From Richard Pipes's book, Property and Freedom

The right to property in and of itself does not guarantee civil rights and liberties. But historically speaking, it has been the single most effective device for ensuring both, because it creates an autonomous sphere in which, by mutual consent, neither the state nor society can encroach: by drawing a line between the public and the private, it makes the owner co-sovereign, as it were. Hence, it is arguably more important than the right to vote. The weakening of property rights by such devices as wealth distribution for purposes of social welfare and interference with contractual rights for the sake of “civil rights” undermines liberty in the most advanced democracies even as the peacetime accumulation of wealth and the observance of democratic procedures conveys the impression that all is well.