Rating: 
Summary: Don't read in front of an open fire
Review:
Richard Pipes's Property and Freedom, offered by him as the work of a "dilettante", is professor emeritus of Russian and Soviet history at Harvard. He is the author of at least twelve other books, including A Concise History of the Russian Revolution (1995) and The Unknown Lenin (1996). His books are written in an agreeable prose, a passport across any boundary, but one. In conscience, Property and Freedom cannot be recommended except, perhaps, to someone who is dying of incurable boredom and needs a dose of it to go over the side, for rare is the person who can read this book without slumping over it, and wise is the person who does not read it in front of an open fire. As the great 19th century historian Jacob Burckhardt wrote, it is good for a specialist to be a dilettante in other fields, but he should be one "privately" (Burckhardt, Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (Munich, 1978), 16). Pipes instead chose to write a book.
Pipes wrote Poverty and Freedom to prove that liberty and the right to property are "connected", an idea that emerged in the seventeenth century and that no one contests. He claims, however, that though the idea is old, the historical evidence for this uncontested idea has not been gathered, and hence his book. It is doubtful that, after reading it, the reader will learn what he did not know at the beginning, and that is that rights have not "evolved" in a Darwinian garden, they are not sociobiological specimens, and they are not the result of theological epiphanies. They are powers that have been granted or seized because those who would deny them would suffer. All else - tracts, scrolls, philosophies, testaments, beliefs religious or pagan, all of the scenery and scripts that we call history, are as nothing compared with the central fact of power and its location. Magna Carta, for example, benefitted English barons, not Englishmen at large, and freedom of speech originated not in the mouth of an English divine or philosopher but in the grant of the English crown driven by the need of money to grant them to the House of Commons.
For the history of the idea of property, Pipes recounts the thinking of Western philosophers, theologians, and political theorists. We are treated to the differing views of Plato and Aristotle, the influence of Stoicism on Christianity, the immense contribution of Roman jurists, the radical opinions of St Thomas Aquinas, the inspiriting of capitalism by Calvin, the derisable ideas of the "noble savage" and "Utopia", and on and on through the Law of Nature, Grotius, Hobbes, Harrington, Locke, Rousseau, and the calling in, of all people, Wordsworth and Coleridge, all of this and one has reached only page 49, with last-page 328 a rumored oasis in the distance, reachable after one has run barefoot over 907 footnotes in which one's closing eyes may find six languages to feast upon. If this book has one constant flaw, it is its daunting incantation of facts and opinions that fly by like freight trains, all to prove that the right to property is essential to liberty. The flaw may be forgivable on the ground that Pipes, a Polish Jew who fled Poland in 1940 at the age of ten, has for decades lived intellectually with the murderous sweep of Marxist Communism, fixed at 20,000,000 under Stalin, and 120,000,000 throughout the earth (See, Stephane Courtois et al., Le livre noir du communisme (Paris: Laffont, 1997)).
For property as an institution, Pipes examines history, psychology, anthropology, and sociobiology, to prove to us, a people consecrated to materialism, that acquisitiveness is universal among humans as well as animals. He covers
possessiveness in animals, including insects, from protozoa to primates, careful to include dragonflies and the beloved three-spined stickleback. At one point he writes, "Such examples can be multiplied ad infinitum", causing this reviewer to reflexively drop his book. Nor does the acquisitive behavior of children escape Pipes's cascade of what must be thousands of 4 by 6 index cards. Following children, presumably in logical progression, are "possession among primitive peoples" and "societies of hunters and gatherers". The myth of a primitive communism is bound and taken to the scaffold, while private property in antiquity, feudal and mediaeval times, is reported, together with the creation of the state as the guarantor of ownership.
Pipe points to England as the classic illustration of how private wealth came to restrain public authority. Parliament, the servant of the crown from the 11th to the 15th century, then its partner from the 16th to the early 17th century, became the crown's master in the 1640's. The secret, described by Pipe in habitual detail, was simple. The crown needed money. The "people" had it or controlled it and demanded freedoms and reforms for it. He traces English history from pre-Norman times through the development of the common law, the crucial history of English taxation, the history of the Tudors, Stuarts, the Commonwealth, and the Revolution of 1688.
