Price of Politics

This book makes the unconventional claim that all of the rights in the U.S. Constitution are unified since they are derived from the same sources. Using the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial decision of Kelo v. City of New London to explore one of the most important constitutional questions of our time, this book reaches across disciplines and subfields to bring forth an innovative understanding of rights. The book derives its understanding of rights from historical sources and philosophical texts which then serve as the basis for the empirically backed claim that rights in U.S. have been sacrificed for partisan gain and that the unbiased protection of rights is the only manner in which a free and equitable government and economy can be sustained. Given the theoretical and practical implications of the property rights debate, understanding it is important for everyone in the U.S. and abroad.

In an age when few Americans can define "right" or explain how the founding fathers defined rights, Scott's book is indispensable for a correct understanding of rights and how property rights are inextricably linked to all rights. The erosion of the former leads to the erosion of the latter. No less important, Professor Scott uses Lockean thought as the key to understanding what the founders meant by property rights and examines the Kelo decision to reveal how far modern-day courts have strayed from the original intent., An excellent historical, legal, and theoretical analysis of property rights and their place in an ordered society.... It is a bracing good read.... Recommended., Kelo v. City of New London kicked up a firestorm of debate and legislative reactions in its immediate aftermath. Lost in the heat of the moment was the plight of a fundamental right. Dr. Kyle remedies that deficiency by providing the reader with a substantive analysis of property rights' original constitutionally marbled pedestal and the manner and extent to which the court majority replaced that support with the quicksand of partisan politics.

Kyle Scott is assistant professor of political science at the University of North Florida and author of Dismantling American Common Law: Liberty and Justice in Our Transformed Courts.