I was shocked when I read an essay in The Wall Street Journal said that over 65 million people have been killed in the Soviet Union, China, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, Indochina, Africa, Afghanistan and parts of Latin America trying to overthrow capitalism and private property rights since 1917.
The essay was written by Stephen Kotkin, a professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University, and titled “Communism’s Bloody Century.” Kotkin points out that it has been 100 years since communism took over in Russia and that China, Cuba and North Korea are continuing on under communist rule today.
Owning private property gives individuals the exclusive right to use their resources as they see fit. The Constitution protects property rights mainly through the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which reads “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” And that’s where it gets a little tricky. Who determines what just compensation is?
On March 24, 2016, Salt Lake City Corp. filed suit against the Evans Development Group LLC. It wanted to use its eminent domain power to condemn land owned by Evans in order to exchange it for another piece of property owned by Rocky Mountain Power.
The city had been working on a plan since 2007 to realign the railroad and needed the 2.9-acre partial owned by Rocky Mountain Power. Obviously, the Evans Development Group was not happy with these happenings and even though the documents filed by the city did not talk about compensation, I’m guessing the Evans Group didn’t think it was getting just compensation.
I don’t believe that the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and the 1940s felt that they were getting just compensation either. Of course, Mr. Hitler and his cronies did not use the court of laws to line their pockets with silver and gold and they used clubs and truncheons instead. Then they shipped 6 million Jews off to extermination camps.
Back to the essay “The Communist Century.” According to the author, anti-capitalism is a way for backward countries to leapfrog into the ranks of great powers. But I cannot understand the anti-capitalism frame of mind. Anti-capitalists, in my opinion, are just avoiding personal responsibility of providing a better life for themselves and their families.
Capitalism has many benefits compared to other economic systems. It creates more wealth, and rewards individual effort. Free markets are the natural state of trade. Capitalist societies do not have large black markets and capitalism promotes more nations working together, which will likely reduce the number of conflicts among them.
Capitalism and the right to own property is the means to prosperity for all. Again, I am calling on small-business owners and their employees to man the barricades. We must use our political and economic clout to get our elected officials to do the right thing.
I would like to suggest that each small-business owner put together an action plan that educates his or her employees on why capitalism and the right to own property is so critical to them and their families’ future. The best and simplest way to do this is for the small-business owner to contact the leaders of their trade associations to tailor a blueprint for a series of classes that can be given to the small-business employees and their families.
The Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organization in California, has done a lot of spade work that the trade associations could use as the foundation for their seminars. The academy’s series of classes about the military, religious and cultural impact of the Crusades on Europe and the Middle East is fantastic.
In these classes, the Khan Academy details the impact of moments that spanned centuries and continents across social lines and affected all levels of culture. Now is the time to act, small-business owner. So, just do it.
Robert Pembroke is the former chairman and CEO of Pembroke’s Inc. in Salt Lake City.