Most Americans associate England’s Magna Carta (the Great Charter) with the right to a jury trial if they are accused of a crime. Few realize the Charter was the culmination of a tax revolt. It’s a declaration of economic property rights — against high taxes and government restriction on who can engage in commerce — that has renewed relevance in 2020 America.
There were multiple editions of Magna Carta. The first, extracted under coercion from the English King John in 1215, was quickly afterwards repudiated by him and annulled by the Pope. John’s son, King Henry III, followed the “advice” of his barons and re-issued the Charter in his own name. Subsequent English kings also re-issued it, eventually in English (the original was in Latin). The fundamental theme of the Charter is to enshrine the principle that certain rights can not be infringed by government. Essential among those are the rights of “commoners” to the security of their private property, and the freedom to pursue an occupation.
Recognizing economic rights for the commoners was necessary to the Charter’s existence. To compel King John’s acquiescence, the English barons, who objected to confiscatory taxation levied against them, needed the help of the common people of London. Securing that help required that the economic interests of the Londoners — most importantly the right to engage in trade free from government regulation — be protected as well.
Four centuries later, King Charles’ disregard of those economic liberties precipitated the English Civil War. Charles believed he had the divine right to tax and regulate commerce as he saw fit. Like their counterparts in 1215, business owners in 1642 rebelled, culminating with Charles being beheaded by the commoners in 1649.
English economic refugees carried the Magna Carta principles of economic freedom from oppressive government taxation and regulation across the Atlantic to the American colonies. King George ignored those freedoms and precipitated the American revolution.
About the same time as Americans independence, Scotsman Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations was published. Smith wrote that the well-being of any society requires the economic rights protected in the Charter. Without those rights, government controls will cripple the economy and undermine individual freedom.
In 2020, our economic liberty is being threatened by government mandated shutdowns. We are being subjected to regulation of private property, business, and commerce in a way tyrannical English kings would envy. Government officials are restricting individual freedom to pursue commerce, contrary to rights guaranteed in Magna Carta. Those most negatively impacted by the shutdown are small-business owners, their families and employees — the very group of people Magna Carta protected from this very sort of oppressive regulation. These shutdowns turn back the clock on economic freedom by eight centuries.
That is illustrated by simply observing who benefits from the shutdown. Two groups! First, those who prefer staying at home, not working, while living off of public largesse — thus binding them to the government like medieval serfs.
Second, large corporations — like medieval guilds — benefit from the government permitting some businesses to operate, but not others. The king’s use of guilds, to limit participation in economic activity to those who bribed him, was one of the abuses Magna Carta prohibited. (Just substitute “lobbied” for “bribed” and the analogy is complete.)
Those today who curtail the economic freedom central to our concept of society do so on the questionable premise of “saving lives”, while destroying far many more from the resulting economic damage. It’s reminiscent of the apocryphal statement from the Vietnam war about destroying a village in order to save it.
It’s not hyperbole to say this upcoming presidential election will literally decide if we continue along the path of economic prosperity based on individual free enterprise as the authors of Magna Carta and our founders envisioned… or do we revert to economic serfdom with high taxes and the sort of government controlled economy (this time called the “Green New Deal”) they rebelled against.
One choice is enlightened prosperity based on time-tested principles of free enterprise. The other is a return to the oppressive economic inequities of the middle ages by abandoning the limits on taxation and government regulation that were proclaimed 800 years ago in Magna Carta.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.