When Is a Land Title Criminal?
Land monopoly, wrote Murray Rothbard, is far more widespread in the modern world than most people — especially most Americans — believe. Largely escaping feudalism itself, it is difficult for Americans to take the entire problem seriously. This is particularly true of American laissez-faire economists, who tend to confine their recommendations for the backward countries to preachments about the virtues of the free market. But these preachments naturally fall on deaf ears, because "free market" for American conservatives obviously does not encompass an end to feudalism and land monopoly and the transfer of title to these lands, without compensation, to the peasantry. And yet a truly free market can only be established by ending unjust feudal claims to property. This ignoring of the land problem means that Americans and citizens of undeveloped countries talk in two different languages and that neither can begin to understand the other's position. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (28)
Stranger
Rothbard is really off target here. First of all it is important to know the difference between land and capital goods. A farm is a capital good. Illiterate peasants do not have a claim on a complex farming operation, they just work there.
Secondly it is not true that America escaped feudalism, according to Rothbard's definition of feudalism as land ownership. Every American who owns real estate of any kind pays property taxes to a municipal or county government. That is to say, the landlords never went anywhere. Private landlords were substituted with democratically administered (aka communist) landlords.
Published: March 9, 2007 10:41 AM
Dan Coleman
Stranger, keep your criticism in context. First, to be fair to Rothbard, he is using a definition of "land" that he established earlier in the book ( http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/six.asp#_ftn3 ), which doesn't contradict the distinction of land / capital that you have drawn as contra-Rotbhard.
Secondly, Rothbard only notes that America "largely" escaped fuedalism. Now, it is true that we pay quite a bit in taxes and suffer greatly due to inflation, which makes Rothbard's claim seem odd. But one must remember the relative levels of prosperity of the feudal serf and the average American worker. Many serfs, after taxes and tribute, could not even afford to feed themselves, and thus worked further into debt every year. A typical American worker, on the contrary, will with any level of thrift and prudence achieve a good deal of wealth in their lifetime.
As Rothbard notes, it can be difficult for modern Americans to appreciate fully the struggles of serfs. Your criticism, I suspect, is a good example of this.
Published: March 9, 2007 11:08 AM
Stranger
The fact that serfs lived in dire poverty was the outcome of their being tied to the land of their master, thus in effect being property. That is what Rothbard claims to be the incomplete definition of feudalism, which he then extends to the land ownership itself.
Since Americans pay rents to county and city governments, they are serfs by Rothbard's definition of feudalism. Americans however are free to move around and seek the best life. They can move from high-rent, exploitative landlords to lower-rent, less exploitative landlords. That is the source of their greater prosperity.
Rothbard's extension of exploitation to land ownership is dangerous. Any form of capital redistribution is going to be destructive, especially productive agricultural operations with significant capitalization. We saw the outcome in Zimbambwe.
Published: March 9, 2007 11:20 AM
Daniel M. Ryan
From the article:
I thought of the Chicagoite obsession with "free riders" when I read this snippet...
Published: March 9, 2007 1:51 PM
Som
The sad thing is that this is the first time I've heard this insightful explanation of the real struggle in third world countries. I think us libertarians could reach out much further and internationally by explaining and emphasizing the natural justice of owning and acquiring property.
Yet I have one quarrel with Rothbard's theory of just acquisition. If I build a fence around a peice of previously unowned land, but do nothing a part of the land inside that enclosed area, does that mean that part of the land "untamed" in my fence area can be "acquired" by someone else who labors on it? I don't think so, so I don't think just "mixing one's labor" is the only prerequisite to acquiring property. Immanuel Kant also addressed criticism of the lockean labor theory of property. He addressed a sort of "in transition" provisional acquisition as well to new property owners, outside of simply "mixing their own labor". I don't have time here to discuss it's implications, but addressing both theories can lead to a more complete and just theory of homesteading and acquisition.
Published: March 9, 2007 2:57 PM
Daniel M. Ryan
It makes little difference. Just imagine the amount of labor, as well as materials, that it takes to build a fence circumscribing a whole piece of property. With respect to money, putting a fence around a smallish-sized city lot (say, 40 feet by 105 feet), except for the driveway opening, would be a four-figure job - >$1000 total cost. A lot of that size is a little less than 1/10th of an acre.
Published: March 9, 2007 3:13 PM
Sasha Radeta
Re: Stranger
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At least this Rothbrad’s text cannot cause any reasonable objection among any real libertarians. There can be no transition from feudalism into capitalism without a common law appropriation of land.
