The argument cannot be escaped today.  They may not say it, but they do always say: greater good, social costs, and any other utilitarian term they can come up with to camouflage it.  The utilitarian philosophy holds that a good policy only has to be good for the greatest number.  In this, nobody owns themselves.  We are all cogs in society or “the good.”  Individuals don’t exist.  Private property ceases to exist.  No group gets an exemption for violence.

This doctrine pretends to be scientific.  What is “the good”?  What is society?  Both are individuals interacting with one another.  What this implies is that values aren’t subjective.  They can be added, subtracted, and weighted.  Values are subjective to the individual.  They are not objective and interpersonal comparisons cannot be made.  Their goal is not the protection of private property, but the protection of the leftist ideology.

There are quite a few interpersonal exchanges.  The majority agree that the minority should be robbed, the vote is 51 to 49.  The greater part of the good agree to this robbery.  Is this justified?  It is under utilitarian social philosophy.  However, this violates the property of 49 percent of “the good.”  A proponent of private property will view this as an aggression.  The robbery in the reductio can be changed to murder, the logic is the same.

Few, if any, would agree to murder, but robbery is less egregious than murder.  Does that make robbery justified?  If voting to rob them of everything is a crime, why not a minimal amount?  If you were robbed on the street, the criminal took half of your money rather than all.  Is it still robbery?  Would you exclaim: “What a nice criminal!”  What if the robber told you if was for the “greater good”?  Would this make you feel better about the robbery?  What if he told you he’d protect you?  He’s too much of a gentleman to do that.

If an action is aggression by itself, why would it be any different if done collectively for the society?  If A and B can’t vote to rob C, why can A and B vote for G to rob C?  The logic is the exact same.  Many actions taken were legal.  Just because something was legislated doesn’t mean it’s ethical—legislation is man-made law.  Statism is socialized aggression.  If it’s a crime done individually, it’s a crime when done collectively.

Reference

Murray Rothbard; The Ethics of Liberty