IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-0-230-10949-0_8.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

On the Impossibility of “Just Compensation” When Property Is Taken: An Ethical and Epistemic Inquiry

In: The Pursuit of Justice

Author

Listed:
  • John Brätland

Abstract

The taking power (or eminent domain power as it is known in the United States) has evolved along with metastasizing power of democratic governments. A “taking” is an act of coerced confiscation undertaken to achieve a public use of private property.1 This evolved taking power has been condemned; for example, George Reisman has asserted that eminent domain “appears to constitute a clear violation of the principle of individual rights and thus have no place in a capitalist society” (Reisman 1996, 422). In even more searing language, Murray Rothbard has observed: “… when government confers a privilege of eminent domain… it has virtually granted a license for theft” (Rothbard 2004, 1139). Are these statements irresponsible hyperbole? After all, the constitutions of Western democracies promise and mandate payment of what is labeled “just compensation.” But in what way can compensation be made “just” if the exercise of the taking power is no more than officially sanctioned thievery? Can the act of compensating dispossessed owners be made just in a way that nullifies or negates Rothbard’s charge of theft? This chapter explores the ethical and epistemic answers to these questions.2

Suggested Citation

  • John Brätland, 2010. "On the Impossibility of “Just Compensation” When Property Is Taken: An Ethical and Epistemic Inquiry," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Edward J. López (ed.), The Pursuit of Justice, chapter 0, pages 145-168, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-10949-0_8
    DOI: 10.1057/9780230109490_8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-10949-0_8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.