If a country (like Austria-Hungary) decides to legalize feudal possessions – you will basically get oligopsony (only few powerful buyers) in the agricultural labor market. Peasants without any land title would be free to move among few masters, but their conditions of living would not improve significantly compared to feudal system (people in Bosnia experienced this after Austria-Hungary took power over that country from Ottomans… and this caused a great revolt that culminated in the rise of Serbian nationalism, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the World War I.
Such pseudo-feudalism cannot be compatible with free-markets – since it denies basic rights of property acquisition, through labor-mixing with unclaimed land, as well as the adverse possession. Instead of these proper ways of acquiring land, the state would allow the successors of barons to keep vast possessions that were acquired through politics and violence, and the state would seal normal common-law processes.
There is no similarity between these pseudo-feudal societies of few powerful buyers of agricultural labor and the United States of America – and Rothbard clearly pointed that out.
Published: March 9, 2007 4:42 PM
James Tetzlaff
Land: I live in the state of Nevada, in the Pahrump Valley. When you talk of ownership of land you have no idea of what exists here. The federal government "owns" 85% of the entire state. The Pahrump Valley is about 700 sq. miles of pure "high desert", the most unproductive land in America.
Despite what the constitution says we have to deal with two counties, two states and the federal government.
What nature defined by natural boundaries of mountains defining the Pahrump Valley has been chopped up into Nevada, California, Clark County and Nye County. NOBODY lives anywhere within the Pahrump Valley except the town of Pahrump, 36,000 in the county of Nye.
Getting ownership of all the rest of the Pahrump Valley is a bureaucratic nightmare. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) controls most of it.
One is prohibited from squatting and investing labor and capital on the vacant land. When the BLM does release land for sale, it is appraised as if the labor and capital has already been invested. Near Las Vegas, land is over $1,000,000 per acre.(empty,vacant)
All this theory is nice to contemplate but far from the reality of the real world.
Published: March 9, 2007 4:57 PM
TGGP
I side with Chicagoites on this kind of thing. Rothbard is interested in justice or natural law or whatnot. Everyone is living on land stolen from some other people who got killed or driven off, going all the way back to caveman days. "Land reform" usually means disaster, with Zimbabwe being the latest example. It wouldn't be so bad if we could be sure it was a one time thing, but people with the inclination and power to do it once cannot be expected not do continue doing so, as no one is ever fully satisfied.
It doesn't matter whether or not you are a descendant of the victim of theft, only if you ARE that victim and the perpetrator is still around. If I steal a bunch of land from the Hatfield family, kick them out or murder them because we can't live peaceably together after that and then hire the McCoy's to tend the area, the McCoy's aren't victims of theft. They never had the land and they recognized me as the owner when they went to work for me.
Medieval serfs had to give a lower proportion of the product of their labor to their masters than American taxpayers do today. I think it is a positive development that land is much less important now then it was back then.
Here is an interesting post at Catallarchy about land and against Georgists/geo-libertarians.
I wonder when Kevin Carson will show up? I think he is very wrong about a lot of things but has much more interesting things to say than most.
Published: March 9, 2007 4:57 PM
Person
A few remarks:
1)Rothbard has drawn a lot of criticism for this part at the end: As it was, the victorious North made the same mistake — though "mistake" is far too charitable a word for an act that preserved the essence of an unjust and oppressive social system — as had Czar Alexander when he freed the Russian serfs in 1861: the bodies of the oppressed were freed, but the property which they had worked and eminently deserved to own, remained in the hands of their former oppressors. With the economic power thus remaining in their hands, the former lords soon found themselves virtual masters once more of what were now free tenants or farm laborers. The serfs and the slaves had tasted freedom, but had been cruelly deprived of its fruits.
While the slaves had certainly been deprived of *property*, this passage seems to suggest that anyone not owning land is a "slave of others" and "isn't experiencing the fruits of liberty". Furthermore, the argument would apply to *any* situation where one part of the population owns most of the wealth -- they have "economic power" over others.
That contradicts basically everything else he's written.
2) This piece doesn't explain the critical point: how, specifically did Latin American property titles arise, and how did this fundamentally change the nature of property rights in Latin America, as differentiated from the US and Canada? It lists cases of natives being run off their property, but that happened in the US too.
3) I've noticed a major difference between "left-wing" and "right-wing" libertarians can be summed up like this:
left: It is absolutely vital that past injustices be corrected before any property right can be validated.
right: The benefits of a libertarian order are such that any residual property injustice will look pretty trivial in comparison.
