What is the Austrian view on residential zoning laws?
To give an example, near where I live the local government has ruled that certain suburbs be rezoned so that buildings up to five stories may be built. Such buildings would be completely out of character since most of the existing homes are detached on large-ish blocks of land with big lawns and leafy streets, etc. In other words, typical middle to upper middle class suburbia. Residents are complaining that large apartment blocks will devalue the area, increase noise and traffic, reduce privacy (apartment residents can overlook their backyards), etc. The usual complaints.
The govt says that, due to population growth, they need to allow for higher density living.
ITGF: What is the Austrian view on residential zoning laws?
They are bad.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
I'm tired of trying to search this site for how to quote people, so I'm going to do it the old fashioned way. Putting quote user="Autolykos" in brackets and ending with /quote in brackets just leaves the preview of my message blank.
Autolykos said:
When you write of building a farm, surely you mean more than just building the house and barn. I don't see the tilling and planting of the fields as a construction activity, but that's just me.
It seems to me that, in order to build a farm, the land that will make it up has to already exist. And since it already exists, it must be already owned before anything can be (legitimately) done with it. Likewise for building a city (so to speak) -- the land that it's built on has to exist and be owned first. Therefore it seems that land is indeed ownable.
End quote
The tilling and planting of fields in not a construction activity, but it is a homesteading activity. I held the view that owning land was intrinsically connected with capitalism until I recently came across this debate:
http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/2017/27474.aspx#27474
My understanding now is that one doesn’t buy title to land, they buy title to the labor product of the land (the farm or house). If the labor product of the land ceases to be used then a claim on the land is no longer valid. The land can be re-homesteaded by anyone. To do otherwise is to create unnatural scarcity (and this scarcity can be seen by skeptics of capitalism and cause them to view it as “for the rich,” thus hurting the cause of capitalism).
And of course the government is not a legitimate owner of any land, for the people that constitute the government never homesteaded it. I always knew that property could be abandoned, but I thought of that as freely giving it away. But now I see that if you don’t use it, you lose it, whether you like it or not. You either make use of the land or transform it to make it yours, and to keep it yours, otherwise it reverts back to nature.
The debate started off about how that would work with nature preserves. I held the views of “kingmonkey” before but by the end my mind was changed.
Anarcho-libertarian:The tilling and planting of fields in not a construction activity, but it is a homesteading activity.
I agree; it was just a semantic issue I had with Stranger's wording.
Anarcho-libertarian:I held the view that owning land was intrinsically connected with capitalism until I recently came across this debate: http://mises.org/Community/forums/p/2017/27474.aspx#27474
Thanks, I've read over it now.
Anarcho-libertarian:My understanding now is that one doesn’t buy title to land, they buy title to the labor product of the land (the farm or house). If the labor product of the land ceases to be used then a claim on the land is no longer valid. The land can be re-homesteaded by anyone. To do otherwise is to create unnatural scarcity (and this scarcity can be seen by skeptics of capitalism and cause them to view it as “for the rich,” thus hurting the cause of capitalism).
"Buy title to the labor product of the land" sounds to me like one cannot change said labor product after purchase. For example, if I buy a farm, what you're saying sounds like I couldn't change my mind later and stop using it as a farm. If I did that, it sounds like I'd lose my title to the land. Why should I have to maintain it as a farm and not as something else instead? (Hopefully I'm not knocking down a strawman here.)
Anarcho-libertarian:And of course the government is not a legitimate owner of any land, for the people that constitute the government never homesteaded it. I always knew that property could be abandoned, but I thought of that as freely giving it away. But now I see that if you don’t use it, you lose it, whether you like it or not. You either make use of the land or transform it to make it yours, and to keep it yours, otherwise it reverts back to nature.
I agree that some kind of "abandonment" concept is useful. However, I'm not sure about the details of it. For example, who should handle the abandonment claim?
On another note, how should the case be handled where multiple people "mix their labor with" the same piece of land over a period of time? What I have in mind here are waste dumps. Let's say a certain field has been used as a dumping ground by different people over the years, but no one holds a title to it. Who then owns it? The last person to dump there? Or what?
