I remember how angry I felt the day that the city of Richfield, MN announced that they would move to condemn people's houses and small businesses to allow Best Buy to build a new corporate headquarters. I did not know any of these people personally, but I was still angry about such an abuse of power. Private property is the foundation of our economy and our society. While there may be public projects important enough to require such drastic action, building a new corporate headquarters was not such a critical public good.
What was even more frustrating was that at that time I held an endowed chair in entrepreneurship and small business named after the late wife of Best Buy founder Richard Schulze.
Today the Supreme Court made such moves the law of the land. Not only will we now have to subsidize large corporations through tax breaks, but local governments can sweeten the deal even more by taking away our homes and our businesses to make way for these corporate giants to build their buildings wherever they like.
The Connecticut case was a working class neighborhood that local officials wanted to condemn to make way for a health club, a hotel and office buildings. This is similar to the Best Buy land grab in Richfield in which middle class homes and many small businesses were wiped away in the name of development.
The Fifth Amendment speaks of public use being the only just cause for property being taken away from our citizens. From this day forward large corporations can claim "public use" and join with governmental officials to take away our property and name the price they will pay in compensation.
Today is a sad day for the economic freedom of both the small businesses and the individual citizens of America.