Published: March 9, 2007 5:28 PM
Sasha Radeta
Person,
1)
Rothbard did not say that "anyone not owning land is a slave of others."
He said that people who were freed in czarist Russia tasted freedom - but they could not enjoy their fruits. Although they were the proper owners of the land they worked on - the empire denied them this right.
There is no contradiction with anything else Rothbard has written. You're just misinterpreting him.
2)
Hispanic America was colonized by feudal powers: kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. The circumstances of North American colonization were different.
3)
What you described as "left libertarianism" has nothing to do with what Rothbard wrote in this piece. Rothbard basically said that a country cannot move from feudal system into free-enterprise by abolishing common-law property acquisition and trying to translate feudal (anti-property) possessions into unjust property titles. That has nothing to do with “ancestral injustices,” restitutions and that nonsense.
Regards.
Published: March 9, 2007 5:51 PM
Sasha Radeta
2) Cont.
Whereas in British America a federal system with a constrained role for the British colonial administration guaranteed credible commitments to property rights and promoted the evolution of free markets, in Spanish America a corporatist structure evolved where the supreme authority of the Spanish
crown was based on a complex exchange of privileges in turn for services and support of the Church, the army and the land owning elites. In the latter region political stability was undermined when the authority of the Spanish Crown fell away and elites started to compete for privileges rather than for production factors in a free market. Since no single group in society was strong enough to gain control, establish credible commitments to property rights and thereby maintain support for a long period, the political vacuum remained in place for most of the 19th century. The consequent state of political disorder posed a severe burden to post-independence economic development. From the institutional conception of Latin American retardation land inequality was the result of policies imposed by the Spanish Crown
to establish and maintain control over its overseas empire, rather than a specific Latin endowment structure. Land grants to the Spanish and Creole elite provided the Spanish crown with the means to buy political support and balance the political and economic power of different interest groups.
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North, D.C., Summerhill, W. and Weingast, B.R. (2000) Order, Disorder and Economic Change: Latin America versus North America, in: Bueno de Mesquita, B. and Root, H.L. (eds.) Governing for Prosperity, Yale University Press: New Haven, London
Published: March 9, 2007 6:03 PM
Sasha Radeta
Unjust state-ran privatizations always hurt the cause of capitalism and its supporters.
During 1990s, Russia repeated its mistake from 1860s, when Russian economy fell into hands of few red “directors” or the modern-day barons, who were the economic elite during the communist oppression. Luckily, Russia’s economic base is strong and fertile for new entrepreneurship, while at the same time memories of Gulag are too fresh - and country did not fall back into communist hands after initial disappointment and misery during Yeltsin era. However, in many Eastern-European countries socialist demagogues found even more fertile ground, feeding-off great inequalities and injustices that were paradoxically created by the state - not by free enterprise.
Just like Austrian school did not quietly allow fascists to call themselves “capitalists” - it also needs to clearly separate itself from red barons and neo-feudalists who preach their version of “libertarianism” to hungry masses, producing anger and new Castros and Chavezs.
Published: March 9, 2007 6:32 PM
Nick Bradley
The problem with land property rights is that there is no a priori way to determine at what point (1) a piece of land is officially "homesteaded" or when (2) a piece of land has been abandoned. How much must one "mix his labor", in the Lockean sense, to remove unowned land from the commons? Will a fence suffice? Or, how long must a property be abandoned for before it can be re-homesteaded by another?
Any answer is completely arbitrary. Our best course of action should be to focus on preventing blatant land appropriation, i.e. land seizures, etc.
Although it is also arbitrary, perhaps only those who were directly robbed of their property or a heir/executor of their estate who personally knew the owner could sue to get the land back. This would apply well to Slavery reparations: Only former slaves or the children of former slaves would be eligible to receive reparations.
When it is impossible to achieve total, ethical justice, we should take a utilitarian approach that would maximize justice. Here is an example:
500 years ago, a European family was expropriated of their land. Today, that land is owned by the heirs of the thieves. Redistribution of the land to the heirs of the original victim would be UNJUST because it is merely causing present victimization. It is a lose-lose scenario.
While I am not a Georgist, a tax on undeveloped land would be the least exploitative method to raise taxes. A land value tax will not curtail productivity, as the land is already produced. It is not a Georgist "Single Tax", which would tax 100% of the value of land if it were undeveloped; Rothbard eloquently demolished that idea long ago (http://mises.org/rothbard/georgism.pdf).
