White paper

 https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/ncfca-website.appspot.com/o/resources%2F1658187059374_2023%20LD%20Resolution%20White%20Paper.pdf?alt=media&token=8adcf74c-f556-4584-a0d9-163276a0d755

Kelo

 Dissenting opinion - O'Connors

Dissenting opinion - Thomas

Wiki - quotes relevant passages cost was $78M for expected $1.2M in revenue + 3169 jobs (but not gotten)

The Atlantic on weak property rights

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/weak-property-rights/608476/

Constitutional protection for property rights began weakening in the early 20th century. That shift was largely driven by Progressives’ perception that property rights mainly benefit the wealthy, and that they were an obstacle to benevolent, expert social planning. The experience of the last 80 years suggests that the very opposite is true. Social planners are usually far from wise and benevolent, and the people who suffer most when property rights are undermined are usually poor people, minorities, and anyone else with little political power. Recent years have seen some progress on strengthening protection for property rights. But much more is needed.

Let’s begin with what’s in the Constitution itself. The Fifth Amendment mandates that the government can only take private property for “public use.” This is a crucial constraint on the government’s power of eminent domain, which enables the state to force owners to turn over their property to the state, even if they refuse to sell voluntarily. During the late 18th and 19th centuries, courts usually interpreted “public use” as either government ownership or private ownership in which the private holder is legally required to serve the entire public. The former covers situations in which land is taken for purposes of building public infrastructure such as roads or military bases. Public utilities are examples of the latter. Even when under private ownership, they are legally forbidden to turn away members of the public willing to pay for their services; ordinary private businesses, by contrast, are largely free to accept or reject customers as they please. This “narrow” view of public use was in accordance with the original meaning of the takings clause, and also of the Fourteenth Amendment, which first made the Bill of Rights applicable to state and local governments, in addition to the federal government.

But in the 20th century, courts began to shift toward what was previously the minority view, which held that a public use exists whenever the public could potentially benefit from the taking. This culminated in the Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in Berman v. Parker, which upheld an “urban renewal” condemnation transferring private property to private developers, as part of a project that displaced some 5,000 poor African Americans in Washington, D.C. The land was used to build more expensive housing, occupied mainly by whites. As the legal scholar Wendell Pritchett points out, it was both ironic and tragic that a ruling that “enabled institutional and political elites to relocate minority populations and entrench racial segregation … was decided just six months after Brown v. Board of Education” by a Court that included nearly all the same justices. While most of the justices were not racial bigots, their lax attitudes toward property rights blinded them to the harm their ruling caused to the very people they sought to protect against oppressive government policies in other contexts.

There is room for reasonable disagreement about exactly where to draw the line on takings. But severe restrictions on ownership rights that are not justified by health or safety concerns are ripe for reconsideration. Such tightening of the takings doctrine is justified on both originalist grounds, which emphasize the need to protect traditional property rights against erosion, and living-constitutionalist concerns about the need to protect vulnerable groups against abuses of government power.

Utilitarianism

 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/utilitarianism.asp#:~:text=Utilitarianism%20promotes%20%22the%20greatest%20amount,wrong%2C%20but%20it%20has%20limitations.

Economic Freedom

 https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/EconomicFreedom.html

The key ingredients of economic freedom are personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete in markets, and protection of person and property.

https://www.heritage.org/index/about#:~:text=Economic%20freedom%20is%20the%20fundamental,in%20any%20way%20they%20please.

Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please. 

Hilaire Belloc The Rise of the Capitalist State

 https://www.panarchy.org/belloc/servilestate.html

Belloc’s Humane Defense of Personhood and Property

 https://lawliberty.org/classic/belloc-humane-defense-personhood-property/

Kitson

 “Moral conduct is that line of human action, conformity to which tends to promote the life, happiness and well-being of society and its members” (Arthur Kitson, The Money Problem, Ch. 1).

Trickle down economic theory

 https://ethicalunicorn.com/2021/06/30/what-is-trickle-down-economics-why-it-doesnt-work/

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/1/Hope_economic_consequences_of_major_tax_cuts_published.pdf

but tax increases help the owners. 

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/trickle-economics-flood-drip/

see 4 arguments p.138

Liberty

 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative/

Property

 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/property/

Eminent domain

1. "The right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

Robert Moses + eminent domain

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/eminent_domain#:~:text=Overview%3A,compensation%20to%20the%20property%20owners.