By way of comparison to England's history, the story of patrimonial Russia, including two and a half centuries of serfdom and seventy years of Communist rule during the latter of which Russians were deprived of liberties to a degree hitherto unknown on earth, is painstakingly set forth in proof of how the absence of the right of property makes tyrannical government possible. Like its predecessors, this chapter sorely needed surgery. It is overloaded with historical material that satisfies only a narrow scholarly interest. Still, there are matters that might engage the reader, particularly Pipes's development of the idea that Russians historically saw sovereign power as the source out of which property issued, and the fact that Russian liberals under the Tsar saw law as the cornerstone of liberty but did not see the connection between law and private property.
In Pipes's last chapter, he tours our welfare capitalist state, complaining that entitlements create dependence, environmental laws are oppressive, minimum wage laws interfere with freedom of contract, banks are pressured into minority loans, rent control is bad economics, administrative agencies are governmental islands broken away from the continental shelf, taxation of personal income unjustly redistributes wealth, affirmative action in employment is the most egregious form of governmental interference, the government takes property by regulating its use, and so on, providing a communal table at which readers of this review at this moment are selecting their favorite complaints.
Pipes's book invites criticism, but there is in this his last chapter a sudden, disarming admission. A way, he writes, must be found to preserve property as a fundamental human right while, at the same time, "ensuring fundamental social justice". Had Pipes but written a slim, creative volume on social justice in a capitalist state, he might have given us something worth fifty books on the connection between property and freedom. The way to preserve the right to property and to assure social justice, he argues, is mainly "by attitudes which determine how laws and institutions are employed." This reviewer would put it another way. On the one hand, welfare capitalism offers the best opportunity for realizing freedom and achieving productivity while assuring minimum benefits to those least fortunate. On the other hand, working and middle class majorities may demand too much equality with the rich, thus impairing the prospect of long term economic productivity and giving too little equality to the
underprivileged to satisfy their right to human development. Thus, the justice of welfare capitalism depends on the virtue of moderation by all classes for the sake of the common good. Imperfect as the analogy may be, it is somewhat like one ship towing another at sea. The knack is to keep both ships "in step" by using a tow line of such a length that the ships meet the waves and ride over them together, otherwise one vessel might be in a trough while the other is on a crest, causing the line to slacken and then tauten with sudden violence, doing neither much good. So too in welfare capitalism. The expectations of the classes must be such that one does not destroy the other, otherwise they will all go down.
Rating: 
Summary: Praise for Property and Freedom
Review: By way of The Independent Review (Spring 2000)Richard Pipes is best known as an important scholar of Russian and Soviet history. In Property and Freedom, he combines his mastery of Russian history with a much broader subject, the relationship between private property and liberty. Relying primarily on the histories of England and Russia, Pipes makes a compelling argument that freedom and private property are intimately linked. As he puts it, "While property in some form is possible without liberty, the contrary is inconceivable" (p. xiii)... Pipes begins his investigation with a brief but useful survey of some of the common but frequently vague terms he uses in the book. The term property, he explains, has several levels of meaning, the broadest of which can "encompass everything that properly belongs to a person . . . including life and liberty" (p. xv). It is this broad understanding of the term property that "provides the philosophical link between ownership and freedom" (p. xv)... Chapters 1 and 2 are entitled "The Idea of Property" and "The Institution of Property." The first is a kind of intellectual history of the development of the concept of property, and the second is a historical narrative of how the institution of property developed. Both chapters provide clear, concise reviews of the main points of each history, including well-chosen examples from the historical and anthropological literature... Chapters 3 and 4 illustrate different ways in which two specific states, England and Russia, actually developed historically. These case studies are the strongest part of the book. Pipes marshals an impressive battery of evidence to demonstrate how in England the importance of private property led steadily to the development of a strong spirit of individual freedom and a vigorous democratic tradition...The history of Russia is so different from that of England, Pipes argues, largely because of the historically weak tradition of private property in Russia. Pipes uses the Weberian concept of a "patrimonial" state to describe Russia. Unlike their counterparts in England (or, indeed, in western Europe in general), the Russian monarchs historically considered themselves and were considered by others as not only the rulers but the owners of their realm. Although private property existed, it did not exist independently of the state, but "emanated from it"... The final chapter, "Property in the Twentieth Century," picks up the historical narrative appoximately where the two case studies end. During the twentieth century, the institution of private property comes under relentless attack, first from the totalitarian ideologies of fascism and communism and, finally, from the welfare state. Pipes makes a strong argument that the welfare-state policies that have emerged in western Europe and North America over the past several decades (including the increasing acceptance of the concepts of "positive rights," "entitlements," government "takings," and so forth) undermine private property and, hence, individual liberty... Pipes continues with this theme in the last section of the book, entitled "Portents." Neither a conclusion nor an epilogue, this section amounts to a warning of coming disaster if the antipropertarian spirit of the welfare state is not checked. Pipes cites Tocqueville in stressing the dangers of a despotic democracy in which, as Tocque-ville described it, the "nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd" (p. 292)... Property and Freedom is an important contribution. By providing two very closely argued historical case studies, Pipes has issued a kind of invitation (challenge?) to historians with expertise in other civilizations or national histories to corroborate or refute his thesis. If he successfully provokes such further studies, he will have advanced the discussion of the link between property and liberty even more significantly.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book to Get Ideas From
Review: I found this to be a thought-provoking book that helped me strengthen my own understanding between the connection between ownership and use of one's own property and the freedom that entails. I am a lay reader coming to this subject, so this was more to create ideas on my part than anything else. Because of my lack of expertise, I would just like to say it is well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: The Central Role of Property in Society
Review: In this book, Richard Pipes examines the role of property in the cause of human freedom from every angle. One, Pipes discusses ideologies of property: what classical thinkers thought about property, what later Europeans thought, especially the philosophes and utopians of the early modern era, and so on.
