Are you all really unable to see the injustice of this? If all land is available for ownership, and we can own the land just to keep it fallow or let ducks live, as has been suggested, than is there any doubt that all land will be privately owned in fairly short order? In the beginning, I imagine just about everyone will have some, but in a couple generations, land ownership will be more concentrated, and a person, say I, will have to have your or someone else's permission just to occupy space, because of the decisions of our ancestors. I will be forced to pay you or someone rent, because you own the land and there is no unowned land for me to go to. You will be able to extort money from me by virtue of mere ownership. You need not necessarily work a day in your life.
Is this just? Do you think that I, and all the rest of the dispossessed, will just stand by and let you extort us because of your land title? Title which you may not have even gained by your own merit, but merely by inheritance? Such things as perpetual title tend to accumulate in a few hands. Land is an absolutely limited resource whose basic value was created by no one.
JCFolsom:If land is in limited supply (as it clearly is) and I need land to grow crops and just live on, but you say to me, and all my friends, that no, this land is for the ducks and you got there first, I would say bleep you, then you and the ducks stop us.
Even here in this small chunk of a country, there's land to homestead. Even the ones with roads access and readily available water sources are affordable to any regular person. An apartment in the city is way more expensive than a lot of hectars. Very few young people want to live in the interior, and vertical construction allows the big majority of our population to live in the litoral. Agriculture and animal creation requires very much less land than it used to. Our region of "Alentejo" is 33% of the country, and has only 8% of population. ;P
I've read that the entire world population can fit in middle class houses in Texas. If land ever gets scarce as you claim it is (are you from Japan or something?), then parents should be responsible about the number of kids they breed. If there's abandoned land, take it, but you don't have a claim on other people's property.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
By the way, do farmers actually place fences around their properties there? Around here, we use piles of rocks to delimit the perimiter of the property. At times, there have been disputes about the other guy moving the rocks, and they can get really nasty because besides being neighbords and having families related a lot of times, the courts are really, really slow (even criminal cases can last decades here), and both parties must annoy the biggest amount of people to serve as witnesses as you can, because that's pretty much the only evidence they have.
JCFolsom:Are you all really unable to see the injustice of this? If all land is available for ownership, and we can own the land just to keep it fallow or let ducks live, as has been suggested, than is there any doubt that all land will be privately owned in fairly short order?
I'm trying to figure out where you make the mental jump from owning land that makes the owner no money in return but is in fact a liability (except for the psychic profit of providing ducks a place to breed) and them being able to buy up the whole world. It really does not follow.
And where's this beginning you refer to? The beginning of time or the beginning of some theoritical construct you dreamed up where property rights are determined by might makes right?
Is it really so hard to conceive that if you don't own something that you have no right to take it by force?
Hell, before industrialized agriculture it was common practice to let the land lie fallow every few seasons so you didn't strip all the nutrients out of the soil. Is this an acceptable practice or is this land ripe for squatting?
BlackSheep:By the way, do farmers actually place fences around their properties there? Around here, we use piles of rocks to delimit the perimiter of the property.
Barbed wire tamed the west...
I think it is mostly ot keep marauding cows out of corn fields more than anything else though.
JCFolsom:Title which you may not have even gained by your own merit, but merely by inheritance?
Is their any bottom to your socialist rhetoric?
Should a baby earn its milk?
Peace
JonBostwick:Is their any bottom to your socialist rhetoric? Should a baby earn its milk?
Look, man, when I examine a point of view, I take and try to argue for it, and see what I can do and how people respond. You're all arch-capitalists here, right?
All ownership is established, so far as I can tell, by either creating something or gaining it in an honest, voluntary transaction. Except for land, that is. Unlike any other object which can rightfuly be homesteaded, no one gave up ownership rights or left it unowned by death where it had previously been owned. No, land, until it is claimed, is truly a commons, owned equally by all. No human created its value. Homesteading of land originates in something as silly as winning a race. Further, you can make no more of it, and all humans require at least a bit of it to even exist. You have no right to declare a commons property by a unilateral decision. The value you add to it is rightly yours, but not the value of the land itself.
