The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man’s rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man’s self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breaches or fraud by the others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.

I have touched on many reasons part of this quote from Rand is wrong on many posts, but I wish to point to the area that this quote is right. ‘the courts, to protect your property’. Rand disdained the state for it’s intervention in her vision of unfettered capitalism. Throughout her writings she never seeks protection or answers for much violence or ‘crime’ outside of the state. In her world it would be near impossible to find such outside of a state, so under the conditions she proposes the entire paragraph is correct.

To maintain property you must maintain a state. If the state is abolished you can only reach this unfettered capitalism by abolishing the state in name alone. You must privatize the functions of state. This simply is renaming the state and allowing various land lords or property owners to to have the dominion of these arms of the newly privatized state.

The debate over property can only be ended once we have reached a pure anarchist communist society. Until then there will be a debate. Property will continue to be maintained by either a state or a state cleverly disguised as a ‘free market’ state. Ayn Rand realized that property is defended by the state. She repeats this over and over. While property is considered an extension of the property owner the other problems that rise in this paragraph will be intertwined with the issue of property. This will mean that at the least a minarchist or pseudo state will be required to enforce the concept of property of the ruling class. The power of this ruling class over the worker is the power of the state.

The proper use which protects ‘mans rights’ is the right of the property owner or the ruling class. The rights the state protects are the right of dominion of the ruling classes. This physical violence is the physical violence that is not really physical violence. We have options to deal with that in reality. The physical violence is the violence invented by the capitalist which is infringement on property.  The retaliatory force can then be used against the worker who tries to claim the bread they made because the bread is the property of the capitalist. It is the right to deny resources or even the product of ones labor.