I would like to know how someone gets to be the proprietor of say a piece of land, what right did he have to get it? You know like the original English settlers in the USA, Australia, West Indies etc, what was their right to gain property of that land?
There has to be a reason for them being able to do this and I know just what it is, it is the use of force, as has always been the case, you grab land because you can and then you invent laws that legalize this. So I would think that property is theft, but then again I think this theft is necessary or else there would really be chaos. I like may anarchist ideas, but I have always had the idea that any human endeavor ultimately ends in a group obtaining too many privileges and forming a ruling group of elites and bam we are back with a government. I think whatever way you take your options you will always end up with the privileged and the guys who have to work their backs off for a living. This is life and it will be very difficult to change it, perhaps in a far distant future when all our needs can be met by artificial intelligence doing all the work and even then I bet there would be a central entity in charge.
Excuse me if it is sometimes difficult to understand what I am writing my native language is Spanish so I might mistake the order of the words in the idea I am trying to express.
Anyway I really enjoyed reading your article, nice for a debate.
This is a very difficult question which few have been able to solve in a satisfactory moral way. Some argue a form of Georgism is the way to go, while still others think use and improvement or homesteading is what matters. Maybe still others will think in terms of protection, like Johan Eliasch who bought up 400,000 acres of rainforest to protect it. Land is quite difficult to "own" because we can't take it with us and it varies widely in quality and availability. It's the home for other valuable resources as well. In many places it's abundant, but undesirable. In others, it's scarce and rich with value do to other externalities like climate, access, and proximity to other communities and resources.
Just because it was obtained immorally in the past by people who are now long dead does not mean we can't strive towards a moral ownership today. To the best of my knowledge, a market system is still the most effective way to determine value and transfer of ownership. Yes, it's massively distorted because of government and corporate banker interests which are directly part of government through their revolving door system and regulatory capture, but that doesn't mean the concept itself of voluntary, mutually beneficial trade via justly accumulated value is invalid. The "have nots" today still have opportunity to build a life for themselves and eventually justly obtain land, though it may take many decades for them while others may inherit it over night.
Nature is not fair. Life is not fair. It's noble of us to strive for equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome, IMO, is not only impossible but undesirable as well. Humans are unique and that leads to many differences.
On the conversation of property, land is surely the most complicated topic. That said, very few people today are actually using violence to obtain it.
Many financially successful people I know work much harder than others. It may not be physical labor, but it's no less taxing from a mental and psychological perspective, full of risk, hardship, failure, and determination. We all have our starting points thanks to our genes. We also have neuroplasticity to rise up and become just about anything we're determined enough to obtain.