As for those of you worried about land lying fallow; get real, will you? A reasonable person can agree that letting a field lie fallow for a season is a good thing. We are not talking about cyclical disuse for land regeneration here, we are talking about you keeping a couple extra acres for yourself so you can have the status or whatever of having that land.
No, a baby need not earn its milk. The milk is created by the mother, and she has every right (and indeed, an obligation) to give it. Land is created by no human, and no human has a right to claim it eternally and exclusively. Especially when there exists demand for land among those who have none and you don't have any added value on it. Except a fence, of course. So take your GD fence, or I suppose we can just live around it.
Ah, I see what's going on here. JCFolsom is a geolibertarian. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's an outright socialist, but his views on land could be considered a socialistic acception to the rule.
JCFolsom:Look, man, when I examine a point of view, I take and try to argue for it, and see what I can do and how people respond. You're all arch-capitalists here, right?
For what it is worth JCFolsom, I suggest that you recognize that your last reply seems unduly focussed on the value of land. However, the value of anything is completely subjective.
Also, you say "No, land, until it is claimed, is truly a commons, owned equally by all." which is also a completely subjective opinion. Do not that you are ascribing ownership rights to people who do not claim them -- maybe even to people who do not even want them.
JCFolsom:Further, you can make no more of it, and all humans require at least a bit of it to even exist. You have no right to declare a commons property by a unilateral decision. The value you add to it is rightly yours, but not the value of the land itself.
Also, how do you separate the value you add to land from the value of the land itself?
You are in error, or at least it seems so. You seem to be thinking that I'm arguing against anarchism. I am not. I am just saying that anarchism, should it arise, will not look like you wish it would look. Squatter's rights, unless I'm mistaken, are part of common law too. These are not questions thrown at anarchists, but at capitalists.
They're pointless. That is all I can say of them. There will be no such thing as "squatters' rights" on legitimately acquired property. I'm not sure what makes you think abandoned property is considered legitimate - on the other hand, property in disuse at the present is not necessarily abandoned. It's also pointless to own large tracts of empty land that are costly to defend.
It's so funny how people think temporal luck makes for permanent exclusive rights.
Latecomers tend to reap all the benefits. Those lucky b*stards should be forced to compensate those who worked the land before them. Anyway, latecomer ethics are destructive of the very notion of ownership.
No, land, until it is claimed, is truly a commons,
No, it isn't. This is often assumed but never proven.
owned equally by all. No human created its value. Homesteading of land originates in something as silly as winning a race. Further, you can make no more of it, and all humans require at least a bit of it to even exist. You have no right to declare a commons property by a unilateral decision. The value you add to it is rightly yours, but not the value of the land itself.
You have every right to declare unowned land yours if you homestead it, socialist "ethics" notwithstanding. Value does not create ownership anyway! I wonder when people will update themselves on this. Humans also require food to exist &c. Too bad. They have no right to it without first acting to gain it (the exception being children, whose parents are obliged to them.)
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
JCFolsom:All ownership is established, so far as I can tell, by either creating something or gaining it in an honest, voluntary transaction. Except for land, that is. Unlike any other object which can rightfuly be homesteaded, no one gave up ownership rights or left it unowned by death where it had previously been owned. No, land, until it is claimed, is truly a commons, owned equally by all. No human created its value. Homesteading of land originates in something as silly as winning a race.
No, not except for land. All property is created. Unused land of no use to anyone - it is of potential use. When you commit a purposeful act that realizes that potential, you have created property where none existed before. It's not owned by all, because ownership is individual, it can't be collective no matter how much some socialists wish it was, and no matter what some law or philosophical system says. And claiming it is is conceding the very same premise you seem to be arguing against, that ownership can be declared by fiat rather than established by turning something from what just is to a thing that meets the objective criteria of the purpose of property. It's not about the race, it's not a game of tag. It's about purpose, which is the basis for the need for property in the first place.