"In 1949, the federal government enacted a new approach to the housing problems of cities: urban renewal. The approach was new in both philosophy - for the first time in America, government was given the right to seize an individual's private property not for its own use but for reassignment to another individual for his use and profit - and in scope: a billion dollars was appropriated in 1949 and it was later agreed that this was only seed money to prepare for later, great plantings of cash."

    - The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, p.12

1.  

   "The right of eminent domain, or the state’s ability to seize land for public use (paying the owners fair market value), is longstanding. But over the years the phrase “public use” has taken on broader and broader meaning."

2. According to Norman Siegel, the civil-rights lawyer and former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, a 1954 Supreme Court decision allowing land to be taken by a public agency put the court’s stamp on the urban-renewal boom that followed. A 1981 decision in Michigan, allowing a neighborhood to be condemned for a GM plant, transformed eminent domain into the voracious creature it is today. “From my perspective,” says Siegel, “eminent domain has run amok.”

“The problem with New York State is judicial,” explains Dana Berliner, a property-law expert with the libertarian Institute for Justice in Washington. “It’s public use to engage in any development project—it almost doesn’t matter what.” Berliner points out that New York is one of a handful of states that don’t give notice to owners in time to challenge a condemnation. (A published notice is the only announcement; 30 days later, the challenge period expires, all before the owner gets a formal letter.) A bill was passed by the State Legislature last year to rectify this Catch-22. It was vetoed by the Master Builder himself, George Pataki." 

https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/columns/cityside/n_10215/

Like in Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

"To “help” low-income neighborhoods, Robert Moses used eminent domain to raze them and erect tower-in-the-park-style apartment complexes, which we today know have proved woefully ineffective. "

marginally helpful

https://classicnewyorkhistory.com/how-robert-moses-shaped-the-long-island-he-misunderstood/

https://savingplaces.org/stories/a-tale-of-two-planners-jane-jacobs-and-robert-moses#.YyKL13bMK3A

http://castlecoalition.org/?s=new+york

http://castlecoalition.org/legislativecenter

Walser v. Best Buy auto dealerships condemned to make way for $118M Best Buy corporate campus.

also mentioned Minneapolis Fed

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2006/condemned-prosperity

Putting the squeeze on landowners in order to build a shopping center or marina may seem harsh, defenders of the use of eminent domain for private development admit. But they maintain that it's an essential tool for community revitalization, a means of reshaping shopworn inner cities and suburbs to meet new economic exigencies.

If local governments didn't have recourse to eminent domain, recalcitrant property owners could hold cities and developers hostage, demanding payment far in excess of fair market value, the legal standard for just compensation. Or "you could have an individual who at any cost, any price would not sell," observed Sherman Malkerson, a Twin Cities real estate broker who has served as a court-appointed commissioner in condemnation cases. "That may not be in the best interest of the community as a whole."

Condemnation powers make it easier for built-up communities to assemble large redevelopment tracts from multiple, individually owned parcels. If a few holdouts jeopardize the comprehensive plan, a condemning authority can acquire their property at fair market value (under state laws, landowners may also receive compensation for relocation costs), then resell it to a developer.

Such takings fulfill a legitimate public purpose, say proponents of eminent domain. Yes, for-profit companies—the developer, property management firms and corporate tenants—reap much of the benefit from government intervention in redevelopment projects. But putting land acquired by eminent domain to a higher, better use improves the welfare of city residents: Property values in the project area and surrounding neighborhoods rise; additional office workers and new homeowners buy groceries, shoes and DVDs from local merchants; increased tax revenues may help pay for public services and amenities that the city might otherwise be unable to afford.

Is the use of eminent domain for private development critical to the continued vitality of communities? If municipalities and port authorities no longer had a big stick, would frayed downtowns and dowdy inner-ring suburbs go into decline, starved of private investment and consumed by blight?

That's difficult to say, although recent history in Seattle, where a statewide ban on condemnation for economic development is in effect, suggests that cities can indeed prosper without resorting to eminent domain.

One thing is certain, however: Property targeted for taking is almost never as run-down and in need of redemption as condemning authorities say it is. Findings of blight are often a smoke screen for a local government's true motivation in moving to condemn private property—increasing employment and expanding the tax base. Under current law in most district states, it's easy for local officials to declare viable neighborhoods and commercial areas blighted and ripe for redevelopment.

