If there was no legitimate initial acquisition, then there can be no legitimate transfer, on Nozick’s theory…. The fact that initial acquisition often involved force means that there is no moral objection within Nozick’s framework to redistributing existing wealth…. If one really believes in Nozick’s entitlement theory, then current title is only as legitimate as previous titles. If previous title was legitimate, then any new distribution which results from market exchanges is just. That is what libertarians propose as their theory of justice. But the corollary of that theory is that if previous title was illegitimate, so is the new distribution. The fact that the new distribution arose from market transactions is irrelevant, since no one had any right to transfer those resources through market exchanges…. Many defenders of property rights would like to avoid looking too deeply into the historical origins of their property…. Because most initial acquisition was in fact illegitimate, Nozick’s theory cannot protect existing holdings from redistribution.
Will Kymlicka (‘Libertarianism’, in Contemporary Political Philosophy), my emphasis
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