::::: : the wood : davidrobins.com

The basis and extent of private property

Political, Law, Economics ·Monday May 23, 2011 @ 00:26 EDT (link)

As promised from the entry on Taxtion = robbery, a discussion on the nature of private property.

From Locke we get the idea of homesteading: mixing labor with property (real and otherwise). From him and others such as Rothbard, Nozick, and Rand (and many more, surely; those are just some luminaries that came to mind)—voluntary trade. Gifts are a subset of voluntary trade: a person elects to give someone something in return for nothing at all; this includes inheritance. These are the only legitimate ways in which property may change owners. Theft, robbery (which, as we saw, includes that robbery the state labls "taxation"), extortion, involuntary trade—all of these are illegitimate ways for property to change hands, and do not change ownership. If A steals from B and then B recaptures his possession, A is all the time the owner and the transfer back is not theft.

What counts as homesteading? If the state vanished overnight, could I fence the present Gila National Forest and claim it as my own? Of course, I couldn't use it all myself, but once I owned it, I could borrow against it to hire people to cut trees, or lease it out, right? Of course, that's a bit of a chicken-and-egg issue; something seems not right: I didn't have the means to harvest the Gila forest before I claimed it, and now I'm using my claim to profit from my claim. So one can reasonably request that homesteading requires pre-existing abilities; but then an existing logging company owner (or just a wealthy person) can claim a lot more forest than a regular individual. How, then, to prevent present moneyed interests from creating a new state?

If everyone was starting off from a state of nature, the question wouldn't arise because one would expect there to be enough property for everyone, or every family, to be able to have enough land to farm and to be able to homestead a share of the continental land mass. Later trade or some people's specialization might change the balance of ownership, but there would initially be little contention. Still: if two people want the same piece of land, how is it arranged? The normal market mechanism is price, but to whom is the price paid? Would one person pay the other to forgo their claim?

A digression into the new laws—even anarchy has laws, you may be surprised to find out; read Rothbard for some groundwork if you're missing it—on property may be in order. Private arbitration will tend toward majority opinion (because those that don't have no customers and no revenue); so to a point we are still hostage to a majority, albeit hopefully one that adheres to the basic non-aggression principle, to the idea of uniformity in law (no respect of persons), and so on. This is sufficient to uphold the above legitimate methods of property transfer, and oppose all others; and things like rules of evidence, penalties, and such will evolve, most likely borrowing from the most just courts of the present day. In particular, the non-aggression principle prevents a court from ruling that someone cannot own something and giving it away because the first person has "too much" property; the owner's own arbitrator will never rule that way, and one hopes that other parties will realize that a corrupt court such as that is in no-one's interests. Of course, worst case a majority of courts will be corrupted, but then we are no worse than under a state: keeping courts from such requires vigilance, and fortunately customers can respond quickly by taking their business away from unjust judges.

Returning to the contested "homestead" land that two people claimed at the same time, price must be a mechanism to determine ownership; so long as each is able to use the land they desire (has the means to build a house, farm it, and so on), one can pay the other for the claim, which only makes sense to do if the is that much more profitable to the person offering more.

Although it may seem unfair that going concerns can claim more land, it seems reasonable on "claim day" to allow for larger claims by those more able, so long as they can use all of the land they currently own plus the new land, at the same time (allowing for letting fields rest, and so on). Leasing land out, for purposes of homestead claims, cannot be allowed to count. This will ensure that the initial distribution of former "public" land goes to where it is most valued, but not punish efficient producers for being efficient.

But won't people claim land just to get paid off to no longer make the claim? Perhaps, but they get the payment in place of claiming other available land, so it makes more sense for individuals to make another arrangement with fellow claimants (if people are claiming a road intending to put in tolls, for example, to divide it up among those interested).

Once all land of interest is claimed as equitably as possible, then homesteading ceases to occur, except when land is abandoned. The definition of "abandoned" will surely be community-defined; but if no owner can be found for a given time, or a court is shown that legitimate attempts to find a known owner or representative have failed, then the land returns to nature and the first claimant that can use it takes ownership. In the main, though, at this point land changes hands by voluntary trade.

Anti-property anarchists may note that this still allows for rental of property; although in the homesteading stage property should be used by the owner, one can trade other goods for land and then rent it out. This is reasonable; to take away such land from the owner is to rob them of whatever goods they gave for it. So might not a concern obtain large amounts of land, and eventually form a state, and rule as such within their legitimately-owned domain? Perhaps. It is hoped that several things—distribution of homesteaded land among many people, for example—will reduce the likelihood of this problem, but it's possible that rent-seeking corporations, small and large, will arise. If they're just acting as landlords, nothing is wrong; if they contract with renters to allow them most of the freedoms of ownership (excepting, for example, sale or major improvements); but when they start demanding, say, a cut of voluntary transactions on their land (sales tax), then what? People will flee, certainly, to better landlords.

I suppose if these things happen to such an extent that no land is free from such restriction, then the great experiment will have failed; but I am not terribly worried about it, due to variety and competition and the difficulty of obtaining control over enough land to be a state. Even if a company creates a "company town" they will be deserted for better employers, or competition will arise at the fringes. Courts may refuse to allow for such "taxation"—can they do so without infringing on liberty themselves? My principle of contracts, which in a rough sketch requires they be specific (contract for a particular purpose, and anything outside that is a new contract) and severable may work; for example, a contract to pay a fixed amount for rent would be fine, but one that set rent to depend on sales made would not since it depends on an unrelated and generally unobservable event that doesn't harm (hence require compensation from) the landlord. However, a landlord could separately charge a fee by number of driving customers, say, if they affected shared parking offered. There are probably ways around this idea of contracts; I'm still developing it. And I certainly understand an objection to limiting contracts, although it would be private arbitration doing the limiting, not a central body—not an excuse, an explanation.

This is intended only to start a discussion. Any further ideas would be greatly appreciated, and books on the topic of property, homesteading, and such.

Books finished: The Law.