The right to property is among the most important rights of a free society, because it means that individuals are the owners of the fruit of their labor.

Labor is not simply something we do to feed, clothe and shelter ourselves, but something we do to enjoy our lives and our liberties the way we want on our lands, in our homes or businesses, with our time. It is something we do now to free us up later for enjoyment and for spending our time the way we want. Whether that involves helping others is up to us, and most often it is a course we as Americans choose to take.

We have control over what labor we choose to do and how much of an impact it will have on others. We have control over the fruit of that labor. We are also responsible when we knowingly use our labor or its fruit to infringe the rights of others or when we team up and demand so much for our labor that it hurts the fruits of previous labor that created our opportunity in the first place.

We have the right to offer people something of value for their labor and pick the right person to do work for us under our terms. We have the right to refuse to labor if it doesn't meet our terms, but we must be willing to accept the consequences of not laboring. Jesus and his followers have said, "if you do not work, neither should you eat" (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

We have the right to labor for value freely offered without a third party stepping in to define what that labor or that value should be. For who can tell me that I can't work for a value that I am willing to work for, when I am the one who knows what I need and have control of the means to get it?

As free individuals, we also have the right to fail. Sometimes, we have the responsibility to fail, especially when "we" are not individuals at all, but a corporation of people who have lost touch with individual rights or who have been consumed by an unsustainable course.

Whether as individuals or as corporations, and whether the corporations are large banks, large auto manufacturers, airlines or government itself, we must be allowed to take the natural course that our actions bring about. We must not allow our actions to punish everyone else that has tried to go about life the right way. We must not infringe others right to property just to protect the property that we have squandered and used for our own undoing.

God tells us in his Ten Commandments that we "shall not covet our neighbor's house, nor his wife, nor his labor, nor his animals, nor any thing that belongs to our neighbor" (Exodus 20:17). It is in God's Word that the right to property and the basis of liberty is derived. 

It is also good for failing models to fail so that new models can take their place. Everyone advances as a result. When a failing model is held up by stealing the fruits of other people's labor, the failing model continues to fail and everyone else suffers twice. Is it not enough to suffer once from the failure of a large influence on labor, value and property? Must we suffer twice by allowing another's failure to hold us back from the growth of new ideas and engenuity that create new labor, value and property?

I read every day about companies trying new models for flight service, auto manufacturing, financing and even getting people involved with their government, but each time I also hear about a failing model that is keeping these innovators from making a difference in the world and benefiting from the fruit of their labor.

Why are we trending toward a mindset that rewards failure by taking from producers to give second chances to people who have mismanaged their labor or property? Why are we so ready to put our hand out to take something from others that we do not deserve and have not earned?

When property is taken by force from people who have earned it and given to others who haven't, the people who would work according to their ability and effort to fill their own needs as they see fit no longer feel inspired to produce simply so they can live the same way as people with the same abilities who expend less effort. What results is a mediocre life for all in a far less productive society. The quality of life for everybody always decreases when property is distributed evenly by force.

The only way for a people to remain free is to allow them to keep the fruits of their labor and to hold them responsible when they have mismanaged their property so much that they lose it and begin to go after the fruits that others have created. Such a system is fair, even though it is not easy sometimes to watch people fail. Without such failure, others would not be able to succeed. And no failure is permanent. God commands us to "be renewed in the Spirit of our Minds" (Ephesians 4:23) — to think differently about our lives each day, to get up from our failures and try again. There is always a new day to labor for fruits to enjoy during the next one.