Why Property Is Theft and Why It Matters

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The correct answer to this question, reached by Proudhon but not Locke, is that the only way to move from universal common ownership to individual private ownership is through theft. When an individual appropriates pieces of the earth (e.g. land) out of the commons and into private ownership, that individual steals from everyone else.

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Somehow (regardless of how its justified), individuals are permitted to appropriate pieces of the world privately. The upshot of such appropriation is that everyone else’s previously-existing ability to access and use the appropriated piece of the world is stolen from them without their consent. Those who do not go along with having their access and use stolen from them are met with violence. This is theft. Access and use, both valuable things, are taken from people at the barrel of a gun.

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The reason I bring up the fact that property is theft is because most actually-existing libertarian arguments are premised upon the idea that so-called laissez-faire capitalism is somehow voluntary and liberty-respecting. It is, of course, neither. The institutions that make up laissez-faire capitalism, the institution of private property especially, are imposed involuntarily on populations whether they want them or not. And to the extent that such involuntary impositions are enforced by violently attacking other human beings when they don’t comply, they are liberty-infringing.

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