JCFolsom: we are talking about you keeping a couple extra acres for yourself so you can have the status or whatever of having that land.
we are talking about you keeping a couple extra acres for yourself so you can have the status or whatever of having that land.
I think that reveals more about you, and your view of what wealth means than anything about property or property rights. Personal hang-ups are a bad basis for law, and even worse for philosophy.
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
histhasthai:No, not except for land. All property is created. Unused land of no use to anyone - it is of potential use. When you commit a purposeful act that realizes that potential, you have created property where none existed before. It's not owned by all, because ownership is individual, it can't be collective no matter how much some socialists wish it was, and no matter what some law or philosophical system says.
So, I can't go in with, say, 10 other people to buy a tractor? If I do, is that tractor not collectively owned? I am fully an individualist, but saying that more than 1 person cannot have ownership rights over the same piece of property seems a little bizarre.
Brainpolice:Ah, I see what's going on here. JCFolsom is a geolibertarian. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's an outright socialist, but his views on land could be considered a socialistic acception to the rule.
Only in a sense, Brainpolice (by the way, are you that Brainpolice2 dude on youtube, too?). I do not believe in taxes at all, given that right now, I'm leaning anarchist. Georgists tend to be single-taxers, and that is not my emphasis. I have been inspired in this current line of thought first by Agorists (these fellows aren't nearly so tied to capitalism as you might think, but rather free markets, which at least some distinguish between), and yes, by Geolibertarianism with a dash of left anarchism thrown in.
JCFolsom: histhasthai:No, not except for land. All property is created. Unused land of no use to anyone - it is of potential use. When you commit a purposeful act that realizes that potential, you have created property where none existed before. It's not owned by all, because ownership is individual, it can't be collective no matter how much some socialists wish it was, and no matter what some law or philosophical system says. So, I can't go in with, say, 10 other people to buy a tractor? If I do, is that tractor not collectively owned? I am fully an individualist, but saying that more than 1 person cannot have ownership rights over the same piece of property seems a little bizarre.
If y'all disagree with this, than correct me if I'm wrong, what we have here is a difference of definitions; rather one of the hardest sorts of differences to overcome, in my opinion. If I say "all land is commonly owned", I can justify that statement to some degree in the same sense that property itself is justified, by an appeal to natural law via human nature.
Only in a sense, Brainpolice (by the way, are you that Brainpolice2 dude on youtube, too?).
Yes.
I do not believe in taxes at all, given that right now, I'm leaning anarchist. Georgists tend to be single-taxers, and that is not my emphasis.
I understand. You could be classified as a "geo-anarchist".
I have been inspired in this current line of thought first by Agorists (these fellows aren't nearly so tied to capitalism as you might think, but rather free markets, which at least some distinguish between), and yes, by Geolibertarianism with a dash of left anarchism thrown in.
I'm an agorist myself. However, I don't buy into the geolibertarian premises and most agorists probably don't either. The two definitely can overlap though.
I can justify that statement to some degree in the same sense that property itself is justified, by an appeal to natural law via human nature.
The reason Locke snuck that premise into his natural-law ethic was belief in God. Very few geolibertarians have ever bothered to explain why land is initially owned, when ownership arises from human activity.
Jon Irenicus:The reason Locke snuck that premise into his natural-law ethic was belief in God. Very few geolibertarians have ever bothered to explain why land is initially owned, when ownership arises from human activity.
That, or, you just don't like the conclusion. Did Locke ever say, "this bit is only there because of God"? In any case, unlike many here with their appeals to authority, "Rothbard said it here in the holy writ", I was not referring specifically to Locke. Rothbard himself justifies homesteading via natural law, though I am not sure this is actually sound grounding. I only refer to it because I think many here use it as a philosophical justification.
