"Once private property is abolished, the advocates for utopia win. They build their heaven on earth, which means they can take what they want and run civilization, top-down. They can keep saying nobody owns anything, but in fact they own it all. They execute this squeeze play as if they were messiahs eradicating the prime evil: private ownership. This is such a preposterous stage play that, in a sane society, it would close down after one night." (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

Newsflash: There is a difference between an idea and the way that idea is applied in practice.

For example, certain groups will take the idea of freedom and interpret it to mean, "We have the freedom to steal everything we can."

Based on this practice, many people will claim freedom was always a failed and corrupt idea at the core. This is wrong, absurd, and dim. Very dim.

In the same way, the idea of private property can certainly be twisted to mean, "I will steal what you have, make it my own, and then declare it is my property, over which I have control."

But the idea of private property remains independent of what people will do to distort it. A child used to be able to see this.

Centuries of struggle resulted in a shift from monarchs and priest classes owning all available land, to individuals having the right to own land.

Once that principle was firmly established, groups immediately tried to modify the principle to their advantage.

In 1776, a group called the Illuminati declared its existence in Bavaria. One of its guiding ideas was: the abolition of all private property. That concept traveled down to Karl Marx and the Communist agenda.

Private property was called an inherent crime. Instead, the people/everybody would own all property. This garbled incoherent pronouncement would be backed up by the ruling government, who would act as stewards for the masses—meaning the government would take control of all property until such time as the people evolved to the point where the State was unnecessary.

As a straight con, it was very weak. A two-bit hustler on a street corner with a folding table and three cards could see through it in a second.

The people evolving? The State withering away on its own? Equality defined as everybody owning everything?

Of course, if people injected their own utopian fantasies into the mix, if people assumed the government was a beneficent force for good, if people assumed there was an "everybody" operating unanimously, if people fantasized about a history of tribes (who fought wars against each other) gracefully abdicating the whole notion of individual property…well then, yes, the abolition of private property became a marvelous proposition.

In the light of day, however, with a clear mind, the idea was terrible. It was quite insane. It signaled a transfer of property from the individual to power-mad lunatics.