Perhaps through a system of Ward Republicanism, through decentralized direct democracy, can a somewhat legit tax be levied. If all members of a community unanimously agree to a single land price and a single tax rate, perhaps through an undisclosed bidding system, the tax will be non-exploitative.
I've been working on this idea recently and will post an article on it shortly at my blog, Confessions of a Right-Wing Libertarian.
http://crwl.blogpsot.com
Published: March 9, 2007 6:37 PM
Sasha Radeta
Any arbitration regarding common law homesteading - is better than quasi-feudal "order".
Published: March 9, 2007 6:49 PM
Sasha Radeta
Nick: "When it is impossible to achieve total, ethical justice, we should take a utilitarian approach that would maximize justice."
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If only justice was measurable so it could be maximized and expressed in "utils"... Give us a break.
Plus, 500 year old land appropriation does not represent any "present victimization" to far descendants of expropriated Medieval guy. There is something called statute of limitation that would prevent anyone from reclaiming the land based on a 500 year old claim.
Published: March 9, 2007 7:01 PM
Sasha Radeta
Rothbard did not talk about "present victimization" based on something that was done over 500 years ago. He spoke about present day and tenant-peasants who rightfully establish adverse possesion - but the state refuses to recognize it and uses force against these rightful owners on behalf of barons.
It is wonderful that another Rothbard's text was just posted, right after I mentioned U.S.S.R.'s privatization:
http://mises.org/daily/2415
Published: March 9, 2007 7:14 PM
Mark Brabson
Nick Bradley and others:
I think you could deal with the issue of appropriation of previously unowned "common" land via the common law. For example, suppose I appropriated 100 acres and mixed my labor with 75 of those acres, and further suppose I continued that over a couple of growing seasons. Suppose you noticed the undeveloped land and mixed your labor with the remaining 25 acres. Those 25 acres would rightfully be yours, my claims to such land being nullified by my failure to work the land. The common law would determine the time you would have to wait before you could move in and common law judges would arbitrate disputes. Same thing would apply if I abandoned some of that acreage and, after time, you appropriated the abandoned acreage. The land would rightfully be yours. The common law and common law judges would arbitrate the fine points.
Published: March 9, 2007 7:38 PM
averros
Sasha --
and country did not fall back into communist hands
I guess you are not aware of the fact that Puting is a KGB man, and most of political elite in modern-day Russia are former Party and KGB (now "FSB") bosses.
Soviet Communism was replaced with Democracy, but the same plutocrats are still running the place.
Published: March 9, 2007 8:36 PM
Sasha Radeta
averros,
And the offspring of same plutocrats that created FED are running the USA...
By the way, you guessed wrong. I am aware of Putin's past, but the country is moving in a completely different direction (unfortunately for G.W. Bush and neocons).
Published: March 10, 2007 3:52 AM
John Delano
"The problem with land property rights is that there is no a priori way to determine at what point (1) a piece of land is officially "homesteaded" or when (2) a piece of land has been abandoned. How much must one "mix his labor", in the Lockean sense, to remove unowned land from the commons? Will a fence suffice? Or, how long must a property be abandoned for before it can be re-homesteaded by another?
Any answer is completely arbitrary. Our best course of action should be to focus on preventing blatant land appropriation, i.e. land seizures, etc. " - Nick Bradley
True
Another thing to consider if "mixing one's labor" is required to claim title is: would it be best, when trying to homestead a large tract of land for long term future use, to just do something to the land as quick as possible to prevent a claim by someone else? Suppose I had a timber company and wanted to claim timber lands. Would it be best for me to set fire to all the forest that I cannot cut before another claims a portion of it? Or if you don't like setting fire to it, suppose It is just clear-cut as quick as possible, regardless of whether or not I could actually collect the fallen timber. Some would just sit and rot. Cutting can be done very quick. Collecting and milling can take a lot longer. After doing this to the land, mixing labor with it, I could then plant new seedlings which I would somehow have a just claim to, right? This seems like a great destruction of wealth by a tragedy of the commons, as many are trying to grab the land. It seems as though some type of agreeable definition of property lines could be established among homesteaders.
That is all to assume that only land that has some type of human alteration to it can be owned. Is there no way of owning a 500 year old pre-settlement tree, but I can only own the ones that I have planted? And does undeveloped land have no value? It isn't only the state that has set aside land to remain in its natural condition. There are tourist / recreational businesses that have existed for many decades in parts of the US that operate on letting people onto their property that is in its natural condition.
