Libertarian (or classical liberal) law professor Richard Epstein's column this week is about property rights:
Private property is the central institution of classical liberal theory. The Constitution contains the explicit guarantee of the Fifth Amendment, which provides: "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." It is easy to discern the theory behind this provision. It compromises between an absolutist libertarian vision of private property that holds that the state can never take it from its owner, even with full compensation, and the totalitarian vision that routinely allows the government to take private property for public use without paying any compensation at all. The just compensation requirement splits the difference, letting the government force the transfer of property, but only upon payment of just compensation. The state thus avoids the holdout problem, without creating the alternative risk of expropriation.