What is "independence for The Individual"? The Whig journalists who published Cato's Letters, gave the following answer to this vital question way back in 1721. After saying that men would much rather not live under masters as their servants and followers, the authors go on to say that Men will therefore always seek their Independence in Private Property:
And therefore all Men are animated by the Passion of acquiring and defending Property; because Property is the best Support for that Independency, so passionately desired by all Men. Even Men the most dependent have it constantly in their Heads and their Wishes, to become independent one Time or other; and the Property which they are acquiring, or mean to acquire, is intended to bring them out of it, and to procure them an agreeable Independency. And as Happiness is the Effect of Independency, and Independency the effect of Property; so certain Property is the Effect of Liberty alone, and can only be secured by the Laws of Liberty; Laws which are made by Consent, and cannot be repealed without it.
What did "socialist independence" get us? Only "collective property": Air India, SAIL, ONGC, the forest department, the CRZ Act. And slums. No clear titles to land. And now, we are headed for "universal" welfare dependency. Independence? Swaraj? Hah!
I conclude with another powerful quote from the same source:
As the Preservation of Property is the Source of National Happiness; whoever violates Property, or lessens or endangers it, common Sense says, that he is an Enemy to his Country; and Publick Spirit says, that he should feel its Vengeance.
Clear thinking from 1721; or about 125 years before Dr. Karl Marx.
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