What can homesteading mean in a world without frontiers? We argue that examples are all around us. Whenever people are confronted with the need to make sense of government-owned space (public property), they assume a kind of ownership without formal title. At an Auburn football game, for example. To watch a town be transformed in a matter of hours, from unoccupied to completely occupied, and do so in an orderly fashion, without any titles to property being issued, and conflict kept to a minimum, is a thing of enormous beauty, a testament to the capacity of people to organize themselves in the absence of a central planner or formalized rules. FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/4872/homesteading-for-fun-and-survival/
Homesteading for Fun and Survival
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BillG,
I brought up the distressed price scenario because such activity can be used to deny me the fruits of my labor.
For example, I covet a building and location owned and leased by someone else. When the lease on the land comes up for renewal, I outbid the current tenant, and threaten to demolish his building if he doesn’t sell it to me as well. This would seem to be a potential violation of the labor product of this tenant.
I will grant, that if done perfectly, there are no violations of labor product in your system as long as all proceeds from the property tax are returned on an equal basis to the citizens.
Yancey Ward wrote:
“I covet a building and location owned and leased by someone else. When the lease on the land comes up for renewal, I outbid the current tenant, and threaten to demolish his building if he doesn’t sell it to me as well. This would seem to be a potential violation of the labor product of this tenant”
BillG responds:
you buy the building and agree to pay the economic rent in a competitive bid against others…the previous owner has the ability to disassemble or move the building prior to the sale.
Yancey Ward wrote:
“there are no violations of labor product in your system as long as all proceeds from the property tax are returned on an equal basis to the citizens”
BillG responds:
you are one honest man Mr. Ward to make a statement like that on the Mises blog!
Bill G,
Let’s give this one more shot, but from a different angle.
You state above, “the land starts out owned in common.”
First question: What land?
You MUST either be talking about ALL land on Earth, or a particular parcel of land. There are no other options.
Second question: Owned in common by whom?
You MUST either be talking about ALL people on the Earth, or a particular group of people. There are no other options.
So …
If you are talking about ALL land and ALL people on Earth, the only way to implement your plan would be to establish a World Government.
If you are talking about a particular group of people and a particular plot of land, then you are violating your stated principles! This MUST be the case, because if the economic rent is not shared worldwide, then there must exist a group which is not allowed to share in the economic rent of that land. And when one group excludes another group from sharing in the economic rent, this group is doing the EXACT same thing that you objected to above. They are harming every member of the excluded group, because EVERY MEMBER OF THE EXCLUDED GROUP IS DENIED A SHARE OF THE ECONOMIC RENT OF THAT LAND!!!
And how did the land come to be owned in common? When the first humans wandered out of Africa, did they already have a claim on ownership (in common with those who stayed, of course), on all the land in America? Australia? Pitcairn Island? Even though nobody even knew of the existence of those places? If so, how come? If not, how did such a claim arise later? It stands to reason that if nobody knew of those places, then nobody could possibly be hurt in any way whatsoever by someone else discovering and using and “enclosing” those places, even if no such ownership “right” for the people still in Africa (etc.) was ever conjured up in the future.
Fred Mann wrote:
“You MUST either be talking about ALL land on Earth, or a particular parcel of land. There are no other options.”
BillG responds:
actually everything in the material universe that precedes human labor…
Fred Mann wrote:
“You MUST either be talking about ALL people on the Earth, or a particular group of people. There are no other options.”
BillG responds:
yes – all people on the earth
Fred Mann wrote:
“If you are talking about ALL land and ALL people on Earth, the only way to implement your plan would be to establish a World Government.”
BillG responds:
the enclosure of a particular location creates a legal and monetary obligation on those you are excluding who are interested in locating nearby.
if I put a new addition on my house I directly impact my neighbors land values and maybe only slightly impact other community members across town.
but across the world in Australia?
Peter wrote:
“how did the land come to be owned in common? When the first humans wandered out of Africa, did they already have a claim on ownership (in common with those who stayed, of course), on all the land in America?”
BillG responds:
property rights are based on labor as the natural extension of self-ownership.
whomever produced the lands in question are the rightful owners.
otherwise we all have an inalienable, INDIVIDUAL equal access opportunity right so long as our access/use does not infringe upon anyone else’s equal claim.
Peter wrote:
“It stands to reason that if nobody knew of those places, then nobody could possibly be hurt in any way whatsoever by someone else discovering and using and “enclosing” those places”
BillG responds:
correct – up to the sustainable yield of occupancy (Locke’s proviso – enough and as good left in common for others) because beyond the enclosure creates a legal and monetary obligation on those being excluded which can only be satisfied by violating their absolute right to the fruits of their labor and hence self-ownership.
BillG,
Let’s say I live just outside the boundaries of Government A. The citizens of Government A share the economic rent among themselves, but not with me, even though I may be just a mile, or a few feet outside their border. Therefore Government A harms me by excluding me from sharing in the economic rent.
Fred Mann wrote:
“Therefore Government A harms me by excluding me from sharing in the economic rent.”
BillG responds:
yes, but you are sharing in the economic rent of Governemnt B who is not sharing with those over the border of Government A.
if you think it is such a good deal to be in Government A’s area then simply sell and move.
all political boundaries are arbitrary – being a bio-regionalist myself I would much prefer that they be drawn according to physical atributes of the natural landscpe like watersheds…
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