Property and democracy: Joel Kotkin

To understand how American democracy has worked, and why its future may be limited, it’s critical to look at the issue of property. From early on, the country’s republican institutions have rested on the notion of dispersed ownership of land — a striking departure from the realities of feudal Europe, east Asia or the Middle East.
From Jefferson and Madison’s republic of yeoman farmers to the suburban homeowners of the postwar era, the notion of dispersed property ownershi