Eminent Domain: Thievery By Another Name

Eminent domain is another deplorable practice that the government enjoys engaging in quite frequently and the term refers to the power of government to be able to force any citizen to sell their private property, whether that citizen wants to sell the property or not.

The state defends its force by insisting that they offer a good value (”just compensation” they call it) to those who they coerce to sell their property, claiming that the victims always receive an average market value for whatever property that the state is confiscating at the time.

However, eminent domain is an exchange that isn’t voluntary and so how can any value that the state assigns to the property be construed as a just value?

Just values are determined when two parties voluntarily agree upon a value, because they both see the transaction as being beneficial to them. One person wants the property more than the house and the other wants the money more than the property. If either of the parties’ freedom is violated in forcing them to make a sale at a disagreeable price, then that exchange doesn’t seem offered for ”just compensation.”

And there have been many occasions where victims of this practice have claimed that they never consented to the exchange and that it was strictly forced upon them.

Aside from the issue of value, the state insists that such an action is also justified because they supposedly confiscate the land for the better good of society. They claim that this state power is necessary if we want to have things like roads and bridges. But their action still constitutes coercion, regardless of their reasoning, because they are forcing people to sell who might not otherwise want to.

And we shouldn't be surprised that such a power has been abused and that there would be repeated claims of corruption when it comes to this use of authority.

Legal scholars have been writing about this topic for many years and they suggest that in many cases when it comes to the state exercising their power of eminent domain use, the victims of that are almost never made whole; they don’t receive fair compensation.

Many activists have been pushing for reform surrounding eminent domain for many years now, but it’s still practiced heavily by the state. The state’s use of eminent domain can be construed as a direct attack on private property and to many it’s seen as a violation of justice. Despite the view that the policy is overwhelmingly unjust however, many courts and federal judges continue to rule that eminent domain is a justified practice.