Property, power, and American democracy

by David A. Schultz

"One legacy of the Reagan and post-Reagan years has been a questioning by both liberals and conservatives of recent eminent domain and property rights decisions by the Supreme Court. This timely volume examines the changing political and constitutional status of these concepts. Schultz argues that we need to rethink the nature of property rights by asking what purpose they serve in American society and whether they deserve special legal and Judicial Protection against legislative interference."--BOOK JACKET. "Property, Power, and American Democracy is founded on a searching re-examination of the role of property in early and contemporary American legal and political thought. From this perspective, Schultz shows that the meaning of property is currently in flux as a result of a failure to sustain those values that property was originally supposed to protect in our society: individual liberty, limited government, and minority rights."--BOOK JACKET. "In keeping with the moral and politica