Is creating boundaries around someone on your own private property wrong?

Lemme elaboreate the full question.

 

Lets say Smith own all the property around the home of Jones.  It looks something like this:

__________________________

|             Smith's Land             |

|           ____________             | 

|           |    Jones'      |             |

|           |    Land        |             |

|           ____________            |

|                                            |

__________________________ 

 

Now if Smith creates really high walls around Jones' property(technically the walls are in Smith's property), basically Jones cannot recieve any sunlight or anything. It looks like he is in a deep well. Although Jones is surviving by making his food from his land, the air he is breating out is CO2 which is heavier in nature, settles down on ground, and builds up and Jones get suffocated in Carbon Dioxide.

 

Is there anything wrong in the above scenario from Libertarian perspective? According to utalitarian perspective Jones can claim access to fresh air, but to me it sounds like accoring to Rothbard's Libertarianism he can't.

 

Also, can I claim Sunlight, if your property is blocking that to my property? 

 I would say that in the knowledge that Smith's walls would adversely effect Jone's use of his property, Jones would have a common law case to enjoin Smith from building the walls, or forcing Smith to modify the walls if already in existence.

 However, in all practical manner, if I was Jones, I would ensure that I had already obtained an easement across some portion of Smith's property, prior to purchasing the property.

I would say that in the knowledge that Smith's walls would adversely effect Jone's use of his property, Jones would have a common law case to enjoin Smith from building the walls, or forcing Smith to modify the walls if already in existence.

So you are saying there is no violation of private property rights by Smith, so if Jones ends up in such a situation he should buy access/air/sunlight from Smith? Am I right?

It's fine if Smith owns all of the land around Jones. This is covered in civil law and common law. Search google for "easement" laws. Smith must allow Jones the use of his property for entrance and exit with proper compensation for any damage caused.

Smith cannot enclose Jones and block the sunlight because the ownership of the land includes the air above. Smith would have to buy the airspace from Jones in order to do that.

prashantpawar:

I would say that in the knowledge that Smith's walls would adversely effect Jone's use of his property, Jones would have a common law case to enjoin Smith from building the walls, or forcing Smith to modify the walls if already in existence.

So you are saying there is no violation of private property rights by Smith, so if Jones ends up in such a situation he should buy access/air/sunlight from Smith? Am I right?

 

 Actually, I mean the opposite.  Smith's actions WOULD violate Jones private property rights.  Jones should not have to pay for air and sunlight.  The existing common law would determine Smith's obligations to Jones concerning an access easement to Jone's property across Smith's property.

Property rights are never so simple as they are in your drawing. Jones actually owns a lot of property that flows right through Smith's property, such as the right to flows of air and sunlight, and the right of passage through Smith's property, if Jones had been exercising those rights before Smith walled in him. 

I believe the problem here is how we view property rights. Legal property rights aren't going to be perfect; they must be compromises between what is enforceable and understandable, and what facilitates justice.

Jones would have had to homesteaded some sort of path to his property in order to use it. He would therefore have to have ownership of rights to transport himself off of the property, get fresh air, etc. If property law allowed Smith to wall of Jones' property without Jones' consent, this must always be a violation of Jones' property rights, even if such an act was legal. Legality would highlight a flaw in the law, but not in the justice of strong property rights itself.

Ask any software engineer, and they will always tell you: Nothing is ever "complete". No system of law ever will be either, as long as the enforcement and interpretation of the law is costly. If contracts are confusing and allow legal fraud through obfuscation; this is a failure of the enforcement of contracts, not the libertarian philosophy itself. For this reason, the "best" system (as chosen by the market) might be one where property rights as we know them are allowed to be violated from time to time (such as in the case presented above).

May be I didn't make it clear, but I am talking about society of pure liberty here, not the existing legal systems. 

 Yes it is wrong, because Jones must have had some rights (homesteaded or traded) to air and travel before Smith built his wall.

Prashantpawar, a pure libertarian society will still have a law system of some sort, most likely a common law system. It will decide matters guided by abstract pure principle, but how this is applied in the real world will in part be via customs, jurisprudence and the like. Titles to property will take various forms and shapes in a libertarian society. It is reasonable to assume most will incorporate certain easements.

 I would concur with the previous poster in regards to common law.  Common law is that which over hundreds of years has been developed by consensus of citizenry and common law court precedents, NOT imposed by the State.  In the process of deconstructing the current State and statutory law, a resumption of the English common law would be vital to settle such things as property disputes.

Who acquired the property first?  Also, there might be a case under the ad colem doctrine. 

No, public goods like sunlight are privileges, not rights. He can buy oxygen and food from others, if his neighbors do not block him. You are the oligopsony. Your neighbors can set impossibly high tariffs.
At least it prevents global warming.
It would be interesting if your neighborhood came up with a free trade agreement, allowing free trade of oxygen and food.
You are forced to live with your neighbors, so private ownership of land creates natural monopolies?
If your neighbors are blocking your satellite waves.
Private ownership of land does cannot just go into a neighbor. You must trespass through some neighbors before you get into the neighbor you want.
But for other things, you don't have to first buy an apple before you buy an orange. But for land, you must buy one apple before you buy an orange.
This scenario would come up more often if roads were privatized.
How do I prove that private roads are not natural oligopolies?