Real or imagined blight was not an issue in the Kelo case; in condemning working-class homes to make way for a waterfront hotel, housing, marinas, and retail and office space, the City of New London never claimed that the neighborhood was dilapidated or even slightly seedy. City planners simply saw an opportunity to create more than 1,000 jobs and boost tax revenues in an economically depressed community. By a narrow 5-4 majority, the Supreme Court ruled that economic rejuvenation, in and of itself, fulfills a "public purpose.

The case confirmed what has been true on the ground in many cities in the district and around the country for at least 25 years: Local government can take private property for redevelopment virtually at will, as long as it can demonstrate some benefit to the community.

But from a regional or national perspective, using eminent domain to grease the wheels of private development is at best a zero-sum game and at worst a loss for the economy as a whole. The inescapable economic truth about government takings for private development is that without condemnation, the development would almost certainly have occurred somewhere else.

In practice, condemnation often results in a net economic loss, because eminent domain is routinely used in conjunction with TIF, tax abatements and other tax incentives designed to entice developers and major employers to build in a particular community.

The City of Richfield collected $1.9 million in incremental taxes from Best Buy in 2005—revenue that wouldn't exist if the campus had not been built. But only about $1.1 million of that money was actually spent on infrastructure and services that benefit city residents. Under the terms of the TIF agreement, the rest flowed back to Best Buy to pay off debt incurred in developing the campus. The city won't capture its full share of taxes levied on Best Buy's headquarters until 2026.

Giving away a portion of property tax revenue to local businesses means that cities have fewer resources to spend on law enforcement, snowplowing, schools and other public services that have been shown to stimulate private investment and business activity. In contrast, unsubsidized private development contributes fully to the local tax base. Assuming that civic leaders allocate resources wisely, the additional revenue finances public services that benefit city residents and the overall economy.

Basic economic theory states that markets operate most efficiently without government interference, and for many economists, that premise extends to the use of eminent domain to further redevelopment. Private businesses and investors, not politicians, are in the best position to decide when and where development should occur, said V. V. Chari, a professor of economics at the University of Minnesota and consultant to the Minneapolis Fed who has done research on eminent domain.

"We have learned through painful experience that in lots of situations, markets—individuals acting in their own self interest—lead to better outcomes than the outcomes that we can attain if governments or central planners undertake those kinds of activities," he said.

https://www.mackinac.org/6714

LD sources

 https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/03/12/the-devastation-caused-eminent-domain-abuse/yWsy0MNEZ91TM94PYQIh0L/story.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/29/the-story-behind-the-kelo-case-how-an-obscure-takings-case-came-to-shock-the-conscience-of-the-nation/

https://celdf.org/the-enclosure-movement/#:~:text=The%20Enclosure%20Movement%20was%20a,fences%20or%20hedges%20around%20it.

Enclosure movement a main cause of Industrial Revolution 

forced poor people off land, into cities, creating huge workforce

devastated peasant class

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/enclosure-acts-industrial-revolution/

"When access was systematically denied, ultimately the peasantry was left with three basic alternatives: to work in a serf-like manner as tenant farmers for large landowners; to emigrate to the New World; or, ultimately, to pour into already-crowded cities, where they pushed down each others’ wages by competing for a limited number of jobs." 

Historians J.L. and Barbara Hammond in The Village Labourer 1760–1832 (1911) describe the workers who were driven into factories by the Enclosure Acts:

The enclosures created a new organization of classes. The peasant with rights and a status, with a share in the fortunes and government of his village, standing in rags, but standing on his feet, makes way for the labourer with no corporate rights to defend, no corporate power to invoke, no property to cherish, no ambition to pursue, bent beneath the fear of his masters, and the weight of a future without hope. No class in the world has so beaten and crouching a history.

  As even the anti-libertarian historian Christopher A. Ferrara explains, “England’s response to the crisis of poverty among the landless proletariat” was a

system of poor relief supplements to meager wages, adopted de facto throughout England (beginning in 1795) in order to ensure that families did not starve. The result … was a vast, government-subsidized mass of wage-dependent paupers whose capitalist employers, both urban and rural, were freed from the burden of paying even bare subsistence wages.

English Enclosures and Soviet Collectivization: Two Instances of an Anti-Peasant Mode of Development 

The Village Labourer: 1760-1832 : A Study in the Government of England Before the Reform Bill

From A History of England, Hilaire Belloc:

The lord was already enclosing common land etc. before Reformation. Reformation hastened process in the struggle between the peasant and the local lord, and to make the victory of the latter certain in England.

The fees tenants payed to monasteries were quite conservative. The lords who took the land after had no such constraints of conscience or custom.