Why Property Is Theft and Why It MattersIn undertaking this explanation, it is perhaps helpful to let the reader (and apparently Sumner) in on the fact that the phrase “property is theft” comes from P.J. Proudhon’s magnum opus What Is Property? I’d love to take credit for such a pithy and correct turn of phrase, but alas I cannot.Simplified Version of Proudhon’s Argument 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. From there, a question arises: if God initially gave the entire earth to mankind to own in common, then how can you ever have individual property? Or, to borrow a line from Locke, since the earth is given to mankind in common, “it seems to some a very great difficulty, how any one should ever come to have a property in any thing.” 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. Everyone else’s ownership share in that piece of the earth is taken from them, violently and without their consent. Why Property Is Theft and Why It Matters 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...