Rent control is unconstitutional because it is an egregious and uncompensated physical occupation of property. The Constitution says that private property shall not “be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Harmons get no compensation for being coerced into privatized welfare: The state shows compassion to tenants — many of whom are not needy; one of the Harmons’ entitled tenants owns a house on Long Island — by compelling landlords to subsidize them.

A property right in a physical thing is a right to possess, use and dispose of this thing. Because government-compelled possession of property by a third party is an unambiguous taking, the Harmons’ property right has been nullified.

John Locke, an intellectual source of American freedom, said that property rights, which he defined to include rights to “lives, liberties and estates,” exist prior to, and independent of, government, and their preservation is “the great and chief end” for which governments are founded. Property rights provide a sphere of personal sovereignty, a zone of privacy into which government should be able to intrude only with difficulty and only so far. Because they are the basis of individual independence, America’s Founders considered property rights the foundation of all other liberties, including self-government — the governance of one’s self.