 Not all genealogies of property have this shape. David Hume tells a completely different sort of story. On his approach, we begin by assuming that since time immemorial, people have been fighting over resources, so that the distribution of de facto possession at any given time is arbitrary, being driven by force, cunning, and luck. Now it is possible that such fighting will continue indefinitely. But it is also possible that it may settle down into a sort of stable equilibrium in which those in possession of significant resources and those tempted to grab resources from others find that the marginal costs of further predatory activity are equal to their marginal gains. Under these conditions, something like a ‘peace dividend’ may be available. Maybe everyone can gain, in terms of the diminution of conflict, the stabilizing of social relations, and the prospects for market exchange, by an agreement not to fight any more over possessions.