Who has the power to own and control goods and services?   Only the individual can control his body which is private property.  Only the individual can own and control goods and services so long as it doesn’t uninvitedly interfere with another’s.  What this means, property belongs to the individual and only the individual has power over his property.   This is the natural ownership of property.  This is as I have explained property in the book, and it must be accepted whether you’re religious or non-religious.  Property is based on the nature of man.  These titles to property are then exchanged for other property titles.  So, you must understand property to understand economics.

If the goods or services are controlled by another, they are stolen.  Property can only be dispensed or used by the owner.  Ownership of property excludes ownership by all others, this is true whether it is a watch or a share of a company.  The watch or share cannot be bought if it is not sold.  If it is, this would be unnatural ownership and therefore stolen.  Property is never under common ownership.  If it is, this would be unnatural ownership and therefore stolen. 

If property is removed nonvoluntarily, it is a violation of property and removed by violence.  How much property taken by a certain level of violence is still violence.  A little bit of violence and a lot of violence is still violence.  If you were robbed, but the robber only took a small amount of money and the bodily damage was minimal, would you say: “wow, he was a nice mugger?”  I assume not.  A mugging is a mugging.  This doesn’t take great insight.

This means adhering to property requires peace.  Violence is always aimed at another’s property.    Its either: violence or peace; communal property or property; statism or peace.  There is no such thing as: violence and property; communal property without violence.; statism and peace.  Protection of private property and statism are impossible.  Statism is only possible through the use of violence.  To ignore this is to ignore how property was acquired and to turn your cheek at violence.  This is easily come to by rational means.  It is our rationality that distinguishes man from the other animals.  Now, we are mortal and must use our rationality.  We are not perfect, therefore mistakes and criminals will always exist.

Ignoring this will, and has, led to: violence over peace; de-civilization over civilization.  It is fundamental to not aggress against another’s property.  Hopefully this doesn’t need to be repeated, but the body is private property.  Don’t misunderstand this as a pacifist argument, violence can be used to stop violence, even implied violence, so long as it is clear and present.  I cannot go over the specifics, this will have to be handled by a third-party arbitrator.

Any such violence needs more violence to fund the current level of violence.  Just as Randolph Bourne noticed 100 years ago “war is the health of the state.”  War is an extreme level of violence.  The state assumes absolute dominion over the economy, its subjects, and society as a whole.  If war is its health, peace is its disease.  If the public rejects violence, they are rejecting statism.  It is time people prefer peace over violence.

References

Ludwig von Mises; Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis

Murray Rothbard; War, Peace, and The State