Form: Short Note

GENETIC PACIFICATION: THE PROBLEM OF RETALIATION

I think that anyone with knowledge of the intellectual history of law is keenly aware of the church’s problem of breaking up the large family holdings, and the law’s problem of preventing retaliation. What I think has proven difficult for most people in the conservative and certainly in the libertarian movements, is the recognition that property rights must extend to cover all those impositions that invoke retaliation. While we consider the central problem the state, the state is the result of suppressing private impositions while preserving political rents. But the central problem we face if we wish to reduce or elminate the interference and rent seeking of the state, is to eliminate by way of the common law, by positive assertion of property rights, all actions that produce retaliation, whether in public or private life.