Murray Rothbard responds to a question about water ownership. “We now have a libertarian benchmark to apply to the difficult problem of water ownership. 
Where there is no scarcity but unlimited abundance for purposes of human use, there should be no ownership; hence, there is no need or call for anyone’s owning any part of the shipping routes on the high seas. Fisheries, on the other hand, pose a different problem. Private individuals and firms should definitely be able to own parts of the sea for fishing purposes. The present communism in the sea has led, inevitably, to progressive extermination of the fisheries.” FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/6746/who-owns-water/
Who Owns Water?
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An old gem!
A fun fact: “[T]he stimulating and challenging article on ‘[The] Ownership and Control of Water‘ in the November issue of Ideas On Liberty†(no. 3, 1955: 82–87), by a certain de Tocqueville, was, according to the Rothbard bibliography, written by Rothbard himself!
The earth, its fruits, the waters and everything else bestowed on us by God have long been considered the common gift from God to mankind. I think it unnecessarily restricts the argument to ask whether these things should more properly belong to (a) the State or (b) to individuals?
More properly defined, should ownership of necessities for the existence of all men be commonly held BY all men? Or should ownership be restricted to the few, as opposed to the many?
In the matter of land, we know that private ownership is often a stimulant to the best and highest use of the land. One tends a field best who owns that field. But there are other cases, where a common ownership becomes corrupted, and a malevolent State owns lands like an undeveloped tropical rainforest. Is it necessarily the best for that state to sell the land for pennies to a corporation so it can be clearcut and put into crops for a cheaply bought profit?
I think this to be a question without a simple answer. The “ownership” of such land by an autocratic gang, nominally in control of a state, should not invariably outvotr an irreplaceable resource that might rather be considered a part of mankind’s common heritage.
And so with water. By the act of proivatising water one gives assent to the right of sale to the highest bidder. A factory or chemical plant holds the right to monopolize its use, at the expense of many thousands of small subsistence farmers who will likely not be able to find employment at that factory. Thus private ownership can become a means of land clearance, where the rights of poor individuals are ignored in the calculation of profit.
In Rothbard’s terms, the new purchaser of water rights previously unowned is certainly not the “first user”. He is merely the first to outbid collective ownership at no cost to anyone in favor of sole ownership by the highest bidder. And I think this to be an unhealthy basis on which to found a society.
The alternative would be to agree in principle that the first entity able to utilize all fresh water, everywhere, has therefore the right to deny that use to everyone else. And to keep it for his own purposes.
I have another small quibble with this statement:
“…the water must be the appropriator’s absolute property, not at the sufferance of the State.”
Please explain how ownership of anything is possible in the absence of the State’s sanction. Does the State not give its permission for anything to be held, or sold? What sort of deed would one have other than the one granted through the State’s system of laws?
To me, the principle to be held is a complex one: what is the higher good to be achieved by granting ownership to an individual, group or corporation, rather than to all citizens of a nation, or even held in trust for all mankind? Is there nothing on this planet that should be considered the common heritage of mankind?
I think a case can be made for water, the fount of life, as being that substance. Reject that premise and some day you could be fined or imprisoned with the sanction of the State for drinking someone else’s water without the proper payment.
Does this mean that a potential buyer of land with river access should consider the potentiality of losing this water (for example, in the event that some entity upstream constructs a dam) when determining the price at which they are willing to purchase? Now, one could envision either a rise or loss in market value of this drained acreage too (maybe it becomes easier to build on, or indeed, strickened by drought). Caveat Emptor! A potential buyer would be guaranteed this uncertain reality of the market instead of being given the false “guarantee” of the government’s resource “protection”. Property rights provide a more stable equilibrium…
Michael, you wrote:
“I think a case can be made for water, the fount of life, as being that substance. Reject that premise and some day you could be fined or imprisoned with the sanction of the State for drinking someone else’s water without the proper payment.”
This is exactly what happens today in my country and I presume in most of the world.