One example that is more reality than hypothetical (as my above examples are) is where a family (in northwest Indiana) purchased some farm land in the 1990s and began returning it to tall grass prairie. (These prairies were covered mostly by grasses and other herbaceous prairie plants along with a few fire tolerant trees such as bur oak and hickory, as fires were natural occurrences there.) They obviously value the tall grass prairie over cornfields. Prairies such as these were once much more common in the Midwest. With more efficient farming methods, not as much land is needed for farming as it once was. What I would like someone to answer is: what if someone 150 years or so ago took possession of the land because he liked it in its current condition? Suppose he had a house on the edge of the property (like the current owners do) and just left the remaining land in its natural condition, and it was handed down to heirs through the generations ultimately to the current owners? Would the current owners have a just claim to the land in one situation, but not the other? If this is so, why?
There seems to be a flaw in part of the property theory in this Rothbard piece. I also see it in parts of Walter Blocks property theories, but that is for another discussion. So if I am wrong somewhere, explain. I am open to answers on these questions.
I suppose we will always argue over what really defines property.
Published: March 10, 2007 5:49 AM
Sasha Radeta
John Delano,
In common law, real property (immovable property) is the combination of interests in land and improvements thereto and personal property is interest in movable property.
Setting a fire or destroying large areas of wood are not improvements that would demonstrate that someone care for that land and that it is occupied. So your timber example is irrelevant.
You ask: "Is there no way of owning a 500 year old pre-settlement tree, but I can only own the ones that I have planted?"
Who said that? If you care for 500 year old tree, or harvest its fruits, or if you care about land around it, you will have your property title. That was another unfair objection on your part.
You also asked: "And does undeveloped land have no value? It isn't only the state that has set aside land to remain in its natural condition.
Where did you get that idea? The fact that someone occupies undeveloped land shows that it has value. Now, if the owner wants his land to remain "undeveloped" he still must demonstrate some care for it, fence it, defend it, perhaps hunt there, and demonstrate his wish to prevent anyone's homesteading or adverse possession. On the other hand, feudalists not only allow people to homestead some area they claim - they live off of that.
Published: March 10, 2007 9:35 AM
Sasha Radeta
Anyway, there must be an objective link between a particular person and a scarce resource before that person can claim it as his property. Otherwise, I could simply "claim" my ownership over some lands in Australia, without ever setting my foot there. If you organize the private tourist/recreational use of your fenced land (plus you organize cleaning after these tourists) you can say that you established this objective link by putting your resource into use before anyone else did.
Hoppe on impossibility of disputing homesteading:
http://www.hanshoppe.com/publications/econ-ethics-10.pdf
Published: March 10, 2007 10:45 AM
Nick Bradley
John, Sasha, et al:
I would like to point all of you to "Land Policy and the Open Community: The Anarchist Case for Land-Leasing versus Subdivision", by Spencer H. MacCallum at the Libertarian Nation Foundation (http://libertariannation.org/a/n029m1.html).
Published: March 10, 2007 8:59 PM
Sasha Radeta
Nick,
That paper starts with a false and non-proven premise that private property rights lead to state coercion against those rights. On the other hand, there is no evidence that motivation of those who established states to plunder from others - would not have the same incentive in a system of leasehold policy.
I don't have anything against voluntary home-owners associations, just like I have nothing against non-aggressive anarcho-communism of voluntary participants (not comparing these two). But if someone advocates the negation of homesteading (which stems directly from self-ownership) in favor of their imaginary "perfect solution," then we are dealing with dangerous totalitarians.
Published: March 10, 2007 10:10 PM
Nick Bradley
"But if someone advocates the negation of homesteading (which stems directly from self-ownership) in favor of their imaginary "perfect solution," then we are dealing with dangerous totalitarians."
Agreed.
Published: March 11, 2007 10:27 AM
averros
That paper starts with a false and non-proven premise that private property rights lead to state coercion against those rights.
The definition of state is territorial monopoly on legitimate violence.
Maintaining this monopoly requires violent coercion against private parties. The very fact that there never was a state in the history which allowed individual landowners to secede (i.e. to refuse the protection services of the state) is sufficient to show that your statement is false.
Published: March 12, 2007 8:41 PM
Sasha Radeta
Averros,
How do you show that my statement is false - when you actually confirmed it?!?
Published: March 12, 2007 9:44 PM