Essay:Property is Theft

There is a reason why we say "property is theft." The invention of modern private property theory literally took place as the result of an act of theft: the enclosure of the commons in early modern England. The enclosure of the commons and the invention of private property forced millions of previously independent peasants into wage slavery, into a hierarchical and authoritarian relation that required force to maintain. Land that was previously held in common for the usage of all was now held by a minority of landowners, of landlords. The people who had lived and worked on these lands for millennia were forcefully evicted, robbed at gunpoint, of everything they had, including their own homes. Property originated as the result of this early modern act of theft, and hence property is theft.

The upholding of private property, of the initial theft that occurred due to the enclosure of the commons, required and requires force, authority, to maintain. In a way, property itself is authoritarian. This wiki says it opposes authoritarianism, but it doesn't oppose private property. Liberalism itself, Lockean metanarratives on property origins, were an ad hoc excuse concocted up to justify this theft, this enclosure of the commons. And since this wiki is itself a liberal project, it is no wonder that this wiki upholds this pseudohistorical apologia of private property and the authoritarianism it requires to enforce the rule of private property.

A wise man once told me that "all property today is theft, either by the parceling out of the commons via fiat, or by the seizure of land from the indigenous." We haven't even gotten started on the indigenous, who also held this land in common for all to use. Borders were fluid, and rarely permanent, and all land was held communally. To introduce the rule of private property into North America, it involved the robbery of land from the commons yet again, and forceful displacement of the occupants yet again, this time accompanied by massive amounts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. The same goes for Australia, for New Zealand, for South America etc etc etc.

Myths
One specific myth about the origins of property is that it originates in the "improvement" of land by "rugged individualists," this particular canard was invented by Locke. It ignores the historical reality that property originated as a result of theft, when previous land was held in common for all to use. Improvements were made to the land for the benefit of all. It also goes on to denigrate indigenous peoples as being akin to wild animals, having not improved the land in any way, shape, or form. However, this ignores the fact that indigenous peoples often did alter and improve their landscapes, the entire Amazon Rainforest is the result of millennia of horticultural practices by indigenous horticulturalists, for instance.

To quote Kevin Carson:

Defendants of property claim that private property has been the norm for most non-nomadic groups, but we find this to be both irrelevant to the point and ahistorical:

One example that has been cited to defend property is the notion of property occurring inside the Code of Hammurabi, to which we find irrelevant and besides the point, again, as well as to respond with this:

To further demonstrate our point regarding the ahistoricity of the Lockean metanarrative of private property origins:

It's been claimed that the concept of land ownership dates back to Roman times in England, but even then the same patterns emerge: a top down imposition of private property on land previously held in commons enforced by state violence:

As for the Romans, the same thing applies here, of enclosing land from the commons to the detriment of the lower classes in favor of a small, landowning elite:

Notice how none of my critics actually address any of the substance of my points, and ignore basic historical patterns, pretending that they don't exist. If they applied even a slight modicum of critical scrutiny, they could see what I say is true.

Thus we can clearly see that property still, after all, is theft, no matter what bunkum property apologists come up.

Squatting
People say "squatting is theft." Well to that effect, I can equally respond that "property (as in land ownership) is theft." It is the institution of land ownership in the first place that breeds homelessness. The notion that I have a right to land to the exclusion of everyone else. Where are they supposed to go? Land is not an inexhaustible resource. By excluding people from land you are by default forcing them into a state of economic servitude. Where are they gonna live?