ABSTRACT
Some people defend an inflexible and unlimited right to property. According to Malthus, a person born into a world that is already occupied has not the slightest right to any portion of the available means of nourishment. He is superfluous in the world; no place has been set for him at the great feast of nature, and nature bids him depart. And some people actually carry out what Malthus expressed as a theory. Is it any wonder that the harshness of this theory and the cruelty of its practice have caused some to react and go to the other extreme? Beccaria calls property a terrible and by no means necessary right, and Proudhon says, ‘Property is theft.’
