The right to property has almost disappeared today from the Bill of Rights.

Looks Interesting. A new book out on the Constitution and Property.

Locke, the Declaration of Independence, Madison, and the Challenge of the Administrative State. by Edward J. Erler.

From the introduction.

The right to property has almost disappeared today from the Bill of Rights. It is the only “fundamental right” in the pantheon of rights that does not receive strict judicial scrutiny against legislative and executive encroachment. This development came about as the result of the advent of the administrative state and what has been called post-constitutionalism. The private right to property stands as a barrier to the developing doctrine that all property is held in public trust and that the rightful owner, to be chosen by government, is the one who can best serve a “public purpose.” Once the Supreme Court amended the original language of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause from “public use” to the more expansive “public purpose,” constitutionalists should have taken alarm at this first innovation on the right to property. The right to property was always regarded as the “fence to liberty,” and once that fence was breached, liberty would be in danger. The fence to liberty has in fact been breached, and the right to property, as I argue, has been restored to something like a feudal basis where government has become the “universal landlord.” Liberty is indeed under attack by an administrative state that is fast evolving into a post-constitutional state, where administration is deemed to have replaced the Constitution and politics.

It resonates.

I usually summarize the unique American experiment in freedom as a rich tapestry of humanism, universal inherent natural rights, consent of the governed, rule of law, equality before the law, individual sovereignty, individual agency, government constrained through checks and balances, enumerated freedoms (speech, assembly, religion, self-defense, etc.), free markets, openness, tolerance, due process, logic and rationalism, universal suffrage, accountability, empiricism, defense of minorities (broadly defined), authority delegated by individuals, pluralism, property rights, etc.

But of these, and through no intended slight, I rarely emphasize property rights though it is among the most important. Erler's books sounds like it might be a useful reminder of the centrality of property rights in our unique experiment in freedom.