If you do not pay the water bill, first they cut your supply, then they prosecute you in court which in extreme cases could mean inprisonment.
The catch is that here in Uruguay, because an ammendement of the constitution in 2004, all water except rainfall (while it is falling) is property of the state and nobody but they can sell, provide, export, etc.
Obviously the state/government is NOT complying with the constitution because as today there continue to be several companies that sell mineral water as before. Also, they did not expropiate all the wells, reservoirs, or similar that exists.
This is what happens when the state takes control of a resourse, for the benefit of the citizenship and humankind. If you consider the quality and price of the service provided, the state does look even worse.
Follows a transcription of the Uruguayan Constitution:
ArtÃculo 47.- …
…
El agua es un recurso natural esencial para la vida.
El acceso al agua potable y el acceso al saneamiento, constituyen derechos humanos fundamentales.
…
2) Las aguas superficiales, asà como las subterráneas, con excepción de las pluviales, integradas en el ciclo hidrológico, constituyen un recurso unitario, subordinado al interés general, que forma parte del dominio público estatal, como dominio público hidráulico.
3) El servicio público de saneamiento y el servicio público de abastecimiento de agua para el consumo humano serán prestados exclusiva y directamente por personas jurÃdicas estatales.
4) La ley, por los tres quintos de votos del total de componentes de cada Cámara, podrá autorizar el suministro de agua, a otro paÃs, cuando éste se encuentre desabastecido y por motivos de solidaridad.
michael,
I think you bring up good points. A property law system heavily-skewed towards the elite exists in Latin America, with disastrous results.
On the necessity of a state to institute some sort of property system, that is a main reason why I have not made the leap into anarchocapitalism.
Simply put, there is no self-evident property system. For example, how much labor needs to be mixed with the land to homestead it? And, what kind of labor? If I torch a forest, did I sufficiently mix my labor with it? Or, at what point is a property considered abandoned? Better yet, how far into the atmosphere do my property rights extend? A wedge from the center of the earth to the Exoposphere?
This dilemma was correctly pointed out by Kevin Carson in “Studies in Mutualist Political Economy”. Carson believes that there are three, equally valid theories on property rights — Lockean, Georgist, and Mutualist.
“In contradistinction to Lockeans, Georgists and mutualists agree in seeing the land, in some sense, as a common patrimony which cannot be permanently alienated from the commons in fee simple. Both differ from the Lockeans on the extent to which appropriation by admixture of labor permanently removes land from this common patrimony. Both groups view the common rights of mankind to the land as inalienable, and the individual’s possessory or usufructory right to be in some sense a stewardship on behalf of the general human community. The Georgists, however, attribute to the community a more active role in exercising its ultimate property rights over the commons than do the mutualists, and treat the community as joint owners of the commons in a more active sense. The mutualists, on the other hand, tend to see unoccupied land simply as an unowned commons over which mankind’s ultimate ownership rights are latent, and which the individual is free to use as he sees fit without accounting to any proxy for collective rights; but the latent common right of the rest of mankind prohibits the individual from claiming more land than he can personally use at the expense of the common interest, and requires that his possessory title revert to the commons when he ceases to occupy and use the land. In regard to the theoretical status of land, therefore, mutualists and individualists have more in common with each other than with the Lockeans.
None of these alternative sets of rules for property allocation is self-evidently right. No ownership claim can be deduced logically from the principle of self-ownership alone, without the “‘overlay’ of a property system,” or a system of “allocation rules.” No such system, whether Lockean, Georgist, or Mutualist, can be proved correct. Any proof requires a common set of allocation rules, and a particular set of allocation rules for property can only be established by social consensus, not by deduction from the axiom of self-ownership.”
– Some form of state may be needed for land rights.
Nick, I agree that the theoretical boundaries of homesteading are not very well-defined. Clearly there’s something wrong with allowing mere claims to grant title to property, but “mixing labor” is vague to the point of uselessness in many cases.
