Indians and Entitlement Theory

Considering Indians never sold their land (at least not all of them) or anything of the sort, but were instead forcefully driven from it into reservations by the state, could it not be argued that in actuality there are very few Americans that legitimately own their patches of land? Since it is infact Indians who are stil the legitimate owners?

Do you think this is theoretically sound?

Some would argue that no one in this country legitimately owns their own land, as the government can (and does) do to them what they did to the indians, give them a contract and order them to sign it because the govt knows better how to use the land than they do.

As to what you're saying directly, there would be no way to demonstrate property rights the indians had to the land, as the different tribes were often warring with each other over lands, and the plains indians were nomadic with the buffalo herds. But if we were to apply your theory universally, most of the world is under unlawful ownership, is it not? I would love to hear what Jon or LibertyStudent has to say on this topic.

Marko:

Considering Indians never sold their land (at least not all of them) or anything of the sort, but were instead forcefully driven from it into reservations by the state, could it not be argued that in actuality there are very few Americans that legitimately own their patches of land? Since it is infact Indians who are stil the legitimate owners?

Do you think this is theoretically sound?

That's one of the pitfalls of establishing property rights solely on legitimacy.

Why me? I'd recommend reading Rothbard where he deals with this "problem".

-Jon

Byzantine:

Which Indians and which land?

Well if it is too general for your taste lets say the Pawnee and Nebraska.

 

Byzantine:

Did they own the entire continent or just the acreage they could roam around in without the neighboring tribe going to war with them?

The second.

 

Byzantine:

And if we are going to recognize title dating back to when the first inhabitant of open land used force of arms to exclude all others from it, and then passed it to his son, brothers-in-arms, lesser nobles, etc., then there are a ton of claims by descended European and British royalty waiting in line as well.

I don`t think the claims of royals are comparable. For starters they never laboured so they could never homestead anything.

 

JParker:

As to what you're saying directly, there would be no way to demonstrate property rights the indians had to the land, as the different tribes were often warring with each other over lands, and the plains indians were nomadic with the buffalo herds.

That they warred over land is in my opinion not of great importance. They had ownership disputes and since there was no system of arbitration they would resolve them through war. The important thing is that every tribe did accept limits to their own territory. They never claimed the whole territory of the neighbouring tribe, they just sometimes disagreed on wether the border ran by river X or river Y. But there certainly was also land that was not normaly disputed.

JParker:

But if we were to apply your theory universally, most of the world is under unlawful ownership, is it not?

Perhaps, but it somehow feels much worse to me when the aggressor is a state rather than a tribe or a people. Somehow state Imperialism, land grabs, deportations and ethnic cleansings feel worse than a Lakota tribe raiding the Pawnees to make sure they will have enough to eat come winter of Germanic Barbarians breaking into areas of Latinised Celts in order to flee the Huns.

Jon Irenicus:

I'd recommend reading Rothbard where he deals with this "problem".

Can you recall the name of the work that deals with it?

 

 

Yep, it's The Ethics of Liberty. The longer the claim stretches back in time, the more tenuous it becomes.

-Jon

Byzantine:

Of course they did.  At a minimum, they kept competing claimants off their land.

As does the mafia.

Byzantine:

And if labour is the touchstone for claiming land, then the original occupiers' descendants have no greater claim to it than anybody else.

It sounds awful lot like you are playing dumb.

Byzantine:

This is also not true.  There are a number of historical instances of tribes conquering their neighbors.

Yeah OK, not every tribe. Is there a point to the nitpicking?

 

Byzantine:

Marko:

I don`t think the claims of royals are comparable. For starters they never laboured so they could never homestead anything.

Of course they did.  At a minimum, they kept competing claimants off their land.  And if labour is the touchstone for claiming land, then the original occupiers' descendants have no greater claim to it than anybody else.

 They built castles and planted crops.

Marko:

Byzantine:

Of course they did.  At a minimum, they kept competing claimants off their land.

As does the mafia.

