Debate on Eminent Domain

Abstract

On May 10, 2004, a debate took place between Walter E. Block, Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair and Professor of Economics at Loyola University New Orleans, and Richard A. Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Director, Law and Economics Program at the University of Chicago, and the Peter and Kirsten Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. The debate took place at the University of Chicago and was organized and moderated by J.H. Huebert, who was at that time a law student at the University of Chicago and is now a clerk at the US Court of Appeals. What follows is a very lightly edited transcript of the proceedings of that debate. All participants wish to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to Lew Rockwell, president of the Mises Institute, for financially supporting this event.