[Radim]

This is patently false, as "the concept of property" predates all governments.

Coming from an ex-communist country, comments like yours that assume property/life/liberty must be somehow graciously "granted" by the big brother make me sad.

[fab13n]

The concept of "natural property" exists, it describes what you can personally secure, by any effective means (violence, intimidation, cunning, alliances...)

In the natural order, a predator who killed a prey loses it as soon as a bigger animal comes and takes it. Even before that, the prey who's been killed in the first place lost property on its carcass as soon as the first predator caught it. None of those had any "natural property right" on the carcass beyond its physical ability to secure it.

Property as we casually understand it (a right so effectively enforced that you can take it for granted, even if you don't have the personal means to defend it) is government-issued: it works because it's backed by the threat of government's violence, in the form of police then correction officers beating up most thieves into submission.

And there are ways to transfer property which are admitted as legitimate by the government; among those ways, some are bound to piss off some people. The definition of what kinds of transfers are legitimate is political, i.e. somewhat arbitrary.

So the concept of property not based on permanent mob violence does not predate governments.

[Radim]

I see what you mean. Only the size of the group that stands behind you when someone challenges your property is a matter of scale, not principle. Is it only you? Your immediate family? Pack? Your country? There's always someone with a bigger club...

I believe the GP simply meant that when you base your entire business on extortion (regardless of the group size perpetrating it, incl. governments), you shouldn't complain when another tentacle of the same machinery slaps you in the back.