Political Theory

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:06:24 GMT

there's no reason why you can have doughnut-shaped properties.

You mean "can't"?

I don't like your conclusions. I agree with easements insofar as them giving you the right to fish somewhere, but not the entitlement to the have a good catch.

When I said "it might actually be useful to abandon the idea of property in expected use" I wanted to use grammatical syntax parallel to "property in ideas" to mean "you don't have property in expectations." As in when you invest in a businesses, you don't have an entitlement to a good return. This good return is an expectation. You have no property rights in these expectations, so if they are taken away, all is good.

The answer is that the owner of that property must claim a large enough amount of space that there's effectively no upstream--or claim it all the way to the source of the asteroids.

If he does indeed do that (and actually homestead it) then it's fine. But you can't claim a small part of space and with it any asteroid that might come flying in the next 20 years.

they have materially harmed your property which had river access as a condition of that space

Hm... should they be legally liable? You don't homestead the entitlement to have water running through the property. If you want water constantly dam your portion and develop some mechanism for running water.

Maybe you don't agree with that, but consider this:

There is a drought this year and your river is dried up. Next year, however, the rains begin to come (you see them far off into the distance). What if someone decides that his property is dry too and seeds the clouds, forcing them to rain on his hill instead of yours? He does this continuously and your property remains dry. Is he legally at fault?

This is the problem when you homestead not just use of land, but expectations of use. Things get funky fast. This is why I suggested abandoning property in expectations. I use the word "property" because it can be redefined as an entitlement to use aggression to prevent interference. If you have a property in something, you can use force to protect interference. Hence, "property in expectations." If you prefer, "a homesteading of the expectations of use", as I said before.

Again, I do not mean abandoning property. Just abandoning the entitlement to the benefits from factors which come from outside of your property.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Anenome — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:13:36 GMT

Wheylous:

I do find problems with my own argument similar to what you mentioned, but yours is also flawed:

if anyone bought space next to us, "up-asteroid-stream" as it were, and blocked all incoming asteroids

You're saying you have the right to all asteroids that will ever fly through the space? So if some asteroid is coming from 4x10^10 kilometers away (8 times Pluto's radius) and I choose to mine it, I am violating your rights?

That's like saying that if I trap rainwater in Colorado I violate the property of a lake owner in India because the specific water will now not get to him.

I think it might actually be useful to abandon the idea of property in expected use. For example, while I fish in a pond and thus gain an easement to it, I do not gain an entitlement a certain amount of catch from the lake. I simply gain the right to make whatever use I can of the lake.

That's a good point but abandoning property is not the answer. The answer is that the owner of that property must claim a large enough amount of space that there's effectively no upstream--or claim it all the way to the source of the asteroids.

Once you have a 21st century definition of propety which includes 3D boundaries and moving boundaries, there's no reason why you can have doughnut-shaped properties. You want to own an entire asteroid belt? No one else disputes the claim? Feel free.

I don't mean our asteroid belt in our solar system, many would want a piece of that action and make claims as well.

This is an interesting challenge tho, as I'm not sure even that my solution to it is perfectly desireable.

Clearly, if you have a river coming through your land (on earth) and someone dams it upstream from you, they have materially harmed your property which had river access as a condition of that space. I see no reason to not see asteroid flow as exactly analogous to water flow through a property.

I suppose defining asteroid flow more exactly would help. Say we owned a defined section of an asteroid ring around a large planet, and maintained a mining facility on the edge of it. We only need enough space-property to contain our facility and operations, allowing for ship travel and the section of the ring that we intend to actively mine, which is likely transverse to the ring.

We chose this section because asteroids are travelling through it at high density, as they revolve around a planet.

Now, in this situation, would you be harmed if someone else mined an asteroid out of that ring adjacent to you? No. That would be like taking a cup of water out of a stream upstream from you. It wouldn't be missed.

