Well that's a valid way to look at it. But an equally valid way of looking at it, is that enforcement of property laws is merely a matter of the enforcing the rules which a majority of people in that society have consented to.
It all depends on your perspective. ;-) Been on the wrong side of the law a few times myself, so I can see both sides. But an important point to understand is that most people tend to by and large obey the rules protecting property rights, most of the time, without the need for constant supervision by armed cops.
[WS:] Your are right. The abject poverty of Marxist thought is it giving up on 'subjective' factors for primitive rat-choice economism - everything is explained in terms of economic self-interests and if it does not fit that mold I t is either dismissed as "false consciousness" or ignored altogether. With all the babbling about "the people" and "materialism"- there is no serious attempt to understand ho real people actually think and behave. In that context, "materialism" means its exact opposite - the highest form of idealism, Orwellian newspeak indeed. No wonder that pomos like Marxism.
I think that the biggest mistake of Marxist analysis is a failure to understand that people almost never rebel in defense of their wallet (except perhaps of a few very rich) - if they rebel at all, they do so in defense of their dignity. And their dignity is grounded in their upbringing, cultural norms, values, and notions of what is legitimate. The Vietcong learned that the hard way in Cambodia - they could not understand why peasants who live in abject poverty still revere their king, who screws them economically every which way, and have zero interest in communist mumbo-jumbo.
Social order and legitimacy it bestows is the backbone of individual consciousness. Most people will do - or attempt to do - what is legitimate and right, rather than what is profitable. Even if they do something wrong, they never say "I did it because I profited from it." They say "I did it because I thought it was right, it was justified by the circumstances, I had no other choice, etc." Even the very rich who admit doing for a profit in fact do it because profit making is a legitimate rule of conduct in their social network rather than utilitarian benefit.
People will never rebel against the status quo that they know, unless they internalize an alternative to it order and accept its legitimacy. All that you have nothing to lose but your chains talk is primitive and misguided rat choice talk.
Wojtek