[endofreach]

...yet kids are pretty quick (and eager) to understand "mine"... and seem to struggle understanding "not mine" at first.

Transgenerational greed?

And still, not respecting these concepts make you the thief today. So, what now?

[rixed]

I'm all for experimenting on babies, but I can't understand what point you are trying to make with this.

Do you mean they naturally understand property, or do you mean they naturally understand theft, or what?

[cmrdporcupine]

The person who coined the "Property is theft" quote (Proudhon if I recall) clearly made a distinction between capital-p Property and personal possession. And I think most regular people do, too.

I don't necessarily think of my stocks and bonds in my retirement funds in the same category as my toothbrush, suit jacket, or even my house or garden or whatever.

Classical liberalism and its descendants want to blur the distinction between the two. And you're welcome to adopt that view. But you shouldn't assume there aren't legitimate challenges to that point of view.

Proudhon himself wasn't terrible coherent. Marx I think clarified the distinction between dominance and control of capital and production vs personal private property better.

From a certain perspective, capitalism has been the process of enclosing things that were once common, or could be common, into "private" property. And despite the rhetoric of free exchange and liberty, it has mainly done this by force and coercion since the acts of enclosure and the age of colonialism until now.

My 6 acres of "private property" that my house sits on here was acquired mainly by force from its prior inhabitants two centuries ago. What does that do its status -- and to me -- now?

[Avicebron]

> my house sits on here was acquired mainly by force from its prior inhabitants two centuries ago.

This argument can be used for practically any piece of earth, it's nonsensical to fixate on it.

The issue has always been that capital (and it's quiet sibling power) can compound itself endlessly absent any checks against it. Societal unification against power and wealth consolidation should be the same as it would be against a plague or cancer in a body.