peterw5

The quote should probably actually say “Private property is theft.” See, Marxists make a distinction between private property (which they consider to be unjust and illegitimate) and personal property (which they consider just). Personal property would include such things as one’s own body, clothes, home, small amounts of money --basically items intended for personal use. Private property, on the other hand, refers to ownership of the means of production, large amounts of capital, and large amounts of land. Theoretically, in a real Marxist system the power to redistribute resources would not be given to a small group of people, but would be in the hands of the majority –the proletariat. It would be decided democratically. That’s the theory, anyway. Whether or not that can work in practice is debatable. You are confusing private property with personal property. A person’s body is personal property not private property. Marxists believe that people have a right to have personal property. There is force in Libertarianism. The force in Libertarianism is the force used to uphold and defend private property. To paraphrase James Madison, It’s the force used to protect the minority of the opulent from the majority who are less fortunate. That's to say, It’s to keep the poor from rising up and redistributing the wealth of the rich. Now you might claim that all interactions in a Libertarian system are “voluntary,” but it sure doesn’t look that way from a Marxist standpoint. The lower classes do not work for the rich voluntarily. No, they work for the rich because they have no other choice but to work for the rich or starve to death. People of the lower class do not have the resources to do anything other than be slave labor for the Capitalist class in a system that uses force defending the private property of the Capitalist class. Edit: grammar.

Two of the main principles in a Libertarian or Anarchist society are private property rights and the Non-Aggression-Principle (NAP). On the other hand, Marxists and Leftist Anarchists are against private property rights because private property rights leads to privilege and class hierarchies. With the law of private property in place some people will inevitably have more property than others, giving them and their inheritors a material advantage over others. A child born to rich parents has a distinct advantage over a child born to poor parents. Libertarianism doesn’t seem to address this inequality. Libertarianism defends private property as an inalienable right and that any violation of private property is “aggression” (i.e. violates the NAP). However, to the Marxist that seems like a very narrow view of “aggression.” The Marxist would consider it an aggression against the poor that poor children are born with nothing whereas the children of the rich are born with huge wealth. After all, it’s not the children’s decision who their parents are. Why should the children of the wealthy have such a material advantage over the children of the poor? Rich children will have vastly more opportunities and education. Yet Libertarianism defends this inequality. Libertarians defend the “free market” as the great equalizer, but how can it be an equalizer when some people start with a lot more resources than others? How can Libertarianism defend this inequality of material wealth and opportunity between classes, especially among children, as moral?