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Imagine, if you will, a community living on a large island.
A group of strong-men living on the island has been spending years accumulating wealth. Mostly, they have done this through strong-arm tactics. They have gone to property owners and commanded that they turn over property or face the consequences. They have enslaved people - forcing people to work on improving their property, planting and harvesting their crops, assembling material in their shops, collecting the benefits in ways that substantially prevented their "workers" from having the opportunity to leave. As a result, this small subset of the population - let us imagine that this top 1% owns half of the island.
NOW that they have accumulated all of this properly - mostly through violence and forces appropriation - they want to institute a new social rule. This rule says that no person can take property from another by force.
Would that be right?
Let's use another example. A thief pulls out a gun and tells you to step into the alley. There, he forces you to hand over your wallet, your watch, and . . . well . . . "that's a nice looking suit you are wearing." Then, after he has taken these things from you, he then announces, "New rule: No person may take property from another person by force."
NOW he says it.
This idea that no person may take the property of another person by force lies at the core of libertarianism. We can see why those people who have already taken a large amount of property from others by force . . . who have, in fact, taken about as much as they can effectively take . . . would then insist that it would be wrong for others to take property by force FROM THEM.
However, aren't these libertarians ignoring history? Would it not still be the case that the robber owes something to the robbed? The extortionist owes something to those from whom they extorted? The slave owner owe something to those he enslaved?
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