“When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights.”

— Ayn Rand, book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

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Ayn Rand322

Russian-American novelist and philosopher 1905–1982

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“No, on the contrary, the Constitution exists to protect that right. The important point is that the Constitution exists to protect individual liberty and individual property. In fact, the most important of all of the rights, really the foundation of all rights, are the rights to private property. But the right to private property is a right for each individual human being to own himself.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The Real Abraham Lincoln: A Debate (2002), Q&A

“We’ve always cared more about property rights than human rights in this country. You should know that.”

John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar

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Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

“In every civilized society property rights must be carefully safeguarded; ordinarily, and in the great majority of cases, human rights and property rights are fundamentally and in the long run identical; but when it clearly appears that there is a real conflict between them, human rights must have the upper hand, for property belongs to man and not man to property.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Citizenship in a Republic (1910)

“The difference between left and right of center … originated in the French parliament. The people left of center were liberals; the people right of center were conservatives. Broadly speaking. And generally speaking, people on … the right of center, are interested in property values, property, property rights. The rights and the rights of property. And generally speaking again – it's all generalized – the left-of-center people are more concerned with humans and human beings and human concerns; to the care of humans, not the care and worry about property rights. That's generally been true. And Bush is pushing this country farther down the hill, faster than anyone has before.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Real Time with Bill Maher, September 9, 2005
Interviews, Television Appearances

“Property rights are not like other rights, contrary to what Madison and a lot of modern political theory says. If I have the right to free speech, it doesn't interfere with your right to free speech. But if I have property, that interferes with your right to have that property, you don't have it, I have it. So the right to property is very different from the right to freedom of speech. This is often put very misleadingly about rights of property; property has no right. But if we just make sense out of this, maybe there is a right to property, one could debate that, but it's very different from other rights.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 1990s, 1995–1999, The Common Good (1998)

“The "human rights" advertised by the imperialists are privileges of the rich, privileges to do anything on the strength of money. The imperialists do not recognize the right of unemployed people to work, or the right of orphans or people without support to eat and survive, for instance, as human rights. As they do not grant working people elementary rights to existence and as they pursue anti-popular policies and policies of racial and national discrimination and colonialism, the imperialists have no right to speak about human rights. The imperialists are the most heinous enemy of human rights.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

"Socialism is a Science" http://www.korea-dpr.com/lib/106.pdf, article in Rodong Sinmun (1 November 1994)

“Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.”

Samuel Adams (1722–1803) American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political philosopher

The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
Context: Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

“Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Will Property Rights Return?
1980s–1990s, Is Reality Optional? (1993)

“The science of mine and thine—the science of justice—is the science of all human rights; of all a man’s rights of person and property; of all his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Section I, p. 5
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter I. The Science of Justice.

“I believe in property rights, but I believe in them as adjuncts to, and not as substitutes for human rights. I believe that normally the rights of property coincide with the rights of man; but where they do not, then the rights of man must be; put above the rights of property. I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property; but wherever the alternative must be faced, I am for man and not for property. I am far from underestimating the importance of dividends, but I rank dividends below human character. I know well that if there is not sufficient prosperity the people will in the end rebel against any system, no matter how exalted morally; and reformers must not bring upon the people permanent economic ruin, or the reforms themselves will go down in the ruin.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, The Progressives, Past and Present (1910)

“When you consider socialism, do not fool yourself about its nature. Remember that there is no such dichotomy as “human rights” versus “property rights.” No human rights can exist without property rights.”

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