It's a well-known fact that several elements of Locke's homesteading theory come from his theological presuppositions. That is why the theory has been nearly totally reworked in order to remain useful.
JCFolsom:No, land, until it is claimed, is truly a commons, owned equally by all.
If unowned land was actually owned by all, then it could never be claimed by one.
A commons is a definite thing, it is not an abstraction that means the absence of ownership. A good example of commons is the Sun. The reflex reaction is say that since no one has been to the Sun the Sun must be unowned, but that is untrue. If the Sun was really unowned I could travel to the Sun, claim it, and then destroy it; but I can't. Even if I were to claim the Sun, I can not possess the right to use it in a way that precludes others from continuing to use the sun as they did before my claim.
While mixing labor is a sufficient condition to gain ownership, it is not a necessary condition.
Now if I were to travel to a distinct Star no one would have a previous claim it and I could do to it what I liked; like experiment with turning it into a black hole.
An uninhabited island is like the distinct star and not like the sun. It is not owned by all, it is owned by none.
JonBostwick: If unowned land was actually owned by all, then it could never be claimed by one.
True that! Though, no one would deny a person a place to live, the space to build a house, even to grow crops or livestock. Use your land, as anyone might, to live on and support yourself, and no one would complain, or if they did, they would be ignored or condemned for it.
However, should land be scarce, so that in order to have any land to live on or work in an area, they must rent or buy unused land you claim from you, and you are in fact willing to do so, this is nonsense. What right have you to it? If you raise no crops or graze no animals there, if all you've done is, say, thrown a fence up around it, you have no exclusive right to it. You've added no value to the land that you could claim, only claimed the pre-existing value that is owned in common by all, and thus can have no exclusive right to. You are trying to steal it from the bulk of humanity, who by our very nature need space to live in and produce in.
If you build apartments and maintain them, you have a right to those, and I may find it worthwhile to rent from you to avoid the hassle myself. However, with all unused land potentially available, rents could hardly be so high as landlords have come to expect.
I do see a legitimate concern about the pro-fence side essentially legitimizing a state. I mean, under the pro-fence logic, one could simply make some marking signs and slight modifications around an entire land mass and declare everything within it to be the legitimate "property" or dominion of control of a nation-state. In short, this could be used to justify political borders. What is the state but a gigantic monopolist fuedal landlord?
I don't think there is a single person on earth dense enough to actually believe that the fense preceeds ownership and not the other way around. Even if there were, we are perfectly able to correct them without resorting to the strange notions presented by some here.
*boinks the judeo-bolsheviks*
JonBostwick:I don't think there is a single person on earth dense enough to actually believe that the fense preceeds ownership and not the other way around. Even if there were, we are perfectly able to correct them without resorting to the strange notions presented by some here.
I am an ethical egoist and I believe that what is your property is what you can defend.
Now I have to rethink this whole stateless society thing because I'm not really one who feels the need to justify my existence to others and if I wanted to buy up a fallow farm so ducks would have a place to hang out I would have to do exactly that to the invading anarchists who don't accept that I have a valid claim to the land because my preferred usage of said land is unacceptable to them.
But it is a valid point, owning land for the sole purpose of keeping it fallow is a legitimate use no matter what the would be squatters believe is the proper usage of land to establish ownership.
Putting up a fence is transforming it through labor.
What does, then, precede ownership? We see here that many think that, even when human beings are in need of land, someone can just claim it for muck-feeding fowl. We see that fencing is mixing labor. That you can claim whatever you have the force to claim. That it is legitimate to claim land for the express purpose of just not letting anyone else use it. Such petty BS!
What is sufficient to establish land ownership? And don't tell me to go read Rothbard, if you can't explain it to me here, it's just an appeal to authority you don't even really understand. Rothbard was just a man, just like Mises, or George, or Konkin or Emma Goldman any other icon. If you can claim land just to leave it fallow, what are the limits on the area? Land ownership is incoherent, and becomes more incoherent the more strongly you adhere to the idea of homesteading, which, ironically, is incoherent when applied to land, though not to other things.
