Examines the origin and development of the private property rights system from prehistory to the present day

Traces the origin and development of the private property rights system from prehistory to the present day showing that it was not the product of 'appropriation' and 'voluntary trade' but of a long history of violent aggression
Reviews the long history of contradictory explanations why inequality is supposedly natural and inevitable or an inevitable feature of a free society
Uses anthropological evidence to show that some societies have maintained strong equality and extensive freedom
Addresses the negative-freedom argument for the market economy by showing that the hunter gatherer band economy has much more extensive negative freedom

This book debunks three false claims commonly accepted by contemporary political philosophers regarding property systems: that inequality is natural, inevitable, or incompatible with freedom; that capitalism is more consistent with negative freedom than any other conceivable economic system; and that the normative principles of appropriation and voluntary transfer applied in the world in which we live support a capitalist system with strong, individualist and unequal private property rights. The authors review the history of the use and importance of these claims in philosophy, and use thorough anthropological and historical evidence to refute them. They show that societies with common-property systems maintaining strong equality and extensive freedom were initially nearly ubiquitous around the world, and that the private property rights system was established through a long series of violent state-sponsored aggressions.