"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Government Is No Friend of the Poor
"The poverty and exclusion evident throughout history, and still very much a part of today’s world, can frequently be traced precisely to the unjust acts of government officials and their cronies. When people are denied ownership of land they’ve homesteaded with their labor so feudal overlords can turn them into serfs, the culprit isn’t freedom, or the market—it’s government support for the wealthy and well-connected. Ditto for cases in which people are denied the right to work by laws, like England’s old Acts of Settlement, that limit their ability to travel in search of new opportunities."
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I've misplaced my note on a line from one of James Michener's novels where a black man was observing the impudence of the white man's ethnic cleansing practices toward the natives of a given area, then publishes his history books with prevarications like "...Columbus 'discovered' America..." (and erects monuments and statues commemorating the "event"). So I'm in agreement with your take on the murderous behavior of granting homesteading "rights" to stolen land.
And I've not been an avid Ayn Rand fan. Even Murray Rothbard toward the end scuttled her along with her ship as I understand it.
I'll certainly agree with this statement from the article:
Government’s role in making and keeping people poor is just one of the factors that make poverty endemic and make it hard to survive while poor.
I will disagree with the author's reification: "Government" has no roll in keeping people poor. Agents OF government fill that roll -- individuals who should know better but choose to ignore truth for the sake of authoritarianism. As Mr. Davies so colorfully outlined in a recent piece, government ("the state") is pie in the sky.
I am curious to hear, however, who the "one honest capitalist..." might be.
Sam