Folly: seizure of private property and calling home ownership "white supremacy"

Cea Weaver, Zohran Mamdani’s Tenant Director, clearly thinks they have the right to steal private property. In addition to the thievery, his communist Tenant Director believes all property should be treated as a collective good. She says that especially white families, but people of color who own homes too, won’t own their homes.

Seizing private property and stigmatizing home ownership are folly because they undermine the core institutions that make markets deliver growth, opportunity, and widely shared prosperity in the first place [1].

• Property rights are the backbone of a free market: they create predictable rules so people can save, invest, trade, and plan; threaten seizure, and you inject fear and arbitrariness that collapses long‑term investment and economic coordination [2].
• When expropriation risk rises, the cost of capital rises and entrepreneurship falls, especially in housing where projects are capital‑intensive and irreversible; the result is less construction, tighter supply, and higher prices that hurt the very people such policies claim to help [3].
• Prices convey information only when ownership is secure and exchange is voluntary; once property can be taken or politicized, price signals fail, allocation becomes political, and you get shortages, queues, and deterioration rather than affordability and quality [4].
• Home ownership is a voluntary, race‑neutral vehicle for wealth building, collateral, and stability; branding it “white supremacy” discourages participation, delegitimizes a key path to mobility, and diverts attention from the real issue—artificial scarcity driven by barriers to building and exchange [5].
• The rule of law and equality before the law—not collective punishment or racialized framing—are what protect minorities and newcomers by guaranteeing open access to markets and impartial enforcement of contracts and property rights [6].
• Housing outcomes improve when we expand supply and competition: legalize more by‑right building, allow density (ADUs, duplexes, mid‑rise), streamline permits, cut exclusionary zoning and fees, and open finance to new entrants; these market reforms lower prices without violating anyone’s rights [1].
• Aligning incentives through ownership means better maintenance and neighborhood stewardship; eroding ownership turns assets into political commons, inviting underinvestment, rent‑seeking, and decay [2].
• Economic justice comes from removing coercive barriers (licensing bottlenecks, restrictive codes, opaque approvals) and enforcing equal protection, not from confiscation or stigmatizing a universal wealth‑building tool [3].

In short, property seizure destroys incentives and price signals, while denouncing ownership misdiagnoses the problem; the free‑market path is secure property, open entry, and more building. which are conditions that reliably expand access, lower costs, and broaden ownership for everyone [4][5][6].

Sources

1 Economic Thought Before Adam Smith by Murray Rothbard

2 Capitalism by George Reisman

3 Classical Economics by Murray Rothbard

4 Human Action, Third Revised Edition by Ludwig Von Mises

5 Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition, by Murray Rothbard

6 A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

In addition:

Here are additional points and mechanisms, consistent with laissez‑faire principles, explaining why property seizure and stigmatizing home ownership would damage markets and growth:

• Investment is intertemporal: the mere possibility of expropriation raises hurdle rates, delays projects, and shrinks the housing pipeline because developers treat new builds as irreversible “real options” under heightened risk [2][3].
• Mortgages sit on enforceable titles; if seizure risk clouds collateral, lenders tighten standards, raise rates, and ration credit, which disproportionately harms first‑time and lower‑income buyers [2][5].
• Housing supply is slow to adjust even in stable regimes; policy uncertainty compounds this, yielding chronic underbuilding, higher rents, and price volatility that punish renters and buyers alike [3][4].
• Property tax bases fund local services; when ownership is threatened, values and transactions fall, budgets tighten, and public services erode, setting off a negative feedback loop of disinvestment and decline [1][4].
• Markets allocate via prices; politically driven allocation invites queuing, favoritism, and misallocation that destroy the informational role of prices and reduce quality and choice [4][2].
• Ownership is a primary asset for mobility; stigmatizing it discourages saving and collateral formation, which disproportionately harms those with the fewest alternative wealth‑building channels [5][6].
• Owners internalize neighborhood upkeep and long‑term stewardship; when assets become politicized commons, maintenance, safety, and civic investment deteriorate due to weakened incentives [2][1].
• Capital and talent are mobile; when rules threaten property, investment and skilled workers relocate, reducing urban productivity and tax capacity for everyone who remains [3][4].
• Trust has hysteresis: once government normalizes seizure or hostile rhetoric toward ownership, credibility is costly and slow to rebuild, keeping risk premia elevated even after policy reversals [2][6].
• Racialized attacks on neutral institutions backfire; equal protection and rule‑of‑law neutrality are what safeguard newcomers and minorities by guaranteeing access to markets and title security [6][5].

Market‑consistent reforms that expand access and affordability without violating rights:

• Legalize more housing by right: end exclusionary zoning, allow ADUs/duplexes/mid‑rise, remove parking minimums, and streamline approvals to unlock private building at scale [1][4].
• Phase out supply‑choking price controls and discretionary bottlenecks so prices can attract capital to where demand is strongest, increasing quantity and lowering long‑run costs [4][1].
• Open construction markets: reduce licensing barriers, enable modular and factory‑built methods, and simplify codes that block innovation and new entrants [3][1].
• Increase competition in housing finance: broaden lender entry and alternative underwriting so creditworthy households can qualify without degrading collateral standards [5][3].
• Strengthen rule‑of‑law basics: fast title adjudication, predictable permitting, and equal enforcement to lower risk premia and attract long‑term investment [6][2].
• Encourage voluntary models (co‑ops, shared‑equity, community land trusts) where participants opt in and property rights are clear, avoiding coercion that scares off investment [1][5].

Bottom line: secure, race‑neutral property rights and open entry are preconditions for abundant housing and upward mobility; confiscation and stigmatization erode incentives, distort signals, and ultimately hurt the very people they purport to help [4][5][6].

Sources

1 Classical Economics by Murray Rothbard

2 Capitalism by George Reisman

3 Man, Economy, and State with Power and Market, Scholar's Edition, by Murray Rothbard

4 Human Action, Third Revised Edition by Ludwig Von Mises

5 Economic Thought Before Adam Smith by Murray Rothbard

6 The Birth of Plenty by William J. Bernstein