The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages.

• Author: VAN COTT, T. NORMAN
• Position: Review

The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity through the Ages By Tom Bethell New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998. Pp. 378. $29.95.

Tom Bethell, Washington correspondent for the American Spectator, has written a valuable book for economists and noneconomists alike. The seed of the book was a lecture about economic development that Bethell gave to staff members of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, who seemed to him genuinely unaware of the importance of private property and the rule of law. The title traces to Jeremy Bentham, who noted that secure private property rights are "the noblest triumph of humanity over itself."

Bethell, apparently self-taught in economics, says Milton Friedman's regular Newsweek column stimulated his interest in economics. He was especially impressed by Friedman's consistent focus on incentives. The book's underlying premise is "When property is privatized, and the rule of law is established in such a way that all including the rulers themselves are subject to the same law, economies will prosper and civilization will blossom. Of the different possible configurations of property, only private property can have this desirable effect" (p. 3).

Bethell simultaneously develops two themes. First, he describes in detail many historical cases that show how attenuated property rights have shrunk the economic pie. Second, be traces economists' thinking about property and law. Many readers will be familiar with the examples. Even so, it is useful to gather them in one volume.

The examples include the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies, Robert Owen's commune in southern Indiana, the Irish potato famine, the Soviet Union and China, the Arab world, U.S.-inspired land reform in the Third World, zoning, intellectual property, and a multitude of topics under the environmental heading--elephants, rain forests, California water, and the U.S. Forest Service, among others. There is also an entertaining allegory about the hazards confronting residents of an apartment-house complex when they "share" the utility bill.

Most interesting to me were the accounts of the Plymouth colony, the Irish potato famine, and the Arab world. I was unaware that prior to sailing for America, the Pilgrims had opposed the communal arrangement that later nearly caused their complete destruction. (I had always assumed that the Pilgrims were naive Christians emulating the early church.) Their position had been compromised by agents who acceded to...