How do you guys feel about the practice of people reserving parking slots with chairs or cones following a snowstorm? Or, rather, how do you feel about moving someone's chair and parking your car there? Is it "stealing?" Is it unethical? It is illegal a priori?
Some people argue that since they dug out the slot, the deserve the right to use it (presumably until the recent snow thaws and more parking spaces appear?).
Others may argue that the parking space is public (or at least unowned). Therefore, it doesn't matter that someone shoveled the snow to clear the space. It is still not his land.
Others yet may argue that the latter comment may be true, but it is also true that one has a right to park his car in that spot. While his car is parked, he "owns" the spot temporarily (someone else may not move this car to park another car). So, what's wrong with doing the same thing with a chair or a cone?
Note: I am not asking what will happen under libertarian society, Rothbardian, Friedmanite, or whichever else. I am asking: if you were going home tonight, would you move someone else's chair or cone to park in that spot?
I think that is kinda like going to a football game and sitting in better seats if they are empty. I would park there, subject to anyone telling me to move. That is a little less workable than a seat, since I could be far away. I would feel bad if the original user wanted to use it and I was unable to release the spot. I lean toward the homesteading option, but as has been pointed out in the ronpaul.com thread, it might default to the rules of the road if a parking space is not homesteadable. Kinda a tragedy of the commons?
Well...I would think you're going to have a hard time finding a parking spot that rests on "public" property, that someone would actually take it upon themself to shovel it clean.
What do you mean? Plenty of people did on my street. Admittedly, some of them only shoveled the spots to dig their cars out (and then reserved the spots)...
Read more here.
Wow, thanks for that. I guess I hadn't thought about there being very many areas in which people needed to park on the street in snow storms. Yeah, I guess this is just one more example of the problems that arise when you claim "everyone owns it". (Went into this here.)
Privatize everything.
There are several scenarios to deal with here:
1. Person digs snow out of space and blocks entry. This is fine as this person spent the time and effort to homestead the snow covered property. Once the snow melts however then the property becomes abandoned.
2. There are lots of spaces available and person blocks off one as it is closer to their property. Again this is a form of homesteading where the person homesteaded the property until the other less preferred spaces fill up at which time it becomes abandoned.
3. There are not a lot of spaces and a person blocks entry but does not improve the space. This is not homesteading as they did not mix labor and materials to homestead the property or have abandoned it. In this case the person blocking entry would not have property rights to the space unless their vehicle was in the space.
4. There are not a lot of spaces and a person blocks entry but does not improve the space. In this case depednding on the improvements the space can be homesteaded by the person blocking entry. For example the person may install a light near the space to increase safety. They could build a ramp to get cargo from the space, etc.
I guess if there were other snow-covered slots avaliable nearby then I wouldn't remove the chairs, realizing that if it hadn't been for the work of these people all the spots would have been snow-covered so I'd be in the same position, of having to clear a spot nearby my building. But, if I drove home and all the spots around my building had been shoveled clean and reserved by chairs, then I'd say F you buddy, you can't be using the exuse of shoveling snow to hogg the parking spots for yourself and to be making them into your own private property and to make me park blocks away. So the question is am I being penalized by these (theorethical) snow shovelers. If I have to suffer additional hardship, because of them, that is in addition to that imposed by the snow.
Bogart,
Those are interesting answers. One question, though: Why do you insist that in order to homestead something one needs to improve it, as opposed to merely physically altering the space? I thought that under the theory of homesteading the point is simply to indicate that you're the first one to have separated this property for yourself, and mixing one's labor with something is the clearest way of doing so. (Verbal claims are somewhat more difficult to verify and can be simultaneous.) So, in order to own a tree, I don't need to improve it; I can just carve my initials in my bark.
Also:
It pisses me off if they are blocking where I should park my rig - If I can I just run them over and park anyway.
"As in a kaleidoscope, the constellation of forces operating in the system as a whole is ever changing." - Ludwig Lachmann
"When A Man Dies A World Goes Out of Existence" - GLS Shackle
You do not own the road and its parking spots unless you legitimately homestead it or buy it. By homestead I mean that you are the first to control the material by placing it where you want it (more of a Spooner take on homesteading, I think). Improving is not relevant to me. Control is. Since the state unjustly owns the road and the parking, it is fair game to be homesteaded. That entails control of the parking surface. This control is established by cleaning or shoveling down to the desired parking level. This could be made even more obvious by painting the parking surface, but that is not necessary. Placing a chair in the spot is a sign to indicate ownership. It does not establish ownership over the volume of the parking spot, even though it would establish control over the patches of pavement that it rests upon. Motorcycles could park around the chair without harm. Of course the state would reject this. As would many of its followers. So placing the chair is a bit of a psychological deterrent to prevent invasion. The chair is not abandoned since you can easily return to demonstrate your control over it. Only inability or unwillingness to demonstrate control is abandonment.