Letter in Liberty, November 1998, p. 6

The Birth of a Nation

If homeowners' associations ("Costly Liberty," September) are established by voluntary contract over large geographic regions and their contracts become binding not only on those who enter into them but their descendants, how is this morally any different from the legal rules of nation-states? Does the method of creating rules make them binding, or is it the very system of rules itself, or both?

Jim Lippard
Phoenix, Ariz.