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Locke also wrote that "For this "labour" being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good left in common for others."

Which, I think, is the central issue regarding property rights and inequality. We should question all rent generating property rights, just as Locke did, and try to find a system of propert rights where rent doesn't create inequality.

Taxation seems to be he popular approach, but why not try to redefine the rights all together? What if such property rights were time limited, and came with a fee equal to the rent potential?

There are two components of private property. 1)the raw materials (or land) 2)the labor (or improvements).

I agree with your stance on component 1. The raw materials, the land, they do in fact manifestly belong to everyone.

On component 2, the labor or improvements, I don't think those do belong to everyone. They belong exclusively to the creator who can transfer title. In fact, society has no moral claim on this component at all in my estimation.

Here is my idea. Stop funding society by taxing labor. It's counterproductive. It's morally wrong. Tax material and land use. This is what society truly has a claim on and how society should fund itself.

> In the end private property is indeed theft, more exactly the imposition of someone's moral values over the other's by intrinsic force (if you "steal" you might go to prison or worst).

What you're pointing out is a monopoly called "The Legal System": a single dispute resolution system everyone must adhere to without choice (Government/Mafia). This monopoly is often based on geolocation. Property will be inherently aggressive if one is forced to use a specific dispute resolution system.

Everyone withholds stuff from others: it is 100% universal. In this way, the notion of "property is theft" can not hold because everyone (even animals) do it: consciously or subconsciously.

There is then the system of dispute resolution. This defines if a particular act of withholding was an act of "theft".

The combination of withholding + dispute resolution results in what we call property.

Competing dispute resolution systems is really that free-market people hope for. Dispute resolution systems do not have to be based on geolocation. In fact, people form millions of these unique systems every day, freely, without resorting to monopolies or the lowest of low dispute resolution: killing one another.

> The sooner we realize this the better, there's no second-guessing about it.

So ya. Property in and of itself is not theft. Forcing others to use a specific dispute resolution could be viewed as the theft.

> In the end private property is indeed theft, more exactly the imposition of someone's moral values over the other's by intrinsic force.

I'm curious how that follows? Many actions require force but are not theft (depriving someone of rightful resources). If your 'moral' values deprive someone of their own rightful resources you probably deserve to have some intrinsic force applied. In that way private property would seem to me to be close to a moral good.

>In the end private property is indeed theft,

Private property can't be "theft" if there is no private property.

If you don't believe in private property, you're sort of poisoning the well of any economic conversation, since it's the foundation of basically all of peaceful civilization.

Without private property there is only tribalism and, "might makes right."

One counterpoint:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5872764/the-greatest-mystery-of-the-i...

I'm not sure this is much of a counterpoint. The Inca didn't have a centralized currency, but we really don't know whether they had private property or not, how disputes were handled, or so on. They also seem to have had civil wars, child sacrifice, and other violent traditions.

That being said, many things are possible in groups with smaller populations, I've heard stories of large communes being fairly successful with up to several thousand people. However, at some point they tend to become too disorganized and break down, in one way or another.

In contrast, the concepts of private property and trade have enabled our human family to grow to 7 Billion, and population growth is barely even slowing down yet. Civilization allows things to work on an entirely different scale by providing a somewhat standardized framework for our territorial disputes.

This is also the most non-violent time in history by far, according to researchers, presumably due to the end of tribalism.

So, for me personally, there would have to be extremely compelling arguments to even begin to argue against the utility of private property as a social and economic system.