Alright, so if you have repeatedly traversed a tract of unowned land you gain an easement over the trails, so that even if someone builds a condo on the land, you still have the right to a non-invasive passage through the land.
In short, you homestead a right to the passage.
However, let's compare this with "normal" property rights. When you have property in something, you may decide who can use it.
The same should, to be consistent (imo), be applied to easements. Following the logic, you can let strangers use your easements.
Is this correct?
If it is, then it's a mixed blessing. On one hand, it appears that property is much more like swiss cheese than we expected. On the other hand, it virtually solves all "encirclement" issues people bring up against voluntaryism.
Nice pun.
I don't see what the problem is with property being more like "swiss cheese" than "we" expected. And who's "we"?
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
And who's "we"?
My projection of what this community tends to think in the aggregate.
So do you agree with the conclusion I've reached?
Personally, I agree that right-of-way should be seen as an easement. And historically speaking, it has been.
Right of way even without a prior homesteading of the right to travel a path?
Possibly. Some places and times have presumed a "common-law right of travel".
It seems to me that the vast majority of property-owners in the vast majority of cases would simply not desire to deny the occasional traveler the right of way. The legal/ethical question remains, but as a practical matter, I don't see a problem. Property rights only come into question when there is a disagreement. If the parties concerned are all fine with the existing arrangement, of who can and cannot travel through what property, no one cares which rights the parties do or don't have.
Following the logic, you can let strangers use your easements. Is this correct?
Yes, but by the very same principle you can also offer the owner to buy you out, which would probably be what happened most times. Also you swiss cheese comparison is wrong. This really means there is iron protection of property.
Marko:Also you swiss cheese comparison is wrong. This really means there is iron protection of property.
That's an interesting statement to make. Could you please elaborate on it?
Marko, I like your analysis.
Autolykos, he appears to imply that sticking to "whole" property is in fact not sticking to property at all - because the easements are real property rights. So we don't have holes in property, we actually have real, correct, and fair property with these snaking easements.
I really like the way you put it.
As long as there no untransferable rights, I think that property rights can be ‘unbundled’ as you describe. But I myself would find it preposterous if property rights would be unbundled in such a way as to make their transfer impossible.
For example, if we uphold the ‘general’ right of way in a property, i.e. not held by any specific person (or group) but by ‘the community’, than this easement cannot be bought back. This would cripple the market. I always insist that every property right should be transferable at any time, under any circumstances.
Including self-ownership?
The thing with self-ownership, at least as I see it, is not that it is inherently un-transferable, but that by agreeing to transfer it you agree not to transfer it! As long as you act*agreement to transfer ownership in your body is acting) you reassert your ownership in your body anew, and you cannot conceivably stop acting, hence you cannot conceivably stop owning your body.
Yet, once you detach some part of your body, say your liver, it is still yours but you no longer reassert your ownership every second: once it’s out, you can freely trade it. This is, at least, how I see the matter.