Is the abolition of private property theft?

[Jacob Cliff]

I'm a convinced communist but some people always say that socialism relies on theft because it takes away the private industries owned by the capitalist class.. I understand why we want this, but are the means to the end goal of communism theft-reliant?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

If they are, would it matter?

[Creative Destruction]

Since nature and, by proxy, labor power are the sources of value and wealth, then a reasonable argument, in my mind, could be made that property is society's to begin with. No one has ownership of nature. The capitalists expropriate it for their wellbeing. Following that line of argument, we're just taking back the wealth stolen from us by capitalists.

[Red Star Rising]

I'm a convinced communist but some people always say that socialism relies on theft because it takes away the private industries owned by the capitalist class.. I understand why we want this, but are the means to the end goal of communism theft-reliant?

I'd say that private enterprise and the extraction of surplus value is theft.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

This is a backwards question. Revolution implies an overthrow not only of the economic system but the legal system that maintains it. If revolution would be considered a crime under the existing legal code, it is as inconsequential as the fact that it would also be illegal under the british colonial legal code, or the roman legal code, etc.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'd say that private enterprise and the extraction of surplus value is theft.

But they're not. Theft is defined by laws; the laws clearly state that anything that interferes with private property is theft, whereas private property itself is not. Seriously, one would expect socialists to not balk at theft. Or try to make up some moral justification for their actions in bourgeois legal terms.

[Red Star Rising]

But they're not. Theft is defined by laws; the laws clearly state that anything that interferes with private property is theft, whereas private property itself is not. Seriously, one would expect socialists to not balk at theft. Or try to make up some moral justification for their actions in bourgeois legal terms.

You seem to be too concerned with what laws say about private property. The socialist perception of what is and isn't theft is not the same as the law's definition but that doesn't mean we should just not use the word at all.

[cyu]

The concept of "property" only exists when people agree some person "should" have control over something. When people stop agreeing, then property no longer exists.

Even if our great grandparents "agreed" that they should split up Poland or North America among themselves, that doesn't mean I have to agree with any of our great grandparents.

[fearthebeard]

Theft is generally defined as: Taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.

If you believe that property is something that has ownership, then the theft definition applies. Otherwise if you believe what you are taking away is not something that can be owned, then the theft definition does not apply to what you are doing.

This is needless to say that laws that govern the state at the time that you are committing this revolutionary act do not depend on what you think. They depend on the current state of affairs of a state, which has its own morality and ethics foundations.

As a marxist I believe that the socialist overthrow of the capitalist system and the taking away of property that by capitalist definition belongs to the bourgeosie is by no means a theft or a negative moral idea by marxist standards and by my own standards.

I hope that answers your question.

[newdayrising]

I agree with 870, it doesn't matter.
If you mean theft in a legal sense, socialism by definition abolishes the bourgeois legal system.
If you mean theft in a moral sense, socialism is not about issues of morality, it's about workers material interests.
So, basically who cares either way?

[Rafiq]

What of the abolition of slavery? Is this also theft?

Standards of possession change in all social revolutions. The bourgeois had stolen entire nations from sovereigns. What of it?