The issue gets even thornier when pollution occurs. If pollution products from the unowned dumping ground contaminate neighboring land that is owned, who is liable for the pollution damages?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
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Autolykos:"For example, if I buy a farm, what you're saying sounds like I couldn't change my mind later and stop using it as a farm. If I did that, it sounds like I'd lose my title to the land."
Ah, I see. I have to hit save before I can see the preview. It doesn't autosave when I go to preview. I don't know what the official responses are because this is new to me too, but I don't see any reason why you can't change the farm into a hotel and keep it. The point is whether you are making use of the land in some way. We should not be defending land speculators. Who handles the abandonment claim? The courts. If a farm stops being used and I go build a cabin on it then no one will say anything and everyone's happy. But if it hasn't been abandoned then I will be taken to court and the court will decide if the land was being used efficiently or not, among other details. Is that what you meant? Or did you mean it more in this sense, from a review of Butler Shaffer's book Boundaries of Order:
Although Shaffer embraces the idea that the first to claim and use an un-owned resource thereby becomes its legitimate owner, he also recognizes that without the support of one’s neighbors, one’s claim to ownership will never be respected. As Rose Wilder Lane explained in The Discovery of Freedom (pp. 109–110 in the 1943 edition), the protection of our property ultimately depends upon human decency: The only safeguards of property seem to have been possession of the property, individual honesty, and public opinion. ... [C]abins were never locked on the American frontier where there was no law. The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere, is the general recognition of the brotherhood of man. How much of the time is any American within sight of a policeman? Our lives and our property are protected by the way nearly everyone feels about another person’s life and property. As far as multiple people homesteading, I think Walter Block has an answer for that here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block162.html Long states: "Since collectives, like individuals, can mix their labor with unowned resources to make those resources more useful to their purposes, collectives, too can claim property rights by homestead. And since collectives, like individuals, can be the beneficiaries of free voluntary transfer, collectives too can claim property rights by bequest." There are problems here with regard to the Austrian notion of methodological individualism. The way Long characterizes the matter, there is such an entity, the collective, which is apart from, and in contradistinction to, the individuals who compose it. But this is not so, indeed, logically cannot be so. Once all the individuals are taken away from the group, one by one if need by, there is simply no "group" that remains. "Group" or "collective" is merely a shorthand word for iterating the names of the members. The "collective" cannot homestead resources; the "collective," indeed, cannot do anything that is not done by the individuals who comprise it. Some individuals can indeed homestead property. And if this property takes the form of a path from the village to the nearby lake, as Long posits, then so be it. These individuals, and no others, are now the legitimate owners of the path. But the problem for Long is that he has not succeeded in demonstrating "public" property. All he has shown is an instance of private property owned jointly, or, collectively if you will, by specific individuals. This is no news. There is no need to call this a "heretical" position. We have long had partnerships and corporations, owned by many people.
Anarcho-libertarian:I don't know what the official responses are because this is new to me too, but I don't see any reason why you can't change the farm into a hotel and keep it. The point is whether you are making use of the land in some way. We should not be defending land speculators.
"Official responses"?
My point was that the phrase "buy title to the labor product of the land" implies specificity. In other words, if I buy a farm, that means the farm is the labor product of the land, right? So it seems to me that, if I no longer maintain the farm, but instead build condominiums on the land and rent them out to people, that I logically no longer own the labor product of the land (which was a farm). After all, I bought the title to a farm, not the title to some condominiums.
To be allowed to change the use of the land from a farm to condominiums implies to me that it's the land that's ultimately owned.
Anarcho-libertarian:Who handles the abandonment claim? The courts. If a farm stops being used and I go build a cabin on it then no one will say anything and everyone's happy. But if it hasn't been abandoned then I will be taken to court and the court will decide if the land was being used efficiently or not, among other details. Is that what you meant? Or did you mean it more in this sense, from a review of Butler Shaffer's book Boundaries of Order: Although Shaffer embraces the idea that the first to claim and use an un-owned resource thereby becomes its legitimate owner, he also recognizes that without the support of one’s neighbors, one’s claim to ownership will never be respected. As Rose Wilder Lane explained in The Discovery of Freedom (pp. 109–110 in the 1943 edition), the protection of our property ultimately depends upon human decency: The only safeguards of property seem to have been possession of the property, individual honesty, and public opinion. ... [C]abins were never locked on the American frontier where there was no law. The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere, is the general recognition of the brotherhood of man. How much of the time is any American within sight of a policeman? Our lives and our property are protected by the way nearly everyone feels about another person’s life and property.