But if someone redirected the flow of asteroids entirely, thus rendering your entire mining operation moot, you'd be harmed just as surely as if you had a million plant that relied on water-flow to turn the million wheel by the side of a river.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:22:55 GMT

I do find problems with my own argument similar to what you mentioned, but yours is also flawed:

if anyone bought space next to us, "up-asteroid-stream" as it were, and blocked all incoming asteroids

You're saying you have the right to all asteroids that will ever fly through the space? So if some asteroid is coming from 4x10^10 kilometers away (8 times Pluto's radius) and I choose to mine it, I am violating your rights?

That's like saying that if I trap rainwater in Colorado I violate the property of a lake owner in India because the specific water will now not get to him.

I think it might actually be useful to abandon the idea of property in expected use. For example, while I fish in a pond and thus gain an easement to it, I do not gain an entitlement a certain amount of catch from the lake. I simply gain the right to make whatever use I can of the lake.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Anenome — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:43:44 GMT

Wheylous:

on your property

Your property being that which you homestead through use or enclosure. Hence, not the gold mine.

That's not what property means tho. If you discover a value on your property you didn't know was there, it's still yours. That's why when people discover oil on their property they end up millionaires selling it to others. If a gold vein is discovered under your property, it's yours, in theory.

Currently we think of property in two dimensions, but we need to come to think of property in three.

Wheylous:

I don't really see why a lake is all that different to land in this regard, just because water is somewhat more fluid than soil

So do you own the coordinates or the actual water?

You own a defined space, with the right to dispose of values on that space and keep others out. The water flowing through that space is a condition of that property, which you may dispose of as you like while it's on your property, as long as you're not materially damaging the property of the person next to you for whom flowing water is also a property contingent on it flowing through yours first. Just as the guy upstream from you shouldn't pollute water coming into your space.

I think of fish ranging through as a similar quality: a condition of that property, which is diminished is harm to your property.

But suppose we were in space, with asteroids flying through our property continually and we built an asteroid catching facility to mine metals. Asteroids flowing through is why we bought that space, and without that we would never have built our facility. So that, if anyone bought space next to us, "up-asteroid-stream" as it were, and blocked all incoming asteroids, they've clearly harmed us materially. Asteroids flowing through are a property of that property.

And suppose we discover some invisible black hole on the property that ends up being fabulously valuable. We're free to sell it--tho we have no mixed our labor with it.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:54:02 GMT

on your property

Your property being that which you homestead through use or enclosure. Hence, not the gold mine.

I don't really see why a lake is all that different to land in this regard, just because water is somewhat more fluid than soil

So do you own the coordinates or the actual water?

Re: Property rights in a lake

James — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:17:55 GMT

It is possible to farm fish. It is possible to put up buoys etc to mark boundaries, and to precisely locate and demarcate boundaries on a map. I don't really see why a lake is all that different to land in this regard, just because water is somewhat more fluid than soil. You can own bits of it just like land.

Why is a small lake with houses around it different to a small field (commons) with houses around it? It could be owned any number of different ways.

What about the water level on your shore? Can you own that? What if someone from the other side of the lake empties half of the lake, can you sue him?

Yes, I suppose a land-based analogy might be excavations undernearth your property causing it to subside, or something to cause a landslide downhill. Maybe soil erosion, or interruptions to the natural flow of surface water.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Eugene — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 15:12:59 GMT

What about the water level on your shore? Can you own that? What if someone from the other side of the lake empties half of the lake, can you sue him?

Re: Property rights in a lake

Anenome — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 06:34:15 GMT

Yes, but if the goldmine is partly on your property, then I assume your property extends partway into the goldmine. The premise for this discussion was that 100 people own a lake; at least that's how I reformed the premise.

I was not trying to put that forth as a general principle. If you own part of the lake, you own part of the lake. If you do not, you do not. Property lines are the major factor. It's perfectly possible to create a lake with 100 residences rimming it, with each's property extending into the lake and owning part of all of it.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:50:30 GMT

Ah, it's nice when reality itself hands you a reductio ad absurdum:

But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/18/nation/na-contested-rainwater18

Need I say more?

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 03:15:53 GMT

they must therefore be part owners in the water.

Does not follow. I can do it too:

"since people build their houses near a gold mine, they own part of the gold mine."

Re: Property rights in a lake

Anenome — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:57:43 GMT

Wheylous:

But, for the lake example, is seems that everyone owning property alongside the lake would own a share of the lake.