However, most of this is irrelevent when it comes to the practicalities of property ownership. If I deny your claim, without providing any rational and universal way in which your claim differs from my own, then I necessarily invalidate my own claims as well. For this reason most people can be expected to acknowledge the claims of others so long as those claims do not place them at a serious disadvantage — by claiming all land as the other’s private property, for example. In this way homesteading can be said to be self-regulating; it represents a form of economic and social consensus which, like the common law, does not depend on the existance of a State.
Incidently, this is what is meant by calling property rights, including homesteading, “natural laws”: they are self-enforcing. Unlike the physical laws one can choose to ignore them, but failing to follow them always brings about its own punishment, namely a lack of respect for one’s own property claims.
Good point Jesse.
Respecting others’ property rights enforces your own property rights. The opposite is true too; a lack of respect for private property in a society decreases everybody’s property rights in that society.
For Eduardo in Uruguay:
The situation you describe sounds like an indictment of the government in your country. If they arrogate to themselves the right to own all the water except that which is falling as rain, they have the responsibility to see that it is distributed equitably, reasonably and with an eye toward the most productive possible use. I assume from the tone of your comment that this is not always the case.
Likewise with the private ownership of water: it is unlikely that a private owner will provide his water to anyone without his making a profit on the transaction, above and beyond the cost of provision. Further, it is legally not his concern if the water fails to go to the highest use. For example it makes good business sense to sell to an industrial user who can bid a high price, rather than to subsistence farmers trying to support their families.
To me, the principle at stake is that the government should ideally be the embodiment of all the people. That is, it should strive to represent the interests of everyone, without favoritism. No stakeholder should have his needs unmet because poverty does not allow him to successfully bid on the price of such a basic necessity for survival as water.
There is certainly a place in this system for entrepreneurs, out to get rich. And that place lies in the provision of nonessential goods, or in goods whose market is too large and diffuse to be captured. It does not, IMO, lie in his ability to corner the very stuff of life.
Or should ownership be restricted to the few, as opposed to the many?
DO not make the mistake of assuming that private ownership means that a few will own everything. The Law of Marginal utility establishes that people will own a few things at a time, that which they find most valuable, and trade those things that hold less value to them (but more to others). This is called the MARKET PROCESS, and it is how things get distributed in a more equitable manner. Instead, the State tends to distribute things regardless of its true cost, and according to political expediency.
Trade and private ownership are the best tools for more equitable distribution.
Is there nothing on this planet that should be considered the common heritage of mankind?
Do you know what Tragedy of the Commons stands for?
That which is owned by everyone is the responsibility of not one. Meaning: give it to everyone and it will go to waste. Give it to one and he or she will trade it for other things. Which is better?
Why should anything be considered “common heritage”? Almost everything in nature is unowned resources up for grabs via homesteading. Common heritage notions stem from some belief in God and other such fancies.
To me, the principle at stake is that the government should ideally be the embodiment of all the people
As Spongebob Squarepants puts it, “Good luck with that!”
As for your other comments about private water ownership, people like John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton all got rich, by finding ways to lower their prices and increase their customer base. Why would entrepreneurs of water not follow suit, especially if their goal is to get rich?
Who own da Chiefs? Ownz, Ownz.
How were any dirt paths ever formed? Commonz are as much a free market establishment as new analogies or language itself. Who knew lemonaid stands did better at the side of dirt road rest stops than mountain summits. Why would anyone sweep their own floor? The *marketplace* is far from a “tragic” commonz. Many a war has been started over trade route access. Exactly how do you buy a public beach? Why would anyone open a “open to the public” business, such as a private water resortz? Maybe things like airplanes flying in the sky above your property are “commonly” understood, regardless of the “present communism” of breathing air.
But breathing is not action per se, unless someone claims you can’t.
That’s right. *Where* does trade occur? Somewhere between here and there for this for that. Nobel Prize #17 (or whatever
): trade by definition a priori presupposes a common space, a common line, a common point. If someone says something, does nobody hear it? If a tree falls in the forest, does it not make a sound?
