Property is an indispensable ingredient of both prosperity and freedom... It is a serious mistake, unfortunately often committed by the U.S. government in its foreign dealings, to define freedom to mean exclusively democracy, for, as noted above, ordinary citizens may enjoy a wide range of economic and legal freedoms along with personal rights without being able to choose their government.
That is from Richard Pipe's Property and Freedom on pages 286 -- 287. Pipe is Baird Research Professor of History at Harvard.
Seems like HK's self-proclaimed democrats are committing the same mistake as well. BTW, if you like Property and Freedom, do get his Communism as well, a slim volume that would walk you through the tragic history of attempts to build communist society on earth.
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