Again, man is essentially a social being. Consequently, all rights granted him are subject to the necessary restrictions which are demanded by the common welfare and more accurately determined by law. This right of disposal which the civil power exercises over property has been called dominium altum, but the term is misleading and should be avoided. Ownership gives to a person the right to dispose of a thing for his private interests as he sees fit. The Government has no right to dispose of the property of its subjects for its private interests, but only as far as the common weal requires...
In the example I gave, the distribution of the farmer's produce to starving people would promote the common good, since the right to life of the starving people supercedes the farmer's right to private property.
"The Government has no right to dispose of the property of its subjects for its private interests, but only as far as the common weal requires..."
That doesn't assert that Peter has a right to Paul's corn.
It's an extrapolation from the Roman principle, salus publica suprema lex, which asserts that government has the right to infringe on private property rights when the common weal **requires** it.
Ah, but the devil is in the definition of "requires." How does one judge that it is legitimately required? In their great wisdom, the Founding Fathers decreed that even in such cases just compensation must be paid, reasoning that this would reduce corruption and takings for trivial purposes. In this way they both respected private property and allowed government to act in the common inerest.
So, farmer Brown has enough corn to feed Ohio, and nobody else has a kernel.
Does he have a moral obligation to be charitable?
Soitenly.
Do those starving people have a right to demand his corn?
No way.
Does government have a right to take his corn and distribute it to those starving people?
Not without paying him for it, according to the American development of this principle, which is the highest yet seen among men.
To assert open-endedly that government may take private property as far as the common weal requires, leaving it to politicians and bureaucrats to decide when its necessary, and without corresponding obligations on government to act justly, is to take the first step on the road to a new Gulag Archipelago.