That’s why you can’t just arbitrarily decide to construct something which would block out the sun. Imagine the absurdity if everyone along a river decided to construct a damn one mile apart. I do believe if there’s such a thing as free rider “positive externalities” there must also be negative externalities, which are commonly experienced, commonly accepted, commonly dealt with. There’s always a commonly understood (if not disputed) arbitrary definition or arbitrary delineation regarding what’s ownable and what’s not ownable. Good luck trying to enforce an interconnected ring of “private property” satellites revolving around the earth such that nobody can leave the atmosphere without violating private property rights. Commonz are absolutely necessary for civility.
What’s interesting is how private property respect has evolved within common areas. Right of ways. Fault. Traffic lights. I guess they call it the “common law”, allegedly because it’s universally applicable and universally accessible. Law a priori assumes a commonz, else every court would be an island of enforcement in dispute with every other square inch.
So where’s the epistemological definition, the display of knowledge (wait a sec, what Austrians call “praxeology”)? If you water down the definition of public commonz you necessarily water down the definition of private property. Whether homesteaded, whether abandoned, whether public parks or whether envirowhacko sanctuaries, restriction and lack of restriction is tightly defined and commonly understood by present action. ‘Tis why nobody has inherited a continent. To box someone in is an act of war, violence, even if a corporation where to sell a suburban subdivision and then subsequently deny you access to roads. Every piece of private property must necessarily be connected to a commonz. That’s N.P. #19. Damn, I’m good. But of course derived from my de facto superior understanding of trade.
Which of course means commonz can be and are more subjectively valued than a private property ownership of the same area. N.P. #20, by definition of trade, trade means the opportunity to trade is commonly accepted as more valuable than that private ownership which is de facto given away from (the mere possibility of) being boxed in precluded from trade. Haha, I just scribbled longitude + longitude lines of common access all over the libertarian conception of property. By far, the biggest libertarian philosophical advance of the 21st century. Jist like that.
rtr states…”trade means the opportunity to trade is commonly accepted as more valuable than that private ownership….
i guess it takes a nobel mind to understand you, but if you are denouncing the libertarian conception of property…how can you ‘trade’ at all?
because if you ‘trade’ or ‘take’ something…this would indicate property, i.e. ownership – in libertarian world and others i suppose.
so i guess you when you say to ‘trade’, you really mean to ‘use’ something.
until someone stops you from ‘using’ it???
Frankly, this is less coherent for you than normal, rtr. Sure, some place is needed for exchanges to take place, but there’s no particular reason such places have to be commons. Think of a mall or flea market. The building and parking lot are privately owned, but provide access to the public to individual retailers or sellers who are leasing space in the building. And why would anyone privately own a road, if not so people could travel on it? Thus, the fear of being “boxed in” by private property is largely unfounded.
Some HAVE argued that commons could arise in a libertarian society, but I don’t think he pointed out how a popular and valued commons could avoid the tragedy of the commons. Rights of way are something a little bit different from commons proper.
Common law is just law founded upon custom and precedent, instead of by legislation. Thus, it’s not a “commons” except perhaps in a rather broad and abstract sense.
Mr. Rothbard’s comment in this article: “Why should a riparian owner have a claim to a flow of water?” is confusing to me with regard to his other writings which defend a property owners rights’ for instance, from the pollution generated by neighbors that negatively affects his property. Surely the purchase of property with a river through it is in large measure valued precisely for the effect the water in the river gives this property? The deleterious effect the removal of water from above stream by the construction of a dam or removal for agriculture would clearly be a violation of the property right of the owner in question as it would assuredly diminish the quality and value of his property.
Is this an issue that Rothbard or other libertarian theorists have developed more thoroughly elsewhere? I would like to see how the specific point I note above would have been answered or examined if any links or references to other works would help illuminate this for me as his outright rejection of the riparian claim seems lacking here.
“Some HAVE argued that commons could arise in a libertarian society, but I don’t think he pointed out how a popular and valued commons could avoid the tragedy of the commons. Rights of way are something a little bit different from commons proper.”