A little bit of a correction for myself: Land ownership is incoherent for anarchists. It is coherent for feudalists and other statists who are granted and enforce arbitrary land rights against everyone else. Let me think, where would the word "title" come from? Oh, yeah, the king granted you a title, Earl of Eastbumf**k or someeauch, which said that land was yours and your descendants for ever and ever. Then, you could steal from the peasants who live there and conscript their children to enforce your royally-granted title.
A better correction: Land is just physical matter that is too heavy to carry away and relocate.
JCFolsom:We see here that many think that, even when human beings are in need of land, someone can just claim it for muck-feeding fowl.
What do you have against ducks?
But you see, it wasn't by accident that I chose that example. It is a major argument of the people who wish to take away your and my money and pay farmers to let their land sit idle as part of a wetland conservancy or something. Land is leaving this program because of the high food prices and environmental groups are crying to the State to do something about it like give the farmers an even higher payment to sit on their ass or maybe force them to stay in the program through government decree.
All you are doing is furthering the 'unregulated capitalism is the debil' argument because you are confirming their fears that under such a system there would be no way to protect nature from the 'evil capitalistic exploiters'.
How do you expect to convince the general population that reliance on the state isn't necessary when you are in fact using their very argument against the Free Market as a justification for your land ownership theory?
You think that when everybody reject your logic that maybe, just maybe, it could be possible that you are incorrect?
Except the commies, they probably share your views on this subject.
You've added no value to the land that you could claim, only claimed the pre-existing value that is owned in common by all, and thus can have no exclusive right to. You are trying to steal it from the bulk of humanity, who by our very nature need space to live in and produce in.
Two problems - a) value is not owned, property is. You cannot own what resides in the heads of individuals. b) It isn't owned in common. You've done nothing to prove it. Not even so much as easement rights.
Land ownership is incoherent, and becomes more incoherent the more strongly you adhere to the idea of homesteading, which, ironically, is incoherent when applied to land, though not to other things.
So far the only thing here that is incoherent is you.
JCFolsom:So, I can't go in with, say, 10 other people to buy a tractor? If I do, is that tractor not collectively owned? I am fully an individualist, but saying that more than 1 person cannot have ownership rights over the same piece of property seems a little bizarre.
Well, if "ownership" is merely title, then I suppose you could call it collective ownership. But that's not what ownership is, by your own arguments here. Ownership is the right and power to control the use, trade, and disposal of something. Ten people can't all have the right to conrol the use, trade and disposal of a tractor. Control implies decision-making, and ten people cannot all make one decision, only individuals can make decisions.
The best ten people can do is to form a structure of some sort (like a corporation, though not necessarily that particular form) that has ownership of the tractor, and then each person has ownership of a share of that structure giving him specific claims on a portion of the use of the tractor, ownership rights in a specific share of the any proceeds from sale, and, importantly, the full right of control over the use, trade, or disposal of his share and the defined powers and rights it provides. The "corporation" has owership of the tractor, but it is mediated through the individual ownership of the shareholders.
Without those delineated rights, collective ownership is really ownership by one representative of the collective who may or may not promise to make his decisions based on the results of a vote or some such, and who may or may not keep that promise. Taht vote is not a collective decision, it is the expresssion of many varying individual decisions, and then another individual decision to act a certain way. The individual that is part of the collective does not own anything. He doesn't own a definite share of the collectivized asset, nor does he own any transferable property. He does not have the right to sell his share, because there is nothing to sell.
Jon Irenicus:Two problems - a) value is not owned, property is. You cannot own what resides in the heads of individuals. b) It isn't owned in common. You've done nothing to prove it. Not even so much as easement rights.
Really? Well, then, how can you sue me for destruction of property? If I destroyed it, it is irretrievably lost, and the only thing you could recover is gone.
Jon Irenicus:So far the only thing here that is incoherent is you.
