects in Europe and elsewhere were not property owners; they could use or rent property only with permission of the crown.

 The mid-17th century in Europe was marked by repression and rebellion. The writings of England’s John Locke (1632-1704) helped to shape the ideas of our founding fathers as to what constituted freedom and liberty. In his seminal tract, Two Treatises of Government, Locke argued that a key function of political society was the protection of property, a person’s “life, liberty, and estate.”  Notice the use of the word “estate,” i.e., property, instead of “happiness.”

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 Historians see Locke’s influence on our founders reflected in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a forerunner to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Adopted by the Virginia Convention of Delegates on June 12, 1776, the document declared, “That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

The right to buy, own, build, and grow one’s estate through ownership has been a cornerstone in the exceptionalism of America as the oldest and continuous constitutional republic in the world. For all we hear about growth in China, there is no private ownership of land—it all belongs to the government. Communist and socialistic schemes ultimately rot from within due to restrictive property rights, which diminish human creativity and energy.

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 In the early days of our republic, it was the promise of freedom and opportunity through ownership of land and other assets that was a primary lure for immigrants. Who can forget the movies and other dramatizations of the great western land rushes of the 1800s?

 The security of ownership is the foundation for small business, remembering that every large business, every public company, started out as a small business. Without ownership, our stock market would not exist as a wealth creator. As we saw in the recent listing of Twitter on the stock exchange, wealth was created and “spread around.” Consider, a company that allows people to toss out a maximum of 140 words in a “tweet” initially was valued at $31 billion! Facebook recently had a market valuation of $120 billion and LinkedIn, $26 billion.

 Whether or not you should be a part owner of any of these wunderkinds is a function of your own pursuit of risk and reward and the province of money managers. Nevertheless, individual stocks, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and other securities and alternative investments that convey a measure of ownership are part of the democratization of wealth. Government, ours included, should be wary of the confiscation of wealth, whether through punitive taxation or other means. “Fairness” may take on negative dimensions if the diminishment of wealth creating energy results in stagnating economic growth.

If we wish to “spread the wealth around,” recall the intent of our founders who laid the groundwork for the miracle that is America. Self-sufficiency and financial independence, private property rights secured by the rule of law, and freedom to build, grow, and nurture successive generations, have been fought for and defended since 1776. That men and women of our military continue to be willing to put life and limb on the line to defend our rights, and those of others around the world, truly, that is exceptional!

Honoring Our Veterans

The theme for this column was suggested by Mr. John Del Vecchio, Vietnam veteran, U.S. Army, and best-selling author of several books about the Vietnam War. Mr. Del Vecchio was a speaker at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Johns Creek Veterans Memorial Walk in Johns Creek, GA, on November 9, 2013, in honor of Veteran’s Day 2013.

Lewis Walker is President of Walker Capital Management LLC. and Walker Capital Advisory Services, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor (R.I.A.) Securities and certain advisory services offered through The Strategic Financial Alliance, Inc. (SFA).  Lewis Walker is a registered representative of SFA which is otherwise unaffiliated with the Walker Capital Companies. ▪ 3930 East Jones Bridge Road ▪ Suite 150 ▪ Peachtree Corners, GA 30092  ▪ 770-441-2603 ▪ lewisw@theinvestmentcoach.com



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