Although Shaffer embraces the idea that the first to claim and use an un-owned resource thereby becomes its legitimate owner, he also recognizes that without the support of one’s neighbors, one’s claim to ownership will never be respected. As Rose Wilder Lane explained in The Discovery of Freedom (pp. 109–110 in the 1943 edition), the protection of our property ultimately depends upon human decency: The only safeguards of property seem to have been possession of the property, individual honesty, and public opinion. ... [C]abins were never locked on the American frontier where there was no law. The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere, is the general recognition of the brotherhood of man. How much of the time is any American within sight of a policeman? Our lives and our property are protected by the way nearly everyone feels about another person’s life and property.
Do you have a source for the review?
I guess I was thinking more along the lines of declaring something to be abandoned under certain pre-established, agreed-upon conditions. Maybe insurance companies would fill a role there. Of course, there's always the possibility of self-insurance. Ultimately I agree that it would rest with the courts.
Take an example where land has been fenced off and actively guarded, but the landowner died overseas without anyone finding out (for the time being). Is that land abandoned?
My stance on homesteading is one of first acquisition. Does one really "mix his labor with" an apple that he plucks from a tree? I suppose it depends on the definition used for "mix one's labor with", but still. So I agree with Butler Shaffer that ownership involves claims that other people consider legitimate.
When it comes to land, of course, does simply stating "I claim all of the (virgin) land I currently see!" really meaning anything? No. Otherwise, as mentioned in that other thread, we could come to own entire planets by simply saying that as we look at them through a telescope.
Anarcho-libertarian:As far as multiple people homesteading, I think Walter Block has an answer for that here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block162.html "Long states: 'Since collectives, like individuals, can mix their labor with unowned resources to make those resources more useful to their purposes, collectives, too can claim property rights by homestead. And since collectives, like individuals, can be the beneficiaries of free voluntary transfer, collectives too can claim property rights by bequest.' "There are problems here with regard to the Austrian notion of methodological individualism. The way Long characterizes the matter, there is such an entity, the collective, which is apart from, and in contradistinction to, the individuals who compose it. But this is not so, indeed, logically cannot be so. Once all the individuals are taken away from the group, one by one if need by, there is simply no 'group' that remains. 'Group' or 'collective' is merely a shorthand word for iterating the names of the members. The 'collective' cannot homestead resources; the 'collective,' indeed, cannot do anything that is not done by the individuals who comprise it. Some individuals can indeed homestead property. And if this property takes the form of a path from the village to the nearby lake, as Long posits, then so be it. These individuals, and no others, are now the legitimate owners of the path. But the problem for Long is that he has not succeeded in demonstrating 'public' property. All he has shown is an instance of private property owned jointly, or, collectively if you will, by specific individuals. This is no news. There is no need to call this a 'heretical' position. We have long had partnerships and corporations, owned by many people."
I don't see how a partnership per se can own anything from the standpoing of methodological individualism. So I fear that Dr. Block has, in fact, unwittingly endorsed the very concept of collective ownership that Mr. Long espouses.
He also doesn't address the issue I raised about unclaimed land which people nevertheless use. Who is to be considered the owner of such land?
Anarcho-libertarian: I'm tired of trying to search this site for how to quote people, so I'm going to do it the old fashioned way. Putting quote user="Autolykos" in brackets and ending with /quote in brackets just leaves the preview of my message blank.
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/18184.aspx
I was going to say "official responses," but it felt arrogant somehow. In other words, I know I've got to read more before I can write more. If anyone else has answers, I'd like to know as well. The link you wanted for the review is here:
http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.2839
Thanks for that link to the help section.
http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_statutes_90l03_e.htm
The Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act of Ontario, last I checked, directs judges to overturn injunctions against polluters in the case where such polluter is judged to be of sufficient benefit to the community.