Two, Pipes discusses the anthropology of property. I consider this chapter to be the most valuable in the book because I've never seen a discussion like this anywhere as it relates to property rights and political theory. I have studied anthropology and sociobiology, so the terminology and the science is familiar, but the application is different. Pipes notes that property is universal; land is not always considered property, but all peoples have things which are considered such, and even when communist regimes outlawed property, theft became rampant. This was human nature revolting against ideology. He notes that human beings know property intrinsically; parents have to teach their children to share, not to covet. He notes that other primates, and many nonprimates, have property, and that across species females tend to find propertyless males unattractive. There has never been a society without property, and the contrast between reality and the mythical visions of propertyless societies is clear.
Three, Pipes discusses and compares the historical development of property rights in England and Russia, the latter being his field of expertise. Whereas secure property rights gave English landowners leverage against the monarchy, in patrimonial Russia there was nothing to check Tsarist absolutism. The submission of the country to Soviet totalitarianism and the current move toward "managed democracy" in Vladimir Putin's Russia have been natural consequences of Russia's heritage. (Pipes has an article in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs about popular acceptance of authoritarianism in modern Russia that is very insightful as to the current situation.)
Four, Pipes discusses the politics of property. He argues that, while property rights were essential to the foundation of democracy, democracy can become a threat to property rights as people begin to realize that they can regulate the property of others and redistribute some of it to themselves through the electoral system. Unfortunately, the last few decades of Western history seem to bear this out.
Overall, I would suggest this book for anyone seeking to understand the role and importance of property in the development and freedom of human societies.
Rating:
Summary: Completely off-the-mark.
Review: Instead of being titled "property and freedom," it should be titled "property and power." Pipes was a prominent old cold-war apologist for American capitalism, and you can tell that he is still trapped in his little world of false-dichotomy.
Pipes overall argument is contrived, and with the exception of his knowledge of Russian history, superficial. Most of his time is spent criticizing the Stalinist Soviet Union, while at the same time lacking any thoughtful rebuttal to Marx's critique of capitalism.
His title claim, that freedom cannot exist without private property, is weak philosophically and logically. He has poor insight into the nature of freedom and presonal responsibilty. He would really benefit by reading some Sartre or Nietzche, before trying to describe his own made up idea freedom. His attempts to link economic thought with philosophy and history fail miserably. He barely exposes the actual writings of Marx. This is incredibly unfortuante since most "real-world" capitalists, such as wealthy Wall street brokers, know that Marx understood capitalism better than any of its supporters. His philosophical support is all anecdotal with no real thoughtful analysis. His historical summary, although detailed with Russia, leaves much to be desired. He fails to discuss slavery, prostitution, or even slumlords, all which flourish under American capitalism.
Although some might find his credentials enough to accept his flimsy argument, I for one was greatly disappointed. I realize that property is linked to power, but freedom is something completely different.
I'm sure many right-wing folks will look past all of this flaws in this books and embrace it. I'm sure the paternalistic allure of an established Harvard professor will cause some to avoid challenging the views in his book.
But I'm not trying to convince those people. Look past the credentials, the excessive use of footnotes to appear more "academic" ( a clear sign of a writer who is insecure of his own beliefs!), and the comfort of someone who agrees with your agenda, and you will discover shallow puerile nonsense.