I tried to make sense of this rtr guy myself. At any rate, “commons” could arise on a free market in the form of cooperatively owned property (e.g. cooperative firms), but even then, the property is still privately owned, just by many owners. The commons as they currently stand are seen as “everyone’s property” and there is absolutely no accountability for their use. By contrast, the owners of a cooperative would have every incentive to guard their property’s value. This is the difference between “commons” as they currently stand and “commons” in a free market. Of course, any resources that are not valued and thus not goods will remain commons, but this is of no concern.
rtr You make absolutely no sense at all. Please elaborate clearly.
Which of course means commonz can be and are more subjectively valued than a private property ownership of the same area.
How do you make this leap of logic? How do you know that it is subjectively valued more? People’s subjective values cannot be compared.
michael: do not all of your arguments for Communist water apply to food as well? Is not food the stuff of life? What about shelter? And clothing? If the stuff of life is Communized, we will have shortages and mis-allocations of the stuff of life. Surely in order to be intellectually consistent you must think it should be illegal to sell bottled water, or any other form of water, and it must all be allocated by the perfect state.
Heck, in order to be completely consistent, you must believe in total state, or no state. You must believe completely in individual property rites, or no property rites.
Importing corn is one the most easiest ways to transport water. Surely importing corn would be banned also, under your system. Also it’s easy to point out the state is not perfect, nor will every be, as long as humans are involved at any level. So your system fails. God is your only true state. Since God granted us free will, and states are contrary to free will, the only true state is no state.
Heh heh heh. This reminds of the Libertarian whinge that the ‘love it or leave it’ argument means choosing between one State and another. Yet if the whole world was partitioned into private lots then average schmoes have to choose between one private property owner and another private property owner. It is also interesting how a river/stream owner could have the right to the actual water in the river/stream, I’d have guess the water is too transient to own and that owner merely owns the land. Hence if someone upstream dams/redirects the river/stream I’d guess it’d be a matter of tough luck. Anyone wanting own bodies of water should stick to lakes and bores.
I am not an anarcho capitalist, however it is a fact that trade can (indeed often has) exist without a government. Written contracts often did not exist, and people operated on the basis of “my word is my bond” (rather than relying on government courts), for a man who lost his reputation found that no one would trade with him in future.
As for land registration – for all the efforts of William the Bastard (and other tyrants) we still do not formally have that in England. For example, land law in Kent was unwritten till the 1920′s and land is still understood to be owned by the people who own it (even if they do not have a bit of paper about it – I understand this may be difficult for those trained in the Roman – Latin American tradition to understand). “But William still stole the land and handed it out to his friends – so landowners do not own the land now” well even if it was the case that familes who now own the land now were the same familes that came over with William (they are not – there is the little matter of land buying and selling over a thousand years)then they would still be rightful owners now (however bad the Norman lords were in 1066) – more on this later.
There was an effort for the Crown to take land of “doubtfull title” back in the 18th century – but it was defeated (and without a shot being fired). In legal theory (since William the Bastard) land is not privatly owned it is (at best) “free hold” from the Crown, but de facto William’s son Henry back tracked on that as early as 1100 (he wanted to get support to be King – as he was the youngest son his title was contested by his elder brother [the one who did not die in the "hunting accident"], so “support me, I support your liberties” was a smart move). In practice “free hold” means privately owned (at least in did till evil modern times).
As for government police, one does not have to look to old areas like the American West – even in England police were not compulsory till the 1850′s (even in London protection against crime was largely in private hands before the 1820′s, if a man was attacked other people would come to his aid, and if they did not he had to look to himself – compare the French gentleman’s sword of the 18th century to what an Englishman carried, the English sword is designed to kill people, and not just in a fancy duel, firearms were in common private ownership till the First World War).
There seems to be an assumption that if there is not a big government poor people will try and take the goods of rich people, the assumption is often false. I know of no case in the last few centuries when poor people have risen up in violence in England to try and take the land or other property of rich people (elite educated politicians do that, not revolts). This does not mean that people were not violent (they could often be very violent indeed) but “he has got more land or money that me” was not a cause for their violence.
