Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by afarrell 4090 days ago
Is private property really still sanctified when so much of our wealth has come from robbery, slavery, and rents extracted under intimidation?

Strong property rights are very useful to a healthy economy, but sanctified?

2 comments

The standard reply here is that none of those bad foundations is a good justification for someone else (e.g. your neighbor, your homeowner's association, or the state government) to take your stuff, unless they can actually show that whose stuff it ought to be.

If I could hypothetically follow the "chain of legitimacy" for, say, your car all the way back to the original exertion of labor on natural resources...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_property

...I'd likely find some sort of illegal activity at some point. But this doesn't mean I can take your car by force and give it charity.

Depends on how fundamentalist libertarian you are. Private property is the heart of libertarianism. Theft, trespassing - almost all laws that govern do so to protect private property which comes in many forms - including, but not limited to - your body, your person, your family, your house, your possessions.