Property and Collectivism

Let me argue a couple of somewhat unpopular propositions.

1)Property is the greatest restriction on commerce ever invented.  Aside from spouses, children, and what a person could carry, property emerged with farming and agriculture.  It was a necessary invention, since without a claim on the produce of farming, no one could be persuaded to undertake the vast labor entailed in planting and tending animals.  It was also the foundation of inequality though, since ownership of land isn't infinitely divisible if farming is to be practical.  One probably can't say that war first occurred with farming, but it, with the increased fecundity it enabled, produced more mouths than could be fed, and made it urgent to get more land by stealing somebody else's.  Like other restrictions on commerce, property probably decreased net (biological) efficiency, but in this case reserved more of it for human consumption.

2)The corporation is one of the most successful collectivist inventions.  Only church and state can compete for pride of place.

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