Byzantine:

And if labour is the touchstone for claiming land, then the original occupiers' descendants have no greater claim to it than anybody else.

It sounds awful lot like you are playing dumb.

Byzantine:

This is also not true.  There are a number of historical instances of tribes conquering their neighbors.

Yeah OK, not every tribe. Is there a point to the nitpicking?

 

I think the point is to demonstrate that there is no straightforward or universally applicable method to assert your claim of ownership based upon prior occupancy alone. 

 

However, it seems to me that one point which has gone unmentioned here is why the American Indians should be entitled to any of the improvements that have been made to the land over the years since they were supposedly wrongfully dispossessed?  It seems to me that, if such a claim is justified than I, as the current landowner, have an equally legitimate claim to be reimbursed for any improvements that have been made to the land.  Why should someone else be entitled to the fruits of my labor simply because they think they deserve it?  That, in a nutshell, is the problem with the entitlement mentality that has grown up in this country over the last seventy years or so: people seem to think that simply because they have some grievance that they are entitled to what I have worked for.  If property rights are to have any meaning this unethical and immoral point of view needs to be exposed for what it is: someone wishing to profit from the labor of another without giving anything in return.  In other words it is theft, pure and simple.

 

 

Ronald D. Morley:

I think the point is to demonstrate that there is no straightforward or universally applicable method to assert your claim of ownership based upon prior occupancy alone.

It is poor to argue such a point by speaking up for royalty. People synonymous with the state and aggression against property rights and the rightful owners of the land, the serfs.

Ronald D. Morley:

However, it seems to me that one point which has gone unmentioned here is why the American Indians should be entitled to any of the improvements that have been made to the land over the years since they were supposedly wrongfully dispossessed?  It seems to me that, if such a claim is justified than I, as the current landowner, have an equally legitimate claim to be reimbursed for any improvements that have been made to the land.

Well yes. The man who sells you a TV set he has previously stolen from a third person commited a crime against both you and the other fellow. But what if you knew the TV was stolen and you bought it anyway?  It could be argued that makes you a party to the crime.

If we concentrate on the Pawnee-Nebraska example, surely a settler coming there must have known there had been people farming the land there just prior to his arrival until they were forcefuly removed from their fields?

Ronald D. Morley:

Why should someone else be entitled to the fruits of my labor simply because they think they deserve it?  That, in a nutshell, is the problem with the entitlement mentality that has grown up in this country over the last seventy years or so: people seem to think that simply because they have some grievance that they are entitled to what I have worked for.  If property rights are to have any meaning this unethical and immoral point of view needs to be exposed for what it is: someone wishing to profit from the labor of another without giving anything in return.  In other words it is theft, pure and simple.

But that is the whole point. Nobody sane would argue thinking you deserve something is enough to be given it. The question is do they rightfuly deserve it from the standpoint of natural law?

If the state extorts money from its subjects and uses it to launch a company that turns out to be a great success and rises in value (such as say Nokia corporation), are the citizens entitled only to the amount of money the state had stolen originaly or are they entitled to the whole company of Nokia? Could it not be in the same vein argued the state enriched the capital through its own labour, thus the difference between current value and the money originaly stolen rightfuly belong to the state?

Also do the Pawnee (for example) need to be compensated not just for the land that was taken away from them, but for the continued agression against them where they were prevented from improving their lot with the produce of their land? Who knows what sorts of improvements to the land would they had made by now if they were not stripped of its ownership?

 

How do I want to "grind my axe" when I haven`t even formed my opinion on the issue and am instead asking for views? Geez.

Re/ Rothbard’s view (in addition to The Ethics of Liberty), you might also wish to have a look at Power and Market; and, for a contrasting theoretical treatment of the question (defending a right to rectification), to Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

 

For an application of Nozick’s theory to the example in hand, you can read Lyons’ “The New Indian Claims and Original Rights to Land” [Social Theory and Practice, 1977, pp. 249-272]. While the author is not a libertarian, he defends that the Amerindian claims to compensation would be justified under a system of historical entitlements.

M-