re: #931 reason0911

Locke’s theory of private property is very nice, but he justifies it ethically by the claim that we all have the opportunity to make it on our own (in his writings, he says that anyone can move to underpopulated North America and start a farm, which in 17th-century England may have been true).

When you try to apply his argument in today’s USA, you quickly run into the problem that there are lots of people who don’t have that opportunity, or for whom it is significantly restricted. And, tellingly, the only extent to which they do have it is via government intervention (most obviously through the public school system).

But in magical free-market private property land, all is well (except for the slaves, but they’re not really “people” like me and, to a slightly lesser extent, you).