A dispute between the U.S. Department of Labor and a landscaping company led the DOJ to state that money was not always considered property. Rob Johnson, a senior attorney at the Institute of Justice, said this argument almost made him fall out of his chair.
A Startling Statement: DOJ Claims Fiat Money Is Not Necessarily Property
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A Shilling U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Take: ‘Money Is Not Necessarily Property for Constitutional Purposes’
A long dragged dispute between the U.S. Department of Labor and a landscaping company has produced a footnote that left Institute of Justice (IJ) Senior Attorney Rob Johnson baffled.
In C.S. Lawn & Landscape v. U.S. Department of Labor, the District Court Of Columbia made this allegation, arguing that “money is not necessarily ‘property’ for constitutional purposes.” The court elaborates on this notion, claiming that this is true due to several considerations.
The footnote explains that the government is the one that creates fiat money, and it is also empowered to retake part of that money in the form of taxation, which is not considered a deprivation of property.
Also, the court claims that “thinking of money as ‘property’ would also make little sense” given that the U.S. Congress faculty of spending money has been disputed even as it has been supported by the idea of providing for the general welfare as stated in the constitution, originating numerous debates on this.
If money were considered property, the court continues, these debates would have no root, given that it has the function of disposing of U.S. property proclaimed in the constitution.
According to Johnson, this can create a precedent for taking money in this kind of dispute without a trial and a judge. “If your money is not your property, what is to stop the government from just seizing all of it tomorrow—for any reason it gives?” he stresses.
He concluded that, even when these arguments are a flop, they force a rethinking of the current monetary system, highlighting the need to hold at least some part of one’s wealth in the form of gold or cryptocurrency.
Read more: 16 Years Later: How Bitcoin’s Genesis Block Sparked a New Era of Money
The case will be elevated to a federal court soon, and Johnson believes this notion will be withdrawn.
