ABSTRACT
These are hard cases, the second more so than the first; and I shall not attempt any detailed resolution of them here. In a democratic
of firms and factories might also be said of cities and towns, if not always of states. They, too, are created by entrepreneurial energy, enterprise, and risk taking; and they, too, recruit and hold their citizens, who are free to come and go, by offering them an attractive place to live. Yet we should be uneasy about any claim to own a city or a town; nor is ownership an acceptable basis for political power within cities and towns. If we consider deeply why this is so, we shall have to conclude, I think, that it shouldn’t be acceptable in firms or factories either. What we need is a story about a capitalist entrepreneur who is also a political founder and who tries to build his power on his property.