So, you don't have an answer for what precedes ownership of land then? I just figure the ad hominem indicates your defeat.
Anonymous Coward:What do you have against ducks?
Nothing. They're delicious.
Anonymous Coward:But you see, it wasn't by accident that I chose that example. It is a major argument of the people who wish to take away your and my money and pay farmers to let their land sit idle as part of a wetland conservancy or something. Land is leaving this program because of the high food prices and environmental groups are crying to the State to do something about it like give the farmers an even higher payment to sit on their ass or maybe force them to stay in the program through government decree. All you are doing is furthering the 'unregulated capitalism is the debil' argument because you are confirming their fears that under such a system there would be no way to protect nature from the 'evil capitalistic exploiters'.
I honestly don't care what environmentalists think. I am anti-environmentalist, which is in no small part because I was once a very big environmentalist. I was part of a group. I protested the development of a golf course at one of Clint Eastwood's movie premieres (Absolute Power). Lemme tell you what. Most serious environmentalists are misanthropes. They hate humanity, and see us as a cancer. They think the world would be better off without us (better for whom, I don't know; ducks, maybe). So forgive me if I could honestly give a crap about what they want or care about. I am concerned with what is best for people. If one policy, just one, is put in place to help animals to the demonstrable harm of humanity, I say screw that. If the world ends up paved over, covered completely with human habitat, as I bet one day it will be, than I think that is as it should be. We should not be cruel or callous, but we should never put the good of beasts before the good of men.
Anonymous Coward:How do you expect to convince the general population that reliance on the state isn't necessary when you are in fact using their very argument against the Free Market as a justification for your land ownership theory?
I dunno, maybe the same way we convince a population that thinks that we are obligated to provide schooling for the poor that we can do without the state.
histhasthai:Well, if "ownership" is merely title, then I suppose you could call it collective ownership. But that's not what ownership is, by your own arguments here. Ownership is the right and power to control the use, trade, and disposal of something. Ten people can't all have the right to conrol the use, trade and disposal of a tractor. Control implies decision-making, and ten people cannot all make one decision, only individuals can make decisions.
They will have to come to a consensus or at least make a majority decision. Each could have an equal right to make decisions over the tractor. The majority of the individuals would have to make the same decision for it to do anything.
histhasthai:The best ten people can do is to form a structure of some sort (like a corporation, though not necessarily that particular form) that has ownership of the tractor, and then each person has ownership of a share of that structure giving him specific claims on a portion of the use of the tractor, ownership rights in a specific share of the any proceeds from sale, and, importantly, the full right of control over the use, trade, or disposal of his share and the defined powers and rights it provides. The "corporation" has owership of the tractor, but it is mediated through the individual ownership of the shareholders.
Nonsense! Corporation my foot! What, you really think giving a fictional entity ownership is more realistic than having ownership directly shared by several people? The state is a corporate entity, you know! Why don't you say the Easter Bunny owns it?
Charles Anthony: A better correction: Land is just physical matter that is too heavy to carry away and relocate.
No, that's dirt, which is contained in land, but is not land itself. Can you not see the difference? Land is place, it is space, it is location. You can mine ore or quarry stone from land, but take those things from it and the land remains.
No, I do not see a difference.
I understand what you mean by identifying land by its location. However, location is relative. The Earth moves around the Sun so, your land title could arguably be changing all of the time. Relative to the Sun, you could very well become the owner of land in China later this year -- you probably were sometime last year!
Look, I am not just trying to be comical. I am trying to impress upon you that in the end, there may not be any logical reason to treat land ownership any differently from the ownership of any other piece of property, moveable or not. Land just happens to be stationary and so it is more convenient to define it with co-ordinates.
You may not intend to be comical, but you are being a little silly. When I say it's a location, you and everyone else can come to a reasonable and clear idea of what that means. Details of cosmology and "well, technically"s are just, well, again silly.