Rating:
Summary: Philosophically weak
Review: Pipes presents a very convincing and thoughtful historical analysis of the relationship between the development of property rights and freedom. His surveys (the first few chapters) of the role of property and property rights and law in various historical groups are fascinating, and his case studies of England and Russia are excellent.
His downfall comes in the last few chapters where historical analysis drifts into political speculation. Mr. Pipes would have done well to stick to his discipline: his attempts to relate what he considers the erosion of property rights in Western society to his main thesis are weak. They are poorly concieved (both property and freedom are already well-developed in the West - how do current events relate to their development in the past?) and constructed (they are shallow, undeveloped and full of flaws that are immediately apparent even to me, a student!) Despite this, the first 2/3rds of the book come highly recommended. Just don't take the last chapter or so too seriously - and don't let its weaknesses overshadow "Property and Freedom"'s strengths.
Rating:
Summary: Property and Freedom: Historical Perspective
Review: Richard Pipes is one of the leading academic authorities on Russian and Soviet history. He starts this book by admitting that its subject matter is outside his area of special expertise. Despite this discalimer, he has produced a useful and interesting work on the relationship between property rights and freedom. Pipes' approach draws on his expertise as a historian. He describes the historical development of the idea of property rights with particular emphasis on the contrasting experiences of England and Russia. He demonstrates that the development of political and economic freedom in England is directly linked to the early establishment of property rights in that country while the total lack of freedom in Russia (prior to 1991 and excluding the brief 1905-1917 period) is equally linked to the total lack of property rights there. This book is not a complete answer to the very broad question of how property and freedom are related. It does, however, make a valuable contribution from the historical perspective. To more fully understand this question, I recommend the following: For an economic perspective: Mancur Olsen, Power and Prosperity; for a legal/social perspective, Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital. Together, these three books provide a fairly complete answer to the question.
Rating:
Summary: Property and Freedom: Historical Perspective
Review: Richard Pipes is one of the leading academic authorities on Russian and Soviet history. He starts this book by admitting that its subject matter is outside his area of special expertise. Despite this discalimer, he has produced a useful and interesting work on the relationship between property rights and freedom. Pipes' approach draws on his expertise as a historian. He describes the historical development of the idea of property rights with particular emphasis on the contrasting experiences of England and Russia. He demonstrates that the development of political and economic freedom in England is directly linked to the early establishment of property rights in that country while the total lack of freedom in Russia (prior to 1991 and excluding the brief 1905-1917 period) is equally linked to the total lack of property rights there. This book is not a complete answer to the very broad question of how property and freedom are related. It does, however, make a valuable contribution from the historical perspective. To more fully understand this question, I recommend the following: For an economic perspective: Mancur Olsen, Power and Prosperity; for a legal/social perspective, Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital. Together, these three books provide a fairly complete answer to the question.
Rating:
Summary: Pravda! It's about time. . .
Review: That a scholar of world class dimensions devote energy to this controversial, maligned, and much over-looked topic. In another context, long-time Pipe's colleague Robert Conquest, has told us that in the rush to enforce the Enlightenment's twin and paradoxically incompatible shibboliths, "Liberty" and "Egality," the former has been ignored for the strict enforcement of the latter. It is no coincidence therefore, that when one see's the Quixotic Quest to make everyone equal, "freedom" necessarily is trampled. Pipe's thesis, that "liberty" and "property" are essentially synonyms, is certain to be rejected by those whom wish to strictly enforce the failed holy grail of marxism and its bastard offspring, Soviet communism. But the point is well taken; without strict appreciation for the social vitality of private property ownership, and its entailment of personal economic responsibility, those whom would ignore or trivialize property rights are doomed to repeat the cycle of the Tragedy of the Commons scenario, to all of our detriments. Bravo, Professor Pipes!
Rating:
Summary: Reactionary Nonsense
Review: This book could have been written in 1890; all the old rubbish is here - smug Anglo-Saxon superiority, the belief that "human nature" makes socialism and even serious reforms impossible, the angry assertion that the so-called natural order of things has been needlessly disrupted by such dastardly trouble-makers as Plato, Thomas Moore, Rousseau and, above all others, the red devil Karl Marx. Not a word here about the roles that the slave trade and piracy by such delightful fellows as Drake and Morgan played in the growth of capitalism in Britain and North America. If free market capitalism brings freedom, then how come such tyrants as Pinochet, Francisco Franco and Somoza loved it? And why did the German capitalists finance Hitler? John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan would have loved this book. Rosa Luxemburg and and Martin Luther King would have hated it. That says it all. t
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