Theft by Any Other Name is . . . . Theft
The Left has little or no respect for property rights. What you own is yours only if the collective (society, the state) says you can retain ownership. At any time, for the "common good" your property can be devalued, stripped, or confiscated. In principle we are, therefore, slaves in our own country; any freedoms we may enjoy are at the pleasure of the collective.
This plight is put front and centre in the Australian classic, The Castle. Sadly, whilst this is a superb comedy, its dramatic tension actually relies upon a very serious matter that is all too real. In The Castle, remedy comes to Darryl Kerrigan through the courts. The High Court decided that the Constitution of Australia required that Darryl's "castle" could only be purchased on just terms. We have no such checks and balances in New Zealand. Parliament is supreme.
The Government in New Zealand is about to decide whether a Chinese consortium can purchase around sixteen NZ dairy farms.
The Leader of the Opposition, David Shearer is publicly opposing the sale on the grounds that selling to the Chinese does not bring enough value to "New Zealanders". The pseudo-property rights of the collective hive, in the mind of the Labour Party, trump those of the actual owners.
Of course there is another bid on the table--from a "genuine" Kiwi consortium of mega-wealthy plus Maori--but it just happens to be way below the $200m offered by the Chinese consortium. Apparently, Mr Shearer favours the second bid and in so doing wants to strip millions of dollars of private property from the current owner/sellers. The rights of the collective hive overreach and cancel private property rights every time--in the statist mind of the Left (and most Unbelievers), for the State is their god.
At this blog, we have warned repeatedly of the dangers of investing in China. Because of the prevailing corruption in that country, one's investment and property rights can go up in smoke and you can end up in prison for a very long time, or before a firing squad on spurious, trumped up convictions. But it would take a contorting clairvoyant to explain why Shearer's stand is any different. And if such practices are corrupt in China, they are equally corrupt in New Zealand.
Now, it is up to the Chinese investors to decide whether they wish to take the risk of investing in such a corrupt country where rival bidders can enlist a very senior Parliamentarian to do their bidding in an attempt to destroy the property rights of commercial rivals. But let them be in no doubt: corruption it is--up front and centre. Worse--no-one is outraged. No-one in New Zealand calls it corruption. Rather it is seen as "looking after our own". Gangster economics. Corruption out front and centre, and no-one turns a hair.
David Shearer has just sent a message to every gang, every corrupt businessman, every tong, triad, and mafioso that he is up for sale. He can be bought. He will oleaginously cloak his thievery by blowing smoke rings appealing to the "rights" of the collective hive. But it won't change the facts.
This is presumably what he learnt while he was working for the United Nations, we suspect.
2 comments:
While I support significant land property rights, and am very cautious about eminent domain/compulsory purchase, do you not think that a case can be made for land in a country to only be sold to a citizen of that country?
Land is of no monetary value until property rights and titles to land are recognised. Clearly governments can (and do) fabricate all kinds of rules restricting property rights with respect to land, but the issue is whether God has granted any such rights to civil governments.
A critical issue here is whether land is sui generis. It's a hard case to argue successfully. About the only distinction from most other forms of property is that it is not fungible; it cannot be removed from New Zealand, by definition, unlike, for example, intellectual property. But this would be an argument for not restricting its sale to non-citizens. They take all the risks and are locked in, as it were.
Another consideration is which is the better economic outcome for society: having farms run down by local owners who ruin the economic resource through bad husbandry, or non-citizen owners who maximise the economic potential of the land?
A final consideration would be that it might be possible for New Zealand to sell off most of the land to offshore interests. Maybe that would not be to the particular benefit of the country in general. But ownership means we are entitled to make stupid decisions and reap the consequences one way or the other.
If the government were to restrict the sale of land to citizens only, why could not a similar argument be made for restricting emigration on the grounds that skilled workers leaving NZ does harm to our economy and nation? In principle there is no difference--the citizen prevented from selling his labour anywhere he chooses, the landowner restricted from selling his property to whomever he chooses. In both cases, selling to offshore interests may be to the detriment of the economy as a whole (the export of labour certainly is). If we can justify the state restricting the sale of land to non-citizens, the same arguments will apply to exporting capital and labour. If we would justify all this we would all have truly become serfs in our own country.
JT
Post a Comment