Say that there are 5,000,000 people on a sea coast and all own a house on the sea. Under your theory, they would all own a share of the sea. Hence, the sea is owned by these people. In comes Joe and builds a new house. Do the 5,000,000 people all now lose part of their property so that Joe may have a part of the sea?

I worded that poorly. I meant in this instance. If we treat the lake as property, then each person building a house on the water would likely own a share of land that continues into the water to an extent. Thus, a condition of his property is the fish that range through it. I'm not saying people on the waterside automatically get ownership of land in the water, but rather that his example said 100 people own the lake, and if they're living on its shore they must therefore be part owners in the water.

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:47:00 GMT

But, for the lake example, is seems that everyone owning property alongside the lake would own a share of the lake.

Say that there are 5,000,000 people on a sea coast and all own a house on the sea. Under your theory, they would all own a share of the sea. Hence, the sea is owned by these people. In comes Joe and builds a new house. Do the 5,000,000 people all now lose part of their property so that Joe may have a part of the sea?

Re: Property rights in a lake

Wheylous — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:43:59 GMT

There's such a thing as simply staking a claim

I can stake a claim to all unowned land at once. Does that make me its owner?

If the farmer bought the property from someone else, then sure, it's his property. Yet he must actually be using the land for it to be his. He only actually used 500 acres and relies on the possibility to use the rest of the land? Caveat emptor. You have no property in beliefs and hopes.

Perhaps if he enclosed the land it would be his. But he can't simply claim it.

How do you improve space?

As TANSTAAFL says, you can own the land beneath the water. If you build the oil rig, you have physically improved the land beneath the water, so you gain rights to the land.

But, for the lake example, is seems that everyone owning property alongside the lake would own a share of the lake.

Why? You've bought the land, not the lake. If I own a house on the sea, do I own part of the sea?

Together they own one lake. I don't mean it's supposed to be communal.

"Together" ownership doesn't simply come out of this air. Consider how it became "together" ownership. Each part was homesteaded by an individual. Hence, when you homestead without a contract to give up the land, the land is yours. Now, if you want to make the land in some way "together" property, you need to contract with others. In this contract you explain what the rules of sharing are, and dispute settlement would fall under these rules.

The presence of fish is a property of the lake.

Consider the presence of a herd of buffalo. If the buffalo leaves your land and enters your neighbor's, can the neighbor not kill and eat them? He obviously can. You homesteaded the land, not the buffalo. Homesteading buffalo means taming, enclosing, breeding, or providing shelter etc. for them in some way. Since the buffalo don't become part of the property, neither do the fish.

What if you owned a fishing resort?

Then you would 1) actually own the lake through buying or enclosing it or 2) not actually own the lake and only guarantee a lodge for fishermen, not the actual fish.

It's almost exactly analogous if you ask me.

Then why can't we own the wind?

Re: Property rights in a lake

Autolykos — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:26:25 GMT

Eugene:
Although this was probably discussed, but I didn't find a link. If 100 fishermen have a property in a shore of a lake, and all of them made a contract that would limit fishing in order not to deplete this resource. But then, one fisherman doesn't sign the contract and instead fishes in enormous amounts, depleting the fishes of all others. The same scenario can also happen with grazing grounds, with water extraction from a lake, and other things that are hard to define as distinct property.

What is your solution to this?

Thanks.

There are no solutions, only different trade-offs.

One frequent common-law concept is that of riparian rights. Under this notion, there are generally recognized rights to bodies of water that are de facto (if not also de jure) shared by multiple individuals. Hence it would be irrelevant whether one fisherman didn't sign the contract.

Re: Property rights in a lake

TANSTAAFL — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:38:30 GMT

There is land under the water. The submerged land can be owned. Just as one can own the minerals under the surface of land he owns, so can one own the water that sits above the land he owns. If it worked like this the OP's claim that the one guy an fish out the lake seems preposterous. The other owners coculd limit where the one guy can fish by not allowing him on their water. I highly doubt the one guy could "deplete" the fish from the lake without access to the whole lake.