I hardly think it's a mystery that we differ on what constitutes property. Answer my question, though, what must you do to claim property? What is the minimum prerequisite for homesteading? Someone else said that fencing is not all that's required. So, what is required? If I don't get an answer from someone soon, I'll start to think y'all are dodging the question.
JCFolsom: I hardly think it's a mystery that we differ on what constitutes property. Answer my question, though, what must you do to claim property? What is the minimum prerequisite for homesteading? Someone else said that fencing is not all that's required. So, what is required? If I don't get an answer from someone soon, I'll start to think y'all are dodging the question.
I would say specific changes to the land that only man can do, such as planting a straight line garden, or cutting a bed into a hill. Significant changes such as buildings. The only claim that you have over a piece of land is what you are willing to say you would do to defend it. Regardless if you homesteaded it or not, claims are nothing. The prerequisite for homesteading is the means to defend the land you claim is yours. If you claim to own something, you own it. That is man's nature, actively using his will to prolong his existence by gaining resources. If he is not using his will (being the victor defending and controlling the use of property he claims ), then his will is negated, at which point he is no longer a human, and his claim to property is pointless.
Property claims are man's sophisticated way of peeing on something. Man leaves his mark to tell others what is his. But other men pee on his stuff. If he is not there to claim ownership it is not his stuff.
When you get down to it, it is a first user argument
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
Thanks, Andrew, but I do think your view varies to a great degree from the majority view here. It is very egoist, as you said before, but I appreciate the alternate perpective. I'm still not really sure if you're saying you need to plant a row of tomatoes (and what, precisely, the area surrounding it that entitles you to is), or just install a nice gun turret. First user is fine, but that kinda means you have to use it.
What I'm really going for, though, is the standard view here, the straight-up anarcho-capitalist Austrian view. How does one first establish ownership over land? We have seen that you can't just declare it, and you can't just fence it, yet some are saying that leaving it to lie permanently fallow is acceptable, so you don't need to "mix labor" with it. So, how do you establish rightful property in the first place?
The only thing you're entitled to are damages, usually to buy back an item of the same sort as well as court costs &c. You never owned the value, period. Otherwise, competition in the market would constitute destruction of property.
What do you mean "precedes ownership of the land"? I've seen this phrase thrown about in here. The "ad hominem" indicates my belief that you've yet to advance a coherent position for pretty much any argument you've made so far. I'm guessing you're referring to what one must do to establish ownership over unowned resources - and I have answered this: the RTU. Rothbard discusses it in a bit of detail in his article on law, air pollution and property rights.
Jon Irenicus: The only thing you're entitled to is something to replace it. You never owned the value, period. Otherwise, competition in the market would constitute destruction of property.
The only thing you're entitled to is something to replace it. You never owned the value, period. Otherwise, competition in the market would constitute destruction of property.
I see, so money awards in courts are illegitimate, then? I have to go and buy you an identical (by the way, impossible in an absolute sense) thing to pay you?
As anyone here would admit, value is only defined at a time of transaction. I don't feel like making up good wurdz for this now, and it's off topic, but as with my old argument wih Inquisitor, ownership, and particularly restitution, is really only sensical if it is value which is owned. Otherwise, I could bleach the pages of your book, give it back to you without an iota of material missing, and you would have lost nothing.
Jon Irenicus:What do you mean "precedes ownership of the land"? I've seen this phrase thrown about in here. The "ad hominem" indicates my belief that you've yet to advance a coherent position for pretty much any argument you've made so far. I'm guessing you're referring to what one must do to establish ownership over unowned resources - and I have answered this: the RTU. Rothbard discusses it in a bit of detail in his article on law, air pollution and property rights.
I mean, what do you have to do to land before you can claim it?
As for RTU, yes, you've said it. And, I've said, don't tell me "Rothbard said so", tell me your interpretation. I'm not talking to Rothbard (he's dead), I'm talking to y'all on this forum. What is the minimal amount you have to do to rightfully claim land? What are the fewest conditions you must meet?