People do not own things because the government lets them “by its system of laws” as michael seems to think. People own things because they do (“that is not an argument, you might as well say that rape and murder are wrong because they are wrong” – that is exactly what I do say, I do not to “justify” the fact that robbing, raping and murdering are wrong). Nor does it much matter that someone’s forefathers got the land in bad ways.
For example, in “Letter to a Noble Lord” Edmund Burke reminded the Duke of Bedford that his forefathers got their land by being pals of Henry VIII (land the King stole from religious orders). Edmund Burke also thought that the present Duke of Bedford was both stupid and imoral (he was imoral because he supported the regime in Revolutionary France, and he was stupid because if such people ever took over England they would rob and murder their friends like the Duke of Bedford).
However, this did NOT mean that the land of the Duke of Bedford was not his, yes his forefathers got the land in bad ways, and yes he personally was both stupid and disloyal to his country – but it was still his land. Burke’s point was that he would do his best to defend the property (and life) of the Duke of Bedford, even though the Duke’s anncestors were the dishonest pals of a criminal King and the Duke himself was …… (nor was Burke being ironic – he did not like the Duke or his family but he really was trying to defend his life and property, just as much as the life and property of everyone else, it was much like a letter today to one of these billionare American “liberals” who support people like Chevez without understanding what such people would do to them if they had a chance, basically “although you are a moron I will still defend you and yours”)
Ditto it does not matter whether the forefathers of landowners in (say) Columbia got their land by cheating Indian communes in the 1850′s – it is still there land and if you want some of it you should pay the price they set. Sorry but “your great, great grandfather did not get this land justly, so I may rob you” does not hack it.
As for water: If a man finds a water source in arid area it makes good sense to claim it.
If another person then comes along with a hurd of cattle and says “give me this stuff of life” (i.e. refuses to pay for water) well then he is asking for charity. And charity is not compulsory (otherwise it would not be charity). There are and have always been people without food and water in the world – so “I am dying so this water is mine” is not a point. If “I am dying” is a matter of right then no one owns anything – because there are large numbers of people starving to death in the world (and always have been). “Need equals right” just leads, in the end, to more (not less) people starving to death.
As for the government allocating water on the basis of need. Well that has led (for example) to the absurd over development in certain areas of the United States – and the populations of these areas will not do well when the water finally goes.
In the end water is a scarce resource, and the best way to really look after it (as with any scarce resourse) is via private property.
“But people will die of thirst if water is private property”, and more people will die of thirst if it is not private property.
To understand this, you must discuss how previously unclaimed property (in your example, river water) becomes property. To build a dam to capture such water for use would be a first claim on the captured water. No property rights have been violated.
On the other hand, if the water is put to use (becomes property) and polluted and then causes damage to others’ property downstream, then property rights have obviously been violated.
rtr: “Who own da Chiefs? Ownz, Ownz.”
Have you been drinking?
Paul Marks – more people will die of thirst if it is not private property?
How on earth did any one live in the days of tribal nomads then? How do animals live either?
If a man finds a water source in arid area it makes good sense to claim it
I would argue as some might (or might not) argue here that the right to own for trading represents the some sort of work that went in to it. In other words, a farmer who works hard to produce food can expect to trade his food for something else. However why should someone just find a waterhole and suddenly ‘own it’? His rights to that waterhole amount his ability to stop other from using that waterhole. That sounds like a good candidate for ‘when property is theft’.
Ditto it does not matter whether the forefathers of landowners in (say) Columbia got their land by cheating Indian communes in the 1850′s – it is still there land and if you want some of it you should pay the price they set. Sorry but “your great, great grandfather did not get this land justly, so I may rob you” does not hack it.
Tough luck. Anyone who think it OK to cheat and steal get what they want shouldn’t complain when they themselves find others trying to cheat and steal from them. Someone who thinks it OK to cheat and steal yet expect politeness in return must be working under some sort of delusion like ‘divine right’.
