The Importance of Property Being Theft 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. --- - #DoubleNegative Property Is Theft

In Proudhon’s period, the animating assumption of essentially all works on property was that God created the earth and gave it to mankind in common to use. This was the long-standing Christian view, which was notably reflected in Thomist thought and even received a ringing endorsement from John Locke. -- The Christianist idea of the common ownership of all of the earth is Proudhon’s starting point. --- - Perpetual Theft

The Truth As It Changes;

Perpetual Theft

Why Property Is Theft and Why It Matters In undertaking this explanation, it is perhaps helpful to let the reader (and apparently Sumner) in on the...