When I was in law practice, I represented employers in matters involving labor law. My experiences confirmed how respect for the inviolability of private property interests was the essential element not only for a peaceful and orderly society but also for a world of individual liberty free of the violence and destructiveness of political systems. One of the things I noticed with a high degree of consistency was that clients who were the owners of businesses tended to take longer-term (timewise) and more philosophically principled actions than did those who were only managers of the firms they represented. Ownership carried with it a perspective that was inseparable from the personhood of the owner. Business firms with such names as "Ford," "Chrysler," "Westinghouse," "J.P. Morgan," and "Rockefeller," reflected the sense that the personality of the creator-owner transcended his own life and carried over into the family-name shared by his children and grandchildren. In much the same way that long-standing farms would have family cemeteries on them, "property" was looked upon as more than a temporary convenience or asset. One who was an owner cared about the long-term implications of his/her decision-making that extended beyond their death.

The mindset of the manager of an enterprise, I observed, was much different. Being an employee of a firm owned by another, his/her perspective extended, at most, to the end of the contract of employment. There is nothing dishonest or irresponsible in this arrangement; it only demonstrates some of the costs incurred when ownership is separated from control of property. The owner would not want the manager to share in his/her ultimate authority over the property; nor would the manager, as an employee, expect to.

In this sense, the employee's motivations are comparable to those of politicians, judges, and government regulatory agencies. The outcomes of human action are a reflection of the incentives of the actors. The productive and creative regularities of the marketplace are determined not alone by the moral or visionary character of those working within it, nor by their innovative genius. It is, rather, that the incentives of those who control decision-making over what they own, will always be different from those with the power to control the property interests of others. It misses the point to blame politicians, ideologically-driven bureaucrats, or other government officials for undesired outcomes of their interventions in economic matters. Owners are motivated to maximize the long-term well-being of what they own. Non-owners are driven by other considerations. It cannot be otherwise. The naïve sentiment that bringing businessmen into government – in the expectation that their decisions will foster the general profitability of marketplace participants – continues to be voiced. That such practices enhance the allures of "crony-capitalism," is the most that can be said for them. But when, under political systems, control is severed from ownership, bankruptcies and other dislocations are likely to occur, as is the likelihood for the collapse of civilizations, whose vibrancies depend upon what one noted historian called "creative power in the souls of creative people." It is only when individuals are at liberty to act on their authority in the world – a condition dependent upon the private ownership of some part of that world – that such creative energies are released.