Kevin Carson wrote in his book:
“The Georgists, however, attribute to the community a more active role in exercising its ultimate property rights over the commons than do the mutualists, and treat the community as joint owners of the commons in a more active sense. The mutualists, on the other hand, tend to see unoccupied land simply as an unowned commons over which mankind’s ultimate ownership rights are latent, and which the individual is free to use as he sees fit without accounting to any proxy for collective rights; but the latent common right of the rest of mankind prohibits the individual from claiming more land than he can personally use at the expense of the common interest, and requires that his possessory title revert to the commons when he ceases to occupy and use the land.”
Kevin is attributing “joint” ownership by the “community” which confuses common ownership as an individual equal right with collective ownership.
This is the same confusion that got Herbert Spencer into trouble with George in his book “A Perplexed Philosopher: being an examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s various utterances on the Land Question, with some incidental reference to his Synthetic Philosophy”
Modern Geo-Libertarians see that if the economic rent that had formerly accrued to landowners was required to be shared equally and directly with thjose being excluded then the economic rent was owned in common as an individual equal right while the land itself was exclusively occupied.
Sorry, I was unavoidably detained. The glass is round. The can is round. Why don’t they call it “round-tine?”
By definition all private property is private from all other private property. By definition, then, property a prioi supposes lines of ownership, longitude + latitude lines of demarcation. Nobody ownz the linez, by definition of the linez.
Michael A. Clem: “Think of a mall or flea market. The building and parking lot are privately owned, but provide access to the public to individual retailers or sellers who are leasing space in the building.”
All trade whatsoever occurs on a mutually agreed commonz, else trade *C*ould never occur. Nobody can ever be in even a privately owned mall accept by an act of trade, whether simply a flux invitation to browse in case you might want to buy something. All exchange occurs *in*, *on*, a commonz area at the moment(Z) of exchange. Sure, sometimes invitations are sent to areas of exchange. But if it wasn’t by definition *more* valuable*, trade wouldn’t occur, now would it?
Michael A. Clem: “And why would anyone privately own a road, if not so people could travel on it?”
So they could compete with the commonz area, to offer an improved path of travel at a lower price. A right of travel does not lock out *other* rights of travel. It ain’t exactly private anymore at the moment it’s not exactly private, now is it? N.P. #21 commonz are a competitive piece of incentive(Z), and there is always a path if you don’t want to take the paved road. (Sorry, I can’t atm elaborate in the common N.P. awardee’s published fashion of “lifetime achievement” body of work. I’m bookmarking the innovative ideas, just like trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. Do you know how it is proved the earth revolves around the sun? Epistemologically.)
Michael A. Clem: “Some HAVE argued that commons could arise in a libertarian society,”
ALL, have argued, that commonz disappear from first occupation homesteading. The world is an absolute given. What’s done with action upon that absolute given is something else. Commonz are a priori to private property. Yes, we only stand where we don’t stand. But movement is not in an equilibrium state of non-movement.
Michael A. Clem: “but I don’t think he pointed out how a popular and valued commons could avoid the tragedy of the commons.”
By definition commonz are valued by the act of trade, at the place of trade. #2, language. Why express yourself in this manner? Communication, the hard core philosophical epistemological mere possibility, a prior pre-supposes a commonz of understanding. Else any sound would violate private property, by definition. (Heh, I’m *that* good, and better. And this one goes to 11.)
Anthony: “At any rate, “commons” could arise on a free market in the form of cooperatively owned property (e.g. cooperative firms), but even then, the property is still privately owned, just by many owners.”
Many own access to air to breath, to the warmth of the sun. You *can’t* construct an artificial sun block. From one, to more than one, owner, is a huge philosophical leap. If two people agree, it is so. Now that means there’s no difference between homesteading an acre out in buck no where suburbia and a public beach. Precedent of action establishes the longitude + latitude lines of commonz between all pieces of private property, just as bodies are by definition bodies. And there are commonz areaz galore.
Anthony: “The commons as they currently stand are seen as “everyone’s property” and there is absolutely no accountability for their use.”
Behold some b.s. pre think tank doctoral submission working paper on paradox. And there is “accountability” in a “corporation”, exactly *how*? You can sweep and pave if you want to, or not, if you don’t want to, just as you can read and talk when ya feel like it. Sweeping, paving, only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. Trade is every action. Every action is trade. (Allow me to jump ahead to Nobel Prize number #99.)
Anthony: “This is the difference between “commons” as they currently stand and “commons” in a free market. Of course, any resources that are not valued and thus not goods will remain commons, but this is of no concern.”
Access to space was not previously valued by action, even though everyone owned that access, and must own that access to enable free trade, to enable civil society, to enable the division of labor.
Which of course means commonz can be and are more subjectively valued than a private property ownership of the same area. But they are delineated by private property, by definition.
Anthony: “How do you make this leap of logic? How do you know that it is subjectively valued more? People’s subjective values cannot be compared.”
Good point. Really, that’s the essence of which makes me the de facto greatest economist ever yet, so far. Trade by definition de facto comparez subjective values in simple greater than less than terms, in absolutely every single instance. Ruling out “equals” is an unheralded assumption in science, epistemologically established, unless you want to declare all knowledge, in so far as it exists, does not absolutely exist, which would necessarily mean you espoused all that you said was gibberish which should be ignored. That’s a massively powerful epistemologically proven tool. It’s the *only* reason trade occurs. Mises touched upon empty set/full set either/or deductive proof. And that is the basis upon which all *knowledge* whatsoever is established. (Nobel Prize #98., yeah, like that ain’t *huge* >.>)
Joseph Huang: “Heck, in order to be completely consistent, you must believe in total state, or no state. You must believe completely in individual property rites, or no property rites.”
The terms theft, rape, and murder only have meaning in one, and not the other. That’s why of those who advocate no tax without representation I ask how about no rape without representation? Or how about consensual voluntary bodily exchange. Either/or.
TLWP: “It is also interesting how a river/stream owner could have the right to the actual water in the river/stream, I’d have guess the water is too transient to own and that owner merely owns the land. Hence if someone upstream dams/redirects the river/stream I’d guess it’d be a matter of tough luck. Anyone wanting own bodies of water should stick to lakes and bores.”
By definition, “The Tragedy of the Private Property”. Which is exactly why commonz intersect all pieces of private property. You can’t block out the sun, you can’t damn the river, in vain.
Commonz are everywhere longitudinally + latitudinally intersecting with private property everywhere, whether it’s a subdivision block acre or weather upon the distinct private property of multiples.
Paul Marks: “I am not an anarcho capitalist, however it is a fact that trade can (indeed often has) exist without a government.”
Hehe, when you realize trade is synonymous with action, that’s funny.
Paul Marks: “Written contracts often did not exist, and people operated on the basis of “my word is my bond” (rather than relying on government courts), for a man who lost his reputation found that no one would trade with him in future.”
Don’t look now, but I hear the word “*accountability*”. Every potential “tragic” action has a reputation component. Bam, some “formula”.
Paul Marks: “There seems to be an assumption that if there is not a big government poor people will try and take the goods of rich people, the assumption is often false.”
Exactly, and libertarian philosophy has not adequately explained the reasons. By definition a poor person stealing a marginal piece of a rich persons property is absolutely no different than a rich person stealing a marginal piece of a poor person’s property. It’s impossible to prove which increases net subjective value more. (Though I might’ve at one time claimed an ABCT proof to the contrary.)
**Anyway**, all the time I have right, now, I’ll finish up later. Good quality responses, maybe I’ll stick to the approach of infrequent replies for a bit. To be continued …
Could someone translate this into something coherent and comprehensible?
Translation: something coherent and comprehensible.
Translation, the greatest economist ever, so far. *Prove* it otherwise. Thank you. /Smooches.
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