ABSTRACT
A current, perhaps dominant, view of the relationship between property and government is twofold: on the one hand, a stable system of exchangeable property rights, that is, a market, requires democracy, that is, something like our current political system, and, on the other, democracy requires markets. Markets require democracy because a fundamental precondition of exchange is that all market participants be free to contract and equal in their capacity to do so, economic characteristics whose full realization is said to require their political counterparts as well. Democracy requires markets, because only a stable system of exchangeable property rights creates security and independence from government or patronage, the preconditions for effective citizenship.
