Property Rights Essential for Prosperity

Rodney Hide has an excellent post, taking to task those who wish to force Telecom to give up the exclusive rights to their copper wire network.

According to pundits the way to speed up your internet connection is to “unbundle the local loop”. That means forcing Telecom to allow competitors to use the copper wire Telecom owns through to your house.

It’s the same argument that sees government trying to overtutrespassass laws to allow access to waterways.

Experts can see the result they want; the only thing that stands in their way is other people’s property. Easy, get government to pinch it.

Although private property rights are sometimes inconvenient to those who know what's best for us, they are the foundation of all freedom, progress and prosperity.

All investors in the future want to know that their investment is secure. Security of investment depends on rock solid property rights. Therefore property rights bring about increased investment which brings about greater prosperity.

Those who wish to dilute Telecom's property rights, see a short term gain. What they don't see is all those investors who spend their money elsewhere because NZ